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GB doesn't have cheerleaders either. Maybe that is the key.
Yes they do. Okay, technically they are from UW-Green Bay but they wear Packers gear and cheer on the sidelines.Let's be honest...the team that plays on the frozen tundra probably shouldn't have cheerleaders anyway.
I wouldn't get my prostitutes from anyone else.It's hard to disagree with those who say that the Steelers are the best NFL Franchise ever. Amazing fan base, ownership with a tradition of leadership in the NFL, excellent coaching and a history of employing high character players.
The 5 Lombardis don't hurt either, nor the fact that they have 3 losing seasons in the past 15 years. They're as consistently competitive as any team in the league.My only question is whether BGP will roll in with some contrived statistics or facts to disprove this, or whether he's just going to simmer at the title and avoid the thread entirely.It's hard to disagree with those who say that the Steelers are the best NFL Franchise ever. Amazing fan base, ownership with a tradition of leadership in the NFL, excellent coaching and a history of employing high character players.
It's based on a vote by internet users and there is no established criteria. Pure garbage.
it may be flawed, the outcome is still correct.
Here is to that!
Selective stats at their best. So you choose to lend weight to an era that most voters didn't see because they weren't yet conceived, but ignore their Super Bowl win of 16 months ago?OK, so maybe they sucked from 1933-1971. From 1972 (your benchmark) to now, the Steelers are #1 in regular season wins (330-208-2 .613), They've made the playoffs 21 times in 35 years, with 13 AFC Championship game appearances, 6 Super Bowl appearances and 5 world titles. They also only had a losing record 7 times in that span. You have to realize that for many, a franchise is measured by its success/failure in the Super Bowl era, not before. You're talking about a team that for 35 years has been damn near as likely to go to the Super Bowl as they are to be sub-.500. Almost twice as many seasons have resulted in a trip to the AFCC than have resulted in 7 wins or less. And even in those 7 losing seasons, it's not as if they've been downright awful. Their combined record in their 7 losing seasons is 44-68 (3 7-9 seasons, 3 6-10 seasons, and 1 5-11 season.) On the contrary, they've won 10 games or more 17 times, and remember, this is going back well into the era of 14-game seasons.For the last 35 years, the Steelers have been the most consistent winner in the league, has claimed the Lombardi 5 times, has been a model of loyalty and class, and has the most widespread and loyal fan base in the NFL. That's easily going to outweigh the rough times they had in the 40s and 50s.
Seriously, what is there not to like about the Steelers, unless you're a disgruntled Browns fan (BGP)? Small market, with a huge fan base... The people of Pitt live for Steeler football, and they have a history of winning.That's what makes me a huge Packer fan, and I see a lot of similarities between the two franchises and fan bases.Evilgrin 72 said:
Packer fan here. Their history and tradition is as proud as any and their fan base as rabid and certainly as widespread as any. The smallest market team yet they are always near the top in merchandise sales and in out of state bars postering themselves as being bars devoted to the franchise. That said I think definitive rankings are stupid. Many fan bases are rabid, many loyal, and some franchises nearly as storied and with greater recent success. It diminishes my enjoyment of my team not in the least when other fans of great franchises crow a little about them. I certainly recognize that the Steelers have accomplishments to be very proud of.My memories extend further than some around here so I do not draw the historical line at the Superbowl era. I remember the great Packer teams of the 60's and how they dominated that decade even in the face of competion from some legendary players and franchises. In the Superbowl era i acknowledge all the other multiple winning franchises.
Wow - that's about asEvilgrin 72 said:
as it gets.
The Packers are certainly in the top 2. :tipofthecap:1) Do the Steeler fans own their team? Packer fans do.2) What franchise has the most titles overall? The Packers do with 9 World Championships in addition to 3 Super Bowls titles.3) Who is the championship trophy named after? All-time Packer head coaching legend Vince Lombardi.The Green Bay Packers are the best NFL franchise.
I can't really argue with that. If I were ranking the top 4, I'd say Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Dallas (hate 'em) and San Fran. Of course, I'd put my Steelers slightly ahead of the Pack.1) Do the Steeler fans own their team? Packer fans do.
(I tried to think of a #5, but no other team is in the same category with those 4. Bears maybe? Nah, not enough recent [post-merger] success.)
It's funny... if you move the window back 5 years, you're talking about the Denver Broncos. Denver has the most wins from 1977-2006, and the most superbowl appearances from 1977-2006. You said that "You're talking about a team that for 35 years has been damn near as likely to go to the Super Bowl as they are to be sub-.500"... well, Denver isn't damn near as likely, Denver literally has been more likely to go to the SB than to finish below .500. So, since those are the criteria you use to select the best franchise, and since Denver beats Pittsburgh at its own game, and since Denver doesn't have 35 years of futility preceding, then I suppose we both agree that Denver's the greatest franchise of all time.Evilgrin 72 said:
Hey, you made the rules, all I did was move the window back 5 years. Edit: For clarification, I don't think Denver is the greatest franchise of all time, I just don't think Pittsburgh is, either. You can't set these convenient little windows of time and only count from there, or else Patriots fans would start time at 2001, and Broncos fans would start time at 1977, and Pittsburgh fans would start time at 1972. "Best ever" means just that- the best EVER. You can't erase Pittsburgh's years of futility just because they're past them. I'd probably look at two criteria when determining the best franchise ever- franchise winning%, and number of championships. Whichever team had the best combination of the two would get my vote.
I didn't arbitrarily choose 1972. The post I was replying to talked about the 1933-1971 Steelers, so I put up the stats from 1972-present. I'd definitely put the Broncos in the top 5, and their recent success has been terrific. However, they haven't had the ultimate success the Steelers have, nor do they have as widespread and passionate a fan base, so they'll always lag a little behind the Steelers, or at least until they can win a couple more Super Bowls.Every team is going to have ups and downs. What I'm illustrating here is that this "greatest franchise" debate is being fueled by a poll. The Steelers' powerful fanbase, combined with their continued success during the lifetime of most voters is likely to push them to the top. No one should be surprised by this. If you're going to start looking at the early days of the NFL, you're going to start seeing the Browns showing success, but they've been a laughingstock for most of the past 40 years. Is their success in the WW2 era going to overcome recency? No.It's funny... if you move the window back 5 years, you're talking about the Denver Broncos. Denver has the most wins from 1977-2006, and the most superbowl appearances from 1977-2006. You said that "You're talking about a team that for 35 years has been damn near as likely to go to the Super Bowl as they are to be sub-.500"... well, Denver isn't damn near as likely, Denver literally has been more likely to go to the SB than to finish below .500. So, since those are the criteria you use to select the best franchise, and since Denver beats Pittsburgh at its own game, and since Denver doesn't have 35 years of futility preceding, then I suppose we both agree that Denver's the greatest franchise of all time.Evilgrin 72 said:Hey, you made the rules, all I did was move the window back 5 years.
Edit: For clarification, I don't think Denver is the greatest franchise of all time, I just don't think Pittsburgh is, either. You can't set these convenient little windows of time and only count from there, or else Patriots fans would start time at 2001, and Broncos fans would start time at 1977, and Pittsburgh fans would start time at 1972. "Best ever" means just that- the best EVER. You can't erase Pittsburgh's years of futility just because they're past them. I'd probably look at two criteria when determining the best franchise ever- franchise winning%, and number of championships. Whichever team had the best combination of the two would get my vote.
So the Packers are producing one championship every 7 years or so. Not bad.
But only one in the last 38.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner. It not quite Yankees or Celtics but it's the best the NFL has to offer.
f'n vikes.
I'm not getting into this again, but Denver never paid any money above the salary cap. The NFL conducted an in-depth investigation and concluded that all of Denver's cap violations only occurred because Bowlen was strapped for cash (the exact language in the NFL's report was "These agreements were plainly designed to help the club cope with seasonal cash flow problems exacerbated by the Broncos' need to fund front-end expenditures associated with development of the new stadium in Denver"). Furthermore, the penalty for these transactions was a pair of lost 3rd round picks. That's a slap on the wrist. Do you really think that a team could maliciously violate the salary cap to gain a competitive advantage, win two superbowls as a result, and only lose two 3rd round pick in the process? If that was the case, then I guarantee that you'd see a hell of a lot more teams violating the salary cap.
That's a great list. I'd probably modify it slightly, adjusting the number of championships based on the number of teams in the league at the time (because winning a championship in a 32 team league is more impressive than winning a championship in a 9-team league. Factor in championship game appearances and AFC/NFC championship appearances, too, and you'd have the list I'd use. I never realized that the Broncos were #2 overall... looking at it, they have much more of an arguement for "greatest franchise in history" than I would have thought. I still don't think they're #1, I'm just saying the arguement is better than I thought it'd be.
I know you didn't arbitrarily choose 1972, and I'm not accusing you of cooking the books, I'm just saying that, however it was chosen, 1972 is an awfully arbitrary date (which, not coincidentally, coincides exactly with the Steelers' run to respectability).I do think the Broncos have had more ultimate success than the Steelers (2 championships in 46 years is as good as 5 championships in 72 years when you consider how small the league was- and therefore how much easier it would have been to win it all- for many of those 72 years). Denver also has as many championship game appearances as Pittsburgh, despite being 26 years younger as a franchise. Combine this with the second best franchise winning% in the NFL, and it looks like a winner to me. The fanbase might not be as "widespread" or as "passionate", but it's easily in the top 5 in both categories (if you look at it demographically, no team is the favorite team of a larger region than the Broncos, and they've sold out every single home game since a couple of years before the first winning season in franchise history- how's that for passion?)... and I seriously doubt that the fanbase is that big of a criteria in terms of the greatest franchises of all time, or else the Redskins would be coming up a lot more frequently.Speaking of Cleveland... if their success in the "WWII era" was so much greater and more sustained than their poor recent history, then yeah, it would overcome that recency. This is the "greatest ever" arguement, not the "greatest recently" arguement. All history has to weigh equally, as far as I'm concerned. You can adjust a bit based on environment (like I said, winning a 9-team league is nothing compared to winning a 32-team league, and should be rewarded less), but wins are wins and losses are losses and championships are championships. Just my opinion on the subject.
You have one of those since the merger?
5 > 2Also, I know the league was smaller way back when, but all 5 of the Steelers' titles have come when the league was 28 teams or more.... let's not make it sound as if Pittsburgh was racking up championships in a 12-team league.
No, I don't. That list had almost NO criteria whatsoever, but one of them that it did have was the word "ever," so narrowing this discussion down to the last 46 years might be a bit unfair to teams that did well previous to that.
I wasnt considering the discussion, just curious to see that list. thanks desp
I don't know who the best team ever is. I think Despyzer's list is a great place to start. And I like SSOG's suggestions for adjustment. I wish I had the time to work it out.I think it's clear that it's not the Steelers. The Cowboys for one beat or equal the Steelers in every relevant category (winning %age, championships (all in the modern era), championship appearances) and done in far less years of existence. Again I don't know if it is the Cowboys but they're at least one team that is ahead of the Steelers.
... is based on national relevance.
The other being the way the game has changed in the last 50-something years. Football in the 30s, 40s, and somewhat the 50s isn't really the same game we see today.
