Cowboys - Most successful team of the SB era

[THUMPER]

I have done a statistical analysis of all the current NFL franchises to determine which is the most successful of all time and which is the most successful of the SuperBowl era (including 2005).

Let me lay the groundwork first:

This analysis was to determine which franchises have been the most successful over the years that they have been in the league and then to determine which has been the most successful in the SB era. It is based on the number of years, winning %, playoff appearances, playoff win %, and championships with different weighting for each.

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For the all-time analysis I started in 1933, the year of the first NFL Championship Game. Prior to that year, the team with the best record was declared the Champion. Also, teams prior to 1933 played different schedules, one team might play 16 games while another might have only played 6. In 1933 the league standardized the schedules so that each team would play the same number of games (although there were a few exceptions).

Team records and titles prior to 1933 are therefore discarded for the purposes of this analysis.

The final rating for the All-Time analysis is not as complex, and therefore not as fair, as it is for the SuperBowl era analysis. The reason for this is the weight given in the SB era to Division Titles, Conference Titles, and SB Appearances which could not be applied evenly or fairly across the years prior to 1966 since there were usually only 2 divisions and the only playoff game was the Championship game.

Here are the Top-10 Most Successful Teams of All-Time with the number of Championships:

1. Packers-10
2. Browns-8
3. Cowboys-5
4. Bears-7
5. Giants-5
6. Steelers-5
7. 49ERs-5
8. Commanders-5
9. Rams-3
10. Raiders-3

Each of these teams has won at least 3 championships and have appeared in the playoffs 20+ seasons. The Cowboys and Giants are tied for the lead with 27 playoff appearances but since the Giants have been around the entire 73-year period (since 1933) and Dallas has only been in the league since 1960 we have a much higher percentage of playoff appearances than NY. The Raiders are the only other team to begin in 1960 or later to make the top-10 although the Dolphins barely missed out at #11.

The Bottom-10:

32. Texans
31. Saints
30. Cardinals
29. Panthers
28. Bengals
27. Jaguars
26. Falcons
25. Seahawks
24. Bucs
23. Ravens

You will notice that all of the bottom-10 teams are among the most recent expansion teams except the Cardinals who are actually the NFL's oldest team. The Falcons, Bengals, and Saints all came in during the late 60s, the Bucs and Seahawks entered in 1976, and the rest from 1995-on.

I might think that my weighting was off but the Dolphins came in at #11 and they joined the same year as the Falcons so that blows that deal. Miami also has the highest winning % of all-time at 59.9%

Of the Bottom-10 teams, only the Jags have a winning record in the regular season while the Texans, Bucs, Cardinals, Saints, Falcons, and Bengals are under 45% so these truly are the bottom of the barrel.

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Now on to the SuperBowl Era:

This analysis begins in 1966, the year of SuperBowl-I and takes into account Regular Season Win %, Playoff Appearances, Playoff Wins, Playoff Win %, Division Titles, Conference Championship Appearances, SB Appearances, and SB Wins all factored into the number of years the team has played in that era.

The Top-10 Most Successful Teams of the SuperBowl Era are:

1. Cowboys
2. Steelers
3. 49ERs
4. Raiders
5. Dolphins
6. Broncos
7. Commanders
8. Packers
9. Vikings
10. Rams

The Dallas Cowboys rank #1 in: Regular Season Wins-367, Winning %-60.5, Playoff Appearances-27, Playoff Wins-32, Playoff Games-53, Division Titles-18, Conference Championship Game Appearances-16, SuperBowl Appearances-8, and tied with the Steelers and 49ERs with 5 SuperBowl Wins. They have far and away been the most successful franchise of the SuperBowl Era

The Raiders are the only other team with a regular season win % of 60+ at 60.2% with the Dolphins coming in very close at 59.9%. All of the teams in the top-10 except the Packers have a win % over 56% with Green Bay coming in at 51.0%.

The only anomaly in the Top-10 was the Vikings with zero SB wins but otherwise they have been a very successful franchise. In fact they are 2nd in number of playoff appearances with 23 but they lead in the number of playoff losses with 23. They are tied for 3rd in Division Titles-16 and have appeared in 4 SBs.

The Bears have won the most games at 549 while the Cardinals have lost the most at 580.

The Bottom-11:

32. Texans
31. Saints
30. Cardinals
29. Lions
28. Falcons
27. Jaguars
26. Seahawks
25. Chargers
24. Bengals
23. Panthers

Once again, only the Jags have a winning % in the regular season. It may not seem fair to have the Texans at all since they are only 4 years old but their 22.9 winning % merits them last place regardless. The Panthers and Jags had both been in the playoffs by that time so the Texans get no slack from me.

The Falcons have lost the most games in the SB Era with 352 losses.

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Let me know if you have a question about a specific team or how the rankings were arrived at.

Comments?

Also, if someone can help me with the HTML I will paste the spreadsheet here so you can see the whole thing.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Great Job of finding and compiling that date.

Thanks for a great read.

 

[Cbz40]

Now thats a good read.....thanks for your time & effort.

 

[THUMPER]

Thanks guys, I would like to be able to post the whole spreadsheet but I'm not sure how to format that so it will come out right. Any hints?

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Thanks guys, I would like to be able to post the whole spreadsheet but I'm not sure how to format that so it will come out right. Any hints?

Trickblue would be the man to ask about that sort of thing.

 

[Manster68]

Hey, when you get a chance, double-check the Division Titles rankings.

I think the Giants passed the Cowboys all-time. In the Super Bowl era, Dallas reigns supreme, but Dallas is behind New York all time though.

 

[cobra]

http://sturminator.blogspot.com/2006/01/greatest.html#comments

Let’s all be honest with each other. Nothing happened in sports last night. Nothing. Therefore, this blog is not incredible this morning without some help from me. So, here it goes. Something that I was going to save for the show, but today, you get an exclusive early look for free.

Years ago, I got an email that sort of looked like this:


Dear Bob,

My friends and I have been debating who is the single greatest NFL franchise since the inception of the Super Bowl. Trouble is, we don’t have any way to calculate it. Could you figure out a way to rate all of the NFL teams in order of accomplishments since the Super Bowl was born?

Thanks,

Sports fan in Dallas



So, I had my assignment. After much deliberation, I decided that I must devise a points system to make sure this is objective. Also, this point system must not be affected by the many changes in the playoff format over the years. It should not deal in Wildcard wins because those were not always available. It should not deal in total regular season wins since the schedules are unbalanced, and the length of the season has evolved several times since the inception of the Super Bowl.

Therefore, I kept it simple. Here is the points system:

10 points = Super Bowl win
5 points = Super Bowl loss
3 points = NFC or AFC championship game loss
1 point = playoff appearance

There. It is hardly perfect, but it is mine. I have kept this for 5 years or so, and despite the fact that there are still points to be rewarded when these final 3 games of the season are played in the next little while, here are the up to the minute stats (January 18, 2006) of the top 10 and bottom 5 franchises since Super Bowl 1.

Bottom 5 NFL Franchises Since Super Bowl 1

32. Houston Texans (hardly fair, I know) = 0 points
31. Arizona/ St Louis Cardinals = 4 points
30. New Orleans Saints = 5 points
29. Jacksonville Jaguars = 9 points
28. Detroit Lions = 11 points

Of course, it should be noted that some of those teams are not very old, while the Lions and Cardinals are two of the oldest franchises in American Sports.

Top 10 NFL Franchises Since Super Bowl 1

10. New England Patriots – Green Bay Packers, 47 points each
9. Minnesota Vikings, 48 points
8. St Louis/ Los Angeles Rams, 49 points
7. Washington Commanders, 52 points
5. Denver Broncos – Miami Dolphins, 55 points each
4. Oakland Raiders, 74 points
3. Pittsburgh Steelers, 78 points
2. San Francisco 49ers, 80 points
1. Dallas Cowboys, 100 points

For those of you who don’t know me, I can assure you that the Cowboys are #1 no matter how you run this formula. I never realized it, and given my body art, I certainly was not campaigning for it, But it is not deniable. The Dallas Cowboys are, by a large margin, the most accomplished NFL franchise since Super Bowl 1. Of course, the most accomplished NFL franchise EVER lives in Wisconsin, but you have to include the leather helmet days to get those figures...

 

[Eddie]

This is nice, but we're not close to sniffing our next Super Bowl. :bang2:

 

[kingwhicker]

Problem is, the Stealers and 49ers won their division title against juggernauts like Cleveland, Houston, Cincy, New Orleans, the Lambs, and the Falcons while we had to fight through the always tough Giants, Skins, and Eagles meaning it was always harder for us to win the division while those turds had cakewalks. So, that really skews things in their favor. Finally, put an asterisk beside 5 for Pittsburgh (actually, put 3 asterisks).

 

[kingwhicker]

This is nice, but we're not close to sniffing our next Super Bowl. :bang2:

Yeah, that was my initial thought too- just a loser's lament- I think that's about all we have left. Honestly, I think I'm at about my lowest point as a fan right now- I know we aren't a bad team, but we aren't anywhere close to winning anything of any significance any time soon.