A Super Crap-up?

Everyone has already talked about the game, so I'm not going to belabor any of that here. Not come really late to the party, but damn that was a lackluster super bowl. After Devin Hester's return it was pretty much a dull game. Even the weather was dull. No one, loves a football game in shitty weather conditions more than me, but should the Super Bowl really be decided by the weather. I know its under no one's control, but shouldn't a game of that magnitude be decided by who is the better team not by who is a better "mudder".

Taking a wider view of this year's game, even the last couple of years, what does it say about the state of the NFL. No one would say that this Colts team is one of the all-time greats. Its not even the best Colts team of the last three years. Last year's Steelers team turned out to be a fraud, that caught all of the lucky breaks last year. Even the Patriots, who have won three out of the last six aren't that impressive of a team. ( not to say that what they accomplished wasn't great, it was maybe more impressive than anything any other team accomplished. But that has more to do with the state of the league than the quality of the team. Lets just say, that the Patriots would have lost 55-10 against the '89 49ers.)

What i'm getting at is, what was the last great Super Bowl team? The Rams in 2000 had a great offense but no Defense. The Broncos teams that won back to back have the best claim, but outside of John Elway's horseface and chain smoking, were they really that memorable or good? Maybe the Green Bay team in '97 which had a really good offense and a really good defense was the last great team. But that was 10 years ago. There hasn't been a GREAT NFL team in the last decade. Go through the eighty seven odd years of the NFL (no the NFL didn't start in 1966) and try to find ten years of football without a really great team.

You can count them down by Decade. Cowboys, 49ers, Steelers, Packers, Browns, Bears. And most of those decades had other great teams to compete with and occasionally beat the really great ones. I don't want to sound like an old man who pines for the "good old days", but where have all the great teams gone.

I understand that this is a product of free agency, and the salary cap. And that all those teams had a huge advantage over today's teams. (It is hard to overestimate how much easier it was to build a championship prior to free agency and the cap.) Don't get me wrong, i think both the cap and free agency are good things, for both the players and the league. But its not always so good for the fans. You have to decide if you like parity or dominance. The idea that your team may have a chance to win every couple of years, or that your team can be great for a while every 30 years. Its really up to the fan.

Maybe its because my team doesn't seem like they ever have a shot, but maybe just maybe i'd rather take dominance over parity.