Greatest Football Team Ever

[wayne1218]

The 1989 49ers were THE best NFL team of all time. The Best QB in his Prime. The best Football Player of all time Jerry Rice in his Youth, The Best Hard Hitting safety and best DB of all time Ronnie Lott, the second best Pass rusher of all time Charles Haley and the best back up QB of all time Steve Young just incase Montana got the Flu of blew a knee. The 49ers that year lost 2 games by a combined 4 points and just Thrashed everyone in the playoffs by a combined score of 126 to 26. Thats 100 points different. Oh by the way the 49ers COVERED every playoff game that year unlike this Cheating New England Team. JMO

All that greatness and they lost not once but twice huh?

[jordanrules23]

you know me....i drink that homeraide...lol

you really think the secondary of Frazier Richardson Duerson and Fencik could stop Moss Welker and Brady?

They'd have to pass 50 times....but i'm worried about that secondary.

Rook, they would have to find ways to stop, Dent, hampton, Mongo, Hertinestien, #50. #55, #58, 1st....and when they sack Brady they would try to mangle him!!!!!!!!!

[wayne1218]

Rook, they would have to find ways to stop, Dent, hampton, Mongo, Hertinestien, #50. #55, #58, 1st....and when they sack Brady they would try to mangle him!!!!!!!!!

N.E. gave up the LEAST amount of sacks as a team since 1975. Try again, they're not getting to Brady!

[jordanrules23]

bump for rook

[jordanrules23]

N.E. gave up the LEAST amount of sacks as a team since 1975. Try again, they're not getting to Brady!

if the GMEN can get to Brady, the Bears D would kill him

[flarendep1]

Since again tonight proved that DEFENSE wins championships, I will say the 1985 Bears and the 2000 Ravens would have stomped the Patriots. The 49er dynasty had teams with very good defenses even though they were manly considered offensive teams. Steelers, great defenses. Defense rules boys - Ravens 2000 team most dominant of all time!


A few stats:


The best defense of all time?

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By Eddie Epstein
ESPN.com


Let me say it up front. I am a Ravens fan. I was born and raised in Baltimore and spent many Sundays at Memorial Stadium watching the Colts play. I was at the complex "that night" in March of 1984. Even though I moved away from Baltimore before the "birth" of the Ravens, I have had Ravens season tickets since the beginning.


Ray Lewis was the leader of Baltimore's punishing defense.



However, when it comes to evaluating the claim as to whether or not the 2000 Ravens have the best defense of all time, I'm going to let the numbers do the talking. And some of the numbers are not going to be too familiar to many of you.

The statistical concept of standard deviation measures how much a team dominated its contemporaries with little or no temporal bias. In the book Baseball Dynasties, we found that the best baseball teams of 1995 are as many standard deviations from the league average in runs scored and runs allowed as the best teams of 1905 or 1955. The same is true in football.


Before the Ravens won the Super Bowl, much was said that their defense could not be considered as being among the best in history unless they won the Super Bowl. So, we looked at Super Bowl winning teams beginning in 1978, when the 16-game schedule was introduced and rules were changed to open up the passing game (in baseball, the rules have remained remarkably consistent. Football has been relatively constant since 1978). And we excluded the strike years of 1982 and '87.

That said, the two defenses that stand out are the 1985 Bears and the 2000 Ravens. Here is a chart comparing those two teams in basic categories and showing their rank among all 602 team seasons from 1978 to 2000:



'85 Bears vs. 00' Ravens

Team Points
Allowed Yards
Allowed Yards Allowed
Per Rush Opponents
Passer Rating
1985 Bears 198, 5th 4135, 17th 3.67, 145th 51.2, 5th
2000 Ravens 165, 1st 3967, 8th 2.69, 1st 62.5, 52nd


The Ravens outrank the Bears in three of these four categories, although in points allowed and yards allowed, the teams are relatively close. Exploring Standard Deviation
Here is a brief explanation of standard deviation and how it applies to football.

Standard deviation is used to measure the dispersion, or difference, in a set of numbers. In other words, it is a measure of how much the numbers differ from each other calculated using the "average" difference of each number from the mean of the group.

Here's an example that might help. Applying this concept to measuring how much a team "dominated" its contemporaries is easy. Let's look at points scored and points allowed for the 2000 Rams. The Rams scored 540 points and allowed 471. The league mean for both (a point scored for one team is a point allowed for the other) was about 330.8. The standard deviation for points scored in 2000 was 82.3, which means540-330.8)/82.3 = 2.54; the Rams were 2.54 standard deviations better than the league average in points scored.

For their points allowed total, we do the math "backwards" because more points allowed is worse. The standard deviation for points allowed in 2000 was 73.5330.8-471)/73.5 = -1.91; the Rams were 1.91 standard deviations worse than the league average in points allowed

The '85 Bears and the '00 Ravens are two of just six teams that allowed fewer than 200 points in a 16-game schedule; the Ravens are one of only eight teams to allow fewer than 4,000 yards. The Bears were better at defending the pass than the Ravens while the Ravens were better against the run.


Here's where standard deviation enters the equation. Standard deviation simply measures the spread in a set of numbers. The more closely a set of numbers is bunched together, the smaller the standard deviation. As pro sports leagues have matured, the standard deviation in performance among players and teams has gotten smaller. That fact means that simply comparing performance to the league average in a given season might be misleading. But using standard deviation allows you to accurately compare teams across seasons.

Look at this first:


Standard Deviations
Std. Dev. from League Avg.
in Points Allowed Std. Dev. from League Avg.
in Yards Allowed
1985 Bears +2.33, 3rd +2.02, 15th
2000 Ravens +2.25, 5th +2.08, 12th



Using standard deviations, these two teams are almost identical. How identical? In the book Baseball Dynasties, we simply added the two standard deviation scores (runs scored and runs allowed) to get a team's total score. If you add the points allowed and yards allowed standard deviation scores to get an overall defense score, this is what you get (overall ranking is listed second):

Overall Defense
Overall
Defense Score, Rank
1985 Bears +4.35, 3rd
2000 Ravens +4.34, 4th
Note: All of these scores are not rounded to two decimal places until the very end.)



It can't get much closer than that. The 1985 Bears and the 2000 Ravens are two of only three teams since 1978 to be at least two standard deviations better than the league mean in both points allowed and yards allowed in the same season. The third team? The 1986 Bears.



Based on all of this, I have to call it a draw between the 1985 Bears and the 2000 Ravens for the title of the best defense.

It's not close as to which team made me happier.

[Three Jack]

Defense wins championships!

[plandbill]

who was not going to get to Brady????? They punched the Pats around like children. Stupidplayas!

[frankb03]

How many teams on this list had to deal with a salary cap and free agency? Everyone underestimates both of those and they shouldn't because back in the day, it was a huge difference with teams keeping players and paying what they want ... unlike today!

IMO it was much harder prior to salary cap and free agency. You had to build by the draft.

[wayne1218]

IMO it was much harder prior to salary cap and free agency. You had to build by the draft.

Well you are the 1st person i've heard say that.

[ironman95]

Yeah, building by the draft really didn't work for the Steelers, Vikings, etc. I know the Vikes didn't win anything, but they were pretty damn good. Steelers, well, the draft worked pretty well for a bunch of guys who weren't college greats. No matter what era you want to talk about, the draft has always been important but free agency has made it easier. Just ask Daniel Snyder when he tried to buy a winner. In the end, you need a good head coach and even better coordinators to win. Look at the last few champions - one common proponent to the titles are great d and o coordinators.

[3ebRocks]

N.E. gave up the LEAST amount of sacks as a team since 1975. Try again, they're not getting to Brady!

They got to Brady tonight, didnt they.

1989 SF team best ever, IMO opinion.
1985 Bears a close second.
1993 Seminoles, 1986 Mets and 1994 Rangers are distant thirds.

[blitz]

1989 SF team best ever, IMO opinion.

I second that 3ebRocks!!!!! Specially after today. Joe over Brady too!

[jordanrules23]

guys the 85 bears are the best team ever.....Balt had a similar Defense but the bears had a better Offense

[wayne1218]

The Bears are definately in the discussion for it and New England is not. To me best ever isn't gauged by record, it is position by position. Even at 19-0 i never said N.E. was best ever. I thought it would have been the best season ever but not best team. I think you give that to a team like the Steelers who had over 10 HOF players on it. That is how "I" determine best ever.