ESPN: Confirm Trade” Giants Coach Set To Welcome Another Outstanding Player That Rate About 234>Million

In less than two weeks, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the San Francisco 49ers will win Super Bowl LVIII. There have been 57 Super Bowls since the NFL champion first took on the AFL champion after the 1966 season, which means we have 57 teams in this exclusive club. One more is coming soon.

Some of these teams were dominant from start to finish. Other teams slipped into the playoffs after a mediocre regular season and then went on a shocking postseason run to a title. We’ve done our best to rank all 57 Super Bowl champions here from worst to best, looking at both the regular season and the playoffs to find the most powerful teams in NFL history.

To rank these teams, I used my proprietary DVOA ratings (explained further here) which look at efficiency on a play-by-play basis adjusted for situation and opponent. For teams prior to the start of DVOA in 1981, I estimated DVOA ratings based on Pro Football Reference’s Simple Rating System plus the average margin of victory during the postseason. There’s also an adjustment for the first four Super Bowl champions to reflect that the NFL was stronger than the AFL before the merger.

Let’s start with a team from the 1970s.

This was the first season after the merger, and the NFC was still far superior to the AFC. According to Pro Football Reference, the Colts had the second-easiest schedule of the 1970 season. Despite that schedule, they outscored opponents by just 6.2 points per game and finished the regular season 14th in PFR’s Simple Rating System. Johnny Unitas, in his final season as the starter, threw more interceptions (18) than touchdown passes (10).

In the playoffs, the Colts shut out the Bengals 17-0 and beat the Raiders 27-17 but then needed a last-minute field goal to beat the NFC champion Dallas Cowboys 16-13 in Super Bowl V.

The 2011 Giants are the only Super Bowl champion in history to get outscored during the regular season, although they did face the third-toughest schedule of the season and thus finished 13th in regular-season DVOA. They lost four straight games in the middle of the season to drop from 6-2 to 6-6, but then finished 3-1 and won a very mediocre NFC East at 9-7.

In the playoffs, the Giants had big wins over the Falcons and Packers and survived the 49ers in overtime. In Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants pulled off a 21-17 win against a Patriots team that had the worst defense to ever play in a Super Bowl.

 

55. 2001 New England Patriots (14-5, 11.9%)

You know the story: The Patriots started 0-2, Drew Bledsoe got hurt, Tom Brady came in, and a legend was born. But the Patriots were far from a great team at the start of the dynasty, finishing just 11th in both offensive and defensive DVOA that season. They ranked 29th in the NFL in schedule strength.

All three of their playoff victories came by just one score, and of course the divisional round win over Oakland required overtime, a lot of snow and a couple of legendary field goals. They beat the Rams 20-17 in Super Bowl XXXVI.

 

54. 1987 Washington (14-4, but really 11-4, 11.9%)

This team had the lowest regular-season DVOA of any Super Bowl champion, in part because I don’t count the three games, all wins, during the players strike. Washington ended the season eighth on offense with a below-average defense and special teams for a total DVOA of just 4.2%. They also escaped their first two playoff games with close victories, beating the Bears by just four points and the Vikings by seven. But they destroyed the Broncos 42-10 in Super Bowl XXII, and that’s why they don’t come in on the bottom of this list.

 

53. 2007 New York Giants (14-6, 13.6%)

While Washington in 1987 had the lowest regular-season DVOA of any Super Bowl champion, the 2007 Giants had the lowest rank, coming in just 15th at 4.5% DVOA. They finished second in the NFC East behind the Cowboys but went on a legendary run through the playoffs. The victories were close, but they all came on the road over teams that were fantastic during the regular season. They beat No. 8 Tampa Bay 24-14, No. 3 Dallas 21-17 and No. 4 Green Bay 23-20. And of course, the pièce de résistance was the 17-14 victory over the previously undefeated No. 1 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

This team was less impressive than you might think, considering it finished the regular season 13-3. As with the Patriots, the first championship team of the 49ers’ dynasty was clearly the weakest. The 49ers were 7-2 in one-score games in the regular season and finished only 10th in DVOA. They were in the top eight for both offense and defense, dragged down by an awful special teams unit.

The 49ers needed two more one-score wins in the postseason: first “The Catch” leading to a 28-27 win over the Cowboys (fifth in DVOA), and then a 26-21 victory over the Bengals (third in DVOA) in Super Bowl XVI.

 

51. 1968 New York Jets (13-3, 14.6%)

Although the Jets won the AFL East, they finished third in both wins and point differential behind the Raiders and Chiefs. Considering the gap between the two leagues at that point, the Jets probably would have been an average NFL team. Their win in the AFL championship required a go-ahead touchdown in the middle of the fourth quarter for a 27-23 victory over Oakland. Then came the 16-7 victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, possibly the biggest upset in NFL history.

 

50. 2012 Baltimore Ravens (14-6, 15.5%)

The Ravens were just 12th in total DVOA during the regular season and ranked lower than that in both offense and defense. They were lifted by a No. 1 special teams unit which is one of the top dozen special teams units in DVOA history. In the first round, they easily put up a 24-9 win over a Colts team that made the playoffs despite ranking just 24th in DVOA.

Then came the “Mile High Miracle,” the 70-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones that tied things up with the Broncos and led to a 38-35 Baltimore victory in double overtime. The Ravens easily dispatched the Patriots in the AFC championship 28-13 and defeated the 49ers 34-31 in Super Bowl XLVII. Other than the Colts, the Ravens had a tough road to a title, as the last three teams they played ranked first (Denver), second (New England) and fourth (San Francisco) in DVOA that season.

49. 1980 Oakland Raiders (15-5, 17.1%)

The Raiders were the first wild-card team to win a Super Bowl title after finishing second in the AFC West and seventh in PFR’s Simple Rating System. They won 11 regular-season games despite finishing seventh in points scored and 10th in points allowed. They walloped the Oilers 27-7 in the wild-card round and then escaped the Browns 14-12 in the “Red Right 88” game, when the Browns went for a touchdown instead of trying for the winning field goal from the Raiders 13 with less than a minute remaining.

After a narrow victory over the rival Chargers in the AFC championship, the Raiders had a surprisingly convincing 27-10 victory over the favored Eagles (the No. 1 team in SRS) in Super Bowl XV.