FAKE RONJAN!!Great title defenses: NFL edition
I love a great title defense -- when a defending champ follows up with another title or at least comes close by putting up a fight at the finish. And it pisses me off when a defending champ goes out meekly or doesn't even make the playoffs -- something that is really common in baseball, fairly common in the NHL, and sadly becoming more common in the NFL.
This is top of mind for me because the NBA playoffs start this weekend and we're in the midst of one of the best NBA title defenses the league has ever seen. Miami has easily the best record in the league at 65-16, they're favorites to reach their 3rd straight NBA Finals and win their 2nd straight title, their best player is a slam dunk to win his 4th MVP in 5 years, and oh yeah, they had the 2nd-longest winning streak in league history at 27 games.
That got me thinking about the best all-time title defenses and whether this is one of them. But given how many repeat champions the NBA has, that's a daunting analysis. Plus Miami hasn't repeated yet, so it's to early to say.
So screw that, I'm going to look at the best title defenses in NFL history instead!
There are 8 repeat Super Bowl champions in NFL history. 8 is nice because you can break them down tournament-style. So that is what I'm going to do.
The Candidates: Repeat Super Bowl Champions
1967 Green Bay Packers
1973 Miami Dolphins
1975 Pittsburgh Steelers
1979 Pittsburgh Steelers
1989 San Francisco 49ers
1993 Dallas Cowboys
1998 Denver Broncos
2004 New England Patriots
Here's a breakdown of these eight teams by several metrics:
SRS is the pro-football-reference.com "Simple Rating System" which estimates total, offense, and defense strength vs. league average in the currency of points by adjusting for schedule strength.
That's pretty good company. So let the tournament begin!
Quarterfinals
1967 Packers vs. 1973 Dolphins:
This is a slam dunk. The Dolphins were the better team by virtually every measure.
Winner: 1973 Dolphins
1975 Steelers vs. 1979 Steelers:
This is a tough one to gauge, especially having seen neither with my own eyes. The 1975 version was much more dominant in the regular season but had the weakest postseason of any of these teams. The 1979 team is the opposite. Tough call.
Winner: 1975 Steelers
1989 49ers vs. 1993 Cowboys:
The 49ers look stronger on paper, particularly with their masterful postseason performance. The strongest argument in favor of the Cowboys is that they only started 0-2 because Emmitt Smith was holding out, and that affects all of their stats. This would be a fun one to watch, especially considering how big the 49ers-Cowboys rivalry was in the early 90s.
Winner: 1989 49ers
1998 Broncos vs. 2004 Patriots:
As a former Broncos fan it is tough to stay neutral here. The 1998 Broncos won their first 13 games as defending champions (by far the most) -- but the 2004 Patriots won their first 6 and both teams finished 14-2. The Broncos were an offensive juggernaut -- the most potent offense by far of all of the teams in this tournament. But the Patriots were much more balanced. In consecutive weeks in the playoffs, they held the league's best offense (Colts) to 3 points and then scored 41 points on the league's best defense (Steelers).
Winner: 2004 Patriots
Semifinals
1973 Dolphins vs. 1975 Steelers:
Same record, similarly dominant defenses. Since these two franchises combined to win 4 straight Super Bowls between 1972 and 1975, it's tough to go wrong. The 1973 Dolphins did beat the Steelers that year, 30-26, so maybe that's the easiest way to break this tie.
Winner: 1973 Dolphins
1989 49ers vs. 2004 Patriots:
These two are close ... very close. Almost identical in points scored and allowed, both led by legendary quarterback-coach combos, and they are respectively the best team of their decade. The main difference to me here is postseason success. The Niners absolutely demolished their opponents, winning each playoff game by at least 27 points.
Winner: 1989 49ers
Final
1973 Dolphins vs. 1989 49ers:
The Dolphins have the better regular season numbers, while the 49ers have the more dominant postseason. It's hard to compare these two because the game had evolved so much between 1973 and 1989. Ultimately, I think the 1989 49ers get it because they defended a title with an even better season than the previous year, while the 1973 Dolphins will never be seen as better than the perfect-season 1972 Dolphins. When we talk about title defenses, the 1989 49ers are the best of the bunch.
Winner: 1989 49ers
Just for fun, I thought I'd look at how each of these two-time defending champions did in the season after that, since no team has ever won three Super Bowls in a row:
1968 Packers: finished 6-7-1, missed playoffs
1974 Dolphins: finished 11-3, lost first playoff game (Divisional Round)
1976 Steelers: finished 10-4, lost second playoff game (Conference Championship)
1980 Steelers: finished 9-7, missed playoffs
1990 49ers: finished 14-2, lost second playoff game (Conference Championship)
1994 Cowboys: finished 12-4, lost second playoff game (Conference Championship)
1999 Broncos: finished 6-10, missed playoffs
2005 Patriots: finished 10-6, lost second playoff game (Divisional Round)
It's close, but I think the 49ers would win again here!
I hope that you found this breakdown as useless as I did!
-rj