New NFL Network Top 10 Greatest Teams

[74_75_78_79_]

Extremely safe to assume that the ’29 Pack, at that point, was thus far the greatest team ever in the NFL’s short history. Being that the league was still quite young though, had plenty more developing and progressing to do, looking at each champ year by year from ’30 onward, when do you think you get to a champ that can be compared to them or even top them? With that staggering body-of-work along with future-HOFers already onboard, I would imagine the ‘search’ going at least beyond the immediate-future.

[7DnBrnc53]

My list:

1. 1975 Steelers
2. 1978 Steelers
3. 1962 Packers
4. 1998 Broncos
5. 1985 Bears
6. 1973 Dolphins
7. 1971 Cowboys
8. 1972 Dolphins
9. 1989 49ers
10. 2013 Seahawks

[Andrew McKillop]

The '29 Packers had a great season but there wasn't a lot of strong competition in the league that year. It was the Packers and Giants at the top. Every other team was simply mediocre or just downright awful. Third-place Frankford lost three games to the Giants by a combined score of 0-75. The Cardinals were a one-man show with Ernie Nevers carrying the team. The Bears had an uncharacteristic down year. There were five "new" teams in the league in some shape or form: Boston, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Orange, Staten Island. Lastly, Dayton was at the end of their line.

The Packers were even upset by the non-league Memphis Tigers in an exhibition game at the end of the season.

[rhickok1109]

The '29 Packers had a great season but there wasn't a lot of strong competition in the league that year. It was the Packers and Giants at the top. Every other team was simply mediocre or just downright awful. Third-place Frankford lost three games to the Giants by a combined score of 0-75. The Cardinals were a one-man show with Ernie Nevers carrying the team. The Bears had an uncharacteristic down year. There were five "new" teams in the league in some shape or form: Boston, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Orange, Staten Island. Lastly, Dayton was at the end of their line.

The Packers were even upset by the non-league Memphis Tigers in an exhibition game at the end of the season.

The Packers didn't play Boston, Buffalo, Orange, or Staten Island. And they played 8 of their 13 games on the road, including a decisive 20-6 win over the Giants in New York.

That exhibition game against Memphis was not taken seriously by the Packers, who celebrated their NFL championship quite exuiberantly on the train to Memphis. Lambeau told the Memphis coach that the officials won the game for Memphis and Johnny Blood agreed.

[TanksAndSpartans]

If you take a higher level view and loosen the definition of team to allow it to span several seasons even though of course its not the exact same team every year, that nucleus of players did pretty will. They also won the '30 and '31 title and missed in '32 despite being the only team with double digit wins.

And with regard to the Tigers, I recall reading a Glenn Presnell interview where he talked about the Tanks defeating the Bears and he mentioned something to the effect of it being a big game to us but they treated it like an exhibition. Of course the Tanks were awesome , my point just being any game where an independent defeated a top NFL team probably has to be looked at carefully.

[Andrew McKillop]

All I'm saying is that I think the Packers' schedule was soft, even with the consecutive road games factored in. They only had two games against teams with winning records. Granted there were only three teams out of 12 with winning records that year.

Lambeau had a lot of reasons for why the Packers lost to Memphis but not taking the game seriously wasn't one of them. The Dec. 16, 1929 copy of the Green Bay Press-Gazette had decent recap from Lambeau's perspective. He called the game the "roughest we've ever played", stated that Lewellen was outkicked, and that by the end of the game the team was exhausted by the unusually warm weather. If they weren't trying why were they so tired at the end of the game?

He mentioned that the officiating was bad and that Memphis brought in some ringers (namely Ken Strong and Doug Wycoff from the Stapletons). An interesting side note is that the game was concluded in the evening under lights. Would this have been the first time that the Packers ever played a game (exhibition or regular) under lights?

[TanksAndSpartans]

I forgot about Ken Strong playing in that game - great point. The last issue of Coffin Corner mentions a book on the Tigers - I'm definitely curious what it says about the Packers game now. But, I'm not going to change my mind that easily. Lambeau was talking to a reporter and I don't think the same guy who didn't want one of his players called a hobo, is going to say "we lost because a lot of our guys were hungover".

Good point about the '29 Bears too. It was Driscoll's last season at 34 years old, Grange unofficially won the rushing title, but didn't get into the end zone that often and they didn't win much. The addition of Nagurski helped turn things around in '30, but the Packers still got them 2 out of 3 times that season.

Back to '29, you can only play the games on your schedule. The Giants had Benny Friedman with 20 touchdowns and 1,677 yards through the air as well as finishing in the top 5 in rushing while leading the Giants to a 13-1-1 record, but the loss was to the Packers. I'm not strong on 70s history, but I think its been said that the undefeated Dolphins played a soft schedule that year too.

[rhickok1109]

I forgot about Ken Strong playing in that game - great point. The last issue of Coffin Corner mentions a book on the Tigers - I'm definitely curious what it says about the Packers game now. But, I'm not going to change my mind that easily. Lambeau was talking to a reporter and I don't think the same guy who didn't want one of his players called a hobo, is going to say "we lost because a lot of our guys were hungover".

Yeah, Lambeau wouldn't have said anything like that

But Johnny Blood and Mike Michalske both said as much to me.

[sheajets]

Would've been the 2017 Patriots but...they didn't win the big one. So I would strike them from the list completely. Also have this feeling that the 2000 Ravens need to be mentioned among the all time greats. Their offense, despite the midseason slide, ranked a bit above average that year. They finished the season on an 11 game winning streak in which their defense allowed and incredible 83 pts in those 11 games. 7.5 pts a game over 11 games. Unreal. That has to count for something

1984 Dolphins were very close to being the 2007 Patriots of the 80's. Lost a tough one to the Chargers in OT where they led by two TD in the 4th. Lost one to the Raiders where they were leading in the 4th as well.

2009 Colts should've been in the conversation as well. They rested their starters in the 2nd half of week 16 (and the Jets benefited from this as they made the playoffs as a result) and went on cruise control. Played the rest of the Jets and Bills game the following week as if it was the fourth week of pre season. They just wanted nothing to do with 16-0. They could've easily had it.


1. 1972 Dolphins
2. 1985 Bears
3. 1984 49ers
4. 1976 Raiders
5. 1989 49ers
6. 1978 Steelers
7. 1992 Redskins
8. 1949 Eagles
9. 1975 Steelers
10. 2004 Patriots