The concept of strength of schedule is that beating a better opponent is more impressive. I started thinking about who has the most impressive championship wins, purely based on how impressive their opponents were.
Any sport, any level. Tennis, college basketball, cricket, whatever.
Note that this doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual champions. It boils down to luck of the draw of beating an impressive opponent. It also “penalizes” frequent winners, because the more you win, the more likely it is that you face opponents who aren’t all-time greats.
I’m thinking the Philadelphia Eagles are at or near the top of the list. First, they beat the Patriots during the Patriots dynasty. In fact, the Patriots won the Superbowl both the year before and the year after the Eagles beat them. Then their second Lombardi trophy over another dynasty, beating the Chiefs who were going for a three-peat. Of course the Eagles also lost three Superbowls, but those weren’t championships (because they lost) and thus do not count.
Getting your only two championships at the expense of the two preeminent dynasties of their eras is some top-tier bragging rights.
Maybe the Cavs, beating the Warriors in the NBA Finals, who would have had a 4-peat if it weren’t for Cleveland. The Warriors were 73-9 that year, too.
The Giants beat the 16-0 Patriots and 13-3 Patriots for both of their Eli Manning Super Bowls, and did so while significantly worse in the regular season (10-6 and 9-7.)
Affirmed had to beat Alydar in all three Triple Crown races.
I’m going to give credit where credit is due, here, @EllisDee , and mention one of your teams: the 2011 New York Giants.
They were only 9-7 in the regular season, and went into the playoffs as the #4 seed. After beating the Falcons in the Wild Card round, they then beat the defending Super Bowl champion Packers (who were 15-1 in the regular season, with Aaron Rodgers winning his first MVP that year) in the Divisional round, beat the 49ers (who had gone 13-3) in the NFC Championship Game, and capped it off by beating the mid-dynasty Patriots in the Super Bowl, for the second time in five years.
Edit: I see that @Velocity mentioned the '11 Giants in their post, as well.
That’s a great one, and I had forgotten (Wikipedia reminded me) that Alydar came successively closer to beating Affirmed in each race – Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby by 1.5 lengths, the Preakness by a neck, and the Belmont Stakes by a head. Both horses were all-time greats.
While I agree that the Eli-era Giants fit the criteria, my thinking was that the other two Giants wins were decidedly less impressive: the Broncos who hadn’t won a Superbowl yet and the Bills who still have never won one.
But it probably does make more sense to separate out the eras, so fair enough. Comparing the modern Giants to the Eagles was what actually inspired this thread. Beating the undefeated Patriots was great, and then following it up four years later was rock solid, but I think I have to give the edge to the Eagles just by virtue of them beating two different dynasties. Seriously, I fucking hate the Eagles, but tip of the hat for that.
Edit: What the Eagles did would be like if a team beat the Montana 49ers in the late '80s and then the Aikman Cowboys in the early '90s.