Dynasty Discussion - SF 49ers vs NE Patriots

[MentalDisabldLst]

So, a little discussion of the Niners' 1981-1998 run of sustained excellence in the GOAT has spurred me to post something that I threw together a month or two ago.  Here's a little side-by-side to chew on:
 

 
MoV is margin of victory - point differential per game.  You want to factor in strength of schedule?  Go look up the SRS numbers on PFR.  The "vs NYG" and "vs Pey[ton]" columns reflect the team's performance against its main rival of the era, which is important to some.  Though you could probably argue that the 49ers' main rival shifted to Dallas starting in 1992.
 
And while we're at it, let's check out the relative frequencies of playoff seeds:
 

 
So there are a couple things that stand out to me:
 

• Belichick and Brady may outlast two "generations" of their comparable numbers at coach and QB for the 49ers.  Brady has 4 seasons to go to outlast Montana+Young; Belichick will pass Walsh+Seifert after 2 more years, and Mariucci's final years of glory 2 years after that, after the 2018 season.
• Seriously, they were 5-for-5 in the super bowl?  Good christ.
• The Niners got a playoff bye in 63% of their dynasty seasons.  The Patriots, 60%.  A dead heat.
• The Niners won at a 72.2% clip, the Patriots 72.9%.  Another dead heat.
• If you judge the true strength of a team by its MoV, the Niners basically never lost a playoff game they "should have" won.  Which is incredible.  The only real exceptions is 1992, where they should have beat Dallas at home in the NFCCG, and 1995 where an inferior GB team lucked into 14 points in the 1Q and then held off a SF rally.  Their 1990 team was slightly worse than the Giants that year; the 1993 team was a statistical tie with Dallas, and the rest of their years they lost, they got beat by a better team (e.g. 1983 Redskins).  The Patriots, obviously, can't say the same.
• Note: I've excluded Bill Walsh's first season running the 49ers in 1979, to make things match up a little more evenly.  They went 2-14 that year and were the 2nd-worst team in the league.  But if we're not counting Belichick's Cleveland run against him here, I think we can ignore that first anomalous year under Walsh.  Both coaches got "their" QBs in place by their first non-grayed-out year and came out of nowhere to win the title.

In other threads, people have noted the significance of the lack of salary cap.  But I actually don't know how big a difference that made for the 49ers, who were a popular team but by no means a top national market with a Yankees-like advantage in revenue.
 
Anyway, the comparison is, to me, stunningly parallel.  Clearly the Niners' run is the only even remotely comparable sustained success to the present-day Pats - not even Lombardi (9 years, then retires) or could keep it going half as long as both these franchises have done.  Tom Landry had an 18-year run, 1966-1983, where he made the playoffs every year but one, where he won 2 SBs and lost 3 more.  And it's hard to compare Paul Brown's 13-year run from 1946-1958, the first 4 years of which were in the AAFC.  Just an entirely different league then.  I think these two dynasties are in a league of their own, and in a few more years, Belichick has a chance to be remembered as the better of the pair.

 

[MalzoneExpress]

• Note: I've excluded Bill Walsh's first season running the 49ers in 1979, to make things match up a little more evenly.  They went 2-14 that year and were the 2nd-worst team in the league.  But if we're not counting Belichick's Cleveland run against him here, I think we can ignore that first anomalous year under Walsh.  Both coaches got "their" QBs in place by their first non-grayed-out year and came out of nowhere to win the title.

 
Great post. The only thing I think should be reconsidered is your decision to exclude Walsh's first year (without Montana), but included BB's first year with NE (Brady didn't play at all). Either include them both or exclude BB's first in NE. Also, SF's dynasty did not have to "suffer" through a year with a Matt Castle-level QB. BB's time in Cleveland is immaterial for a dynasty comparison between SF and NE, but does have to be considered in BB's GOAT credentials..
 
What does the comparison look like if we start with Kraft's first year of ownership for the beginning of NE's dynasty?

 

[ifmanis5]

Reminder: Next year's Super Bowl is at Levi's Stadium. Let's put up another and POTA.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

There are many hard variables to account for in trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the two franchises' periods of historic greatness.  There's no perfect, scientific way to do this.  What I tried to do is make choices that would minimize the (inevitable) noise.
 
In 1980, Montana was a rookie, managed to see the field, but started less than half their games while competing with Steve "historical footnote" DeBerg.  In 2000, Brady was a rookie, saw the field only for a few plays, but also was behind a legitimate NFL star in Bledsoe.  1981 and 2001 were the first years that both of them really had the wheel of the ship, and they both won the title.
 
SF's dynasty suffered through Joe Montana being injured to start the 1991 season, so Steve Young took over and led them to double-digit wins, but fell short of the playoffs in a weird year for the standings (sound familiar?).  The difference, for dynastic purposes, is that Young was a much better QB and successor than Cassel was.  If Cassel had lit everything up, and Brady's comeback from his injury looked dubious, it's possible that Brady gets traded Bledsoe-style to start 2009.  That didn't happen, but I don't put much distance between the two franchises based on that.  San Francisco was better prepared for their inevitable-in-this-league QB injury.  They got more mileage out of it.  New England got an 11-5 season, a draft pick for Cassel, and another 6-and-counting years of greatness out of Tom Brady after he rehabbed.  I think it's a fair comparison on that point.
 
 

What does the comparison look like if we start with Kraft's first year of ownership for the beginning of NE's dynasty?

 
I'm not sure how this comparison would add more signal than noise to the comparison.  1994 to 1999 contained neither key element in the dynasty's success - neither Belichick nor Brady nor any sort of winning tradition.  If you guys disagree with me, though, I suppose I could add it in.  But then you'd want to add in the 49ers' years from 1977, when Eddie DeBartolo bought the team, and perhaps continue until 2000 when he was forced to sell it.  And given that they sucked in all those other years (77-79, 99-00), I'm not sure how that would add to anything.  Unless you're trying to argue that Kraft-without-Belichick was more successful than DeBartolo-without-Walsh - which I suppose is true, but only because Bill Parcells was attracted to downtrodden franchises the way girls with daddy issues are attracted to guys who treat them like shit.

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

Great timing MDL. I was just reading Nate's new article on the same topic: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/patriots-nfl-dynasty-greatest-of-all-time/
 

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

From the GOAT thread:
 
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/upshot/patriots-dynasty-has-a-claim-on-being-the-best.html?ref=football&abt=0002&abg=1

 
Some key quotes:
 

A second team worth considering is the 49ers of the 1980s and 1990s. Like the current Patriots, San Francisco had a run spanning 14 seasons in which it won five championships. They also had no Super Bowl losses. That team had a regular-season record — winning about 75 percent of its games — similar to the one the Patriots have had since 2001. (In fact, the 49ers’ best 14 regular seasons in a row covered a slightly different span, 1984 to 1997, and it’s the only such modern run better than New England’s.)
 
No player, however, played on all five 49ers championship teams. The run also spanned two head coaches, with Bill Walsh winning the first three titles and George Seifert winning the last two.

 
That's a little unfair to the Niners, who still had Walsh in a GM/President type role in the Seifert years.
 
They also argue:
 

The one football team that the Patriots still seem to trail — the one that may still hold the most successful run in N.F.L. history — are the Packers of the 1960s. With Vince Lombardi as coach and Bart Starr as quarterback, they played in six N.F.L. championship games in eight seasons, winning five. They didn’t have to play the A.F.L. champion until the last of those two — they won both — because the Super Bowl hadn’t yet begun, so there is room for debate. But a team can win only the games it plays.

 
I think they're missing the Cowboys, too, who had a similarly impressive run.

 

[coremiller]

The salary cap does matter, because despite not being in a top revenue market DeBartolo spent a ton of money on the team; the Niners in the late 80s often had backups who were getting paid starter-like salaries.
 
OTOH, the 49ers managed to sustain their success while turning over both the starting QB and head coach spots, which adds an extra degree of difficulty.
 
1991 was a strange year.  Young took over for Montana but missed several games with injury and was replaced by Steve Bono (a good QB who ended up starting in KC for a few years, one of those highly paid backups the 49ers kept around).  They lost a game at Atlanta on a hail mary in novmeber that cost them a key tiebreaker, and ended up missing the playoffs at 10-6 despite finishing #2 in DVOA for the season.   
 
You left off another of the 49ers' blown playoff games: they lost as the #1 seed at home to Minnesota in 1987 as an 11 pt favorite.  Walsh benched Montana for Young during the game, which sparked a year-long QB controversy about whether Montana was washed up that lasted until 11 weeks into the 1988 season, when Montana permanently reclaimed the job.  DeBartolo wanted to fire Walsh after the game and had to be talked out of it by the rest of the front office.  Rice got badly outplayed by Vikings WR Anthony Carter (who had a ridiculous game), which sparked questions from the media over whether Rice was really big game material (which seems absurd in retrospect).  The resulting mess and chaos stressed Walsh to his breaking point and was a big factor in his retiring after winning the championship the next season.
 
Since it's a pretty subjective discussion, I'll add the arbitrary consideration that the 49ers should get an edge for having much more dominant playoff runs.  The 84, 89, and 94 teams just walloped their playoff competition.  The 89 team in particular had (along with the 85 Bears) the most dominant playoff performance ever: they won their three playoff games 41-13, 30-3, and 55-10, and all three games were over by halftime (they lead 27-3, 21-3, and 27-3 at the half).  It's really the only knock on Belichick/Brady, they've never had a dominant Super Bowl performance.  
 
They're tied for stomach-punch-that-denies-immortal-historical achievement: while the Pats have losing the perfect season on the helmet catch, the 49ers can match with Roger Craig fumbling away the threepeat against the Giants.  

 

[coremiller]

That's a little unfair to the Niners, who still had Walsh in a GM/President type role in the Seifert years.

 
I don't think this is correct.  When Walsh retired, he was gone entirely.  Walsh did come back as GM in 1999 after the team cratered out, but he wasn't involved at all during Seifert's tenure.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

OK, thanks - guess my memory is faulty.  I thought he had pulled a Parcells.  Appreciate all the context on the Niners.

 

[Section15Box113]

Reminder: Next year's Super Bowl is at Levi's Stadium.

Which is a mere 25 miles from San Mateo.

(Been thinking about this for two weeks.)

 

[wiffleballhero]

Which is a mere 25 miles from San Mateo.

(Been thinking about this for two weeks.)

It is fun to imagine a 19-0 run completed with a Brady to Edelman pass for the local CA touch.

 

[Laser Show]

It is fun to imagine a 19-0 run completed with a Brady to Edelman pass for the local CA touch.

...against the Giants with Eli getting sacked 4 times to end it, followed by Brady and Belichick walking off into the sunset with the double bird salute to everyone. A man can dream right?

 

[Harry Hooper]

The 49ers had the advantage of playing in a 4-team NFC West division in their glory years.

 

[GlenMorangie]

.

 

[Bergs]

The niners were also the 2nd best team in the NFC from 90-93. They lost the '90 NFCCG to the NYG, and the 92 and '93 NFCCG to the eventual champion Cowboys...gotta figure they would've beaten the Bills in those 3 games.
 
So many "what if" scenarios.

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

Both of those runs are simply amazing.
 
Small pet peeve: In all these discussions, people keep talking about the salary cap not existing in the 1980s but at least as big of an issue were the effective limitations on free agency ("plan b" started in 1989, real free agency in 1993).  The two are obviously high related in terms of how they might affect team building but are distinct rules that were both important.  Even without a salary cap, it could be difficult to keep a team together unless you're massively outspending the rest of the league. If the rules make it prohibitively expensive for other teams to sign your free agents, however, its a lot easier to keep a stacked roster (and to spend less money while doing so).  All that said, San Francisco did an amazing job turning over their roster and finding new talent over the course of the 1980s.  Walsh doesn't get enough credit for his drafting and team-building vis-a-vis his Xs and Os.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Thanks for the history lesson, MMS.  But wouldn't the lack of teams poaching talent from each other tend to just reduce the rotation of contenders (i.e. it's the same Redskins, Cowboys, Packers, Niners every year) rather than give one contender a sustainable advantage over other contenders?  It's plausible that it was a major imbalance in favor of the Niners, but isn't it also plausible that it didn't really matter that much?
 
I'd also like to know what the payroll disparities were that we're talking about between the Niners and the rest of the league.

 

[Monbo Jumbo]

Thanks for the history lesson, MMS.  But wouldn't the lack of teams poaching talent from each other tend to just reduce the rotation of contenders (i.e. it's the same Redskins, Cowboys, Packers, Niners every year) rather than give one contender a sustainable advantage over other contenders? 

What was poached from the Niners were coaches. Holmgren was both QB coach and OC, and Shanahan was OC and those two guys won three straight Super Bowls between them in the late 90s.

 

[Monbo Jumbo]

The salary cap does matter, because despite not being in a top revenue market DeBartolo spent a ton of money on the team; the Niners in the late 80s often had backups who were getting paid starter-like salaries.
  

Yep.

Renaldo Nehemiah is a good example. No one knew if he could even play the game, coming over from track and field where he was a world class hurdler. He was a very expensive decoy to draw coverage away from primary receivers.