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.)
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.
All time greats Feder, Nadal and Djokovic all won ludicrous numbers of Grand Slams while having to get past at least one and possibly two of all time greats Federer, Nadal and Djokovic - and Murray, who didn’t win many but was a serious opponent in a lot of finals.
I’m nominating the 1997 Arizona Wildcats, who won the NCAA basketball tournament that year, They were a #4 seed; in their six victories they defeated a #13 seed, a #12 seed, a #10 seed…and THREE #1 seeds, including top-ranked Kansas.
To be clear, that was NOT for the gold medal, that was vs Finland.
(I wonder how the team would have been received if they lost to Finland)
I’m not sure how much of an underdog they were in the Finland game.
Really? I understand that the 2011 Giants had a mediocre season, but they literally beat the Patriots in the regular season that year, at Gillette, so I find it hard to call it superlatively impressive (it was impressive, but not “most impressive”). Everyone except apparently bettors knew it would be a close game.
ETA people forget that in their undefeated season they were almost toppled in the last week by, of all teams, the Giants (they also should have lost to the Ravens, thank you Harbaugh). But that one was more impressive to me, either way.
The Patriots win over the Rams in 2002 had worse Vegas odds and was (at least for me) more impressive, especially given the Greatest Show on Turf only scored 17.
Secretariat was a racehorse who won the first Triple Crown in 25 years. And how he did it was impressive, to say the least. He won the Kentucky Derby by 2 1/2 lengths, and set the record for the fastest time. Then he won the Preakness by 2 1/2 lengths, beating the same horse, Sham, who finished second in the Derby.
In the Belmont, he was the heavy favorite, but that race is the longest of the Triple Crown races at 1 1/2 miles. Only four other horses were entered, but would that help Sham finally overtake Secretariat?
No, Secretariat won by 31 lengths, set another yet unbroken record for speed on a dirt track, and took the Triple Crown. He never raced again, but one of his descendants, American Pharoah, also won the Triple Crown, 37 years after the most recent winner, Affirmed, and 42 years after his great, great, grandfather.
That was top tier, no question. Especially in the context of the time with the Patriots having a “backup” QB. (Obviously time would show him to be the GOAT, but that wasn’t known back then.)
My thinking in the OP was that the Patriots then beat the Panthers and Eagles, neither of which had won a championship to that point.
What makes the Eagles stand out to me is that their only championships came against dynasties.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that there is no official time recorded for second place, but that Sham is believed to have run the second-fastest Kentucky Derby ever.
I don’t know anything about American football which is mostly discussed here, but I’ll nominate the “Wunder von Bern”, “the miracle of Bern”, the (West) German football (soccer) national team beating Hungary 3-2 in the WC final of 1954. The German team had only restructured after the War and played their first official international game against Switzerland in 1950, while Hungary in 1954 was probably the greatest favorite a WC ever had. They had a streak of 31 unbeaten games before the final, including a 6-3 upset over England at Wembley and a 8-3 over Germany at the group stage of that WC.
That (first of four) WC wins is still a legend in Germany.
Probably not exactly what is being asked, but I offer the Chicago Bulls of 80s-90s.
In 85-86 and 86-87, they got knocked out by Boston - who made it to the finals both years, winning 1 of 2.
The next 3 years, they got beat by the Pistons - who won it all 2 of those 3 years.
Their first championship was in 1991, when they beat the Lakers, who had been in the finals 9 times from 80-91, winning it 5 of those years.
I suggest that the Boston, Detroit, and LA teams were not too shabby, and the multi-year process of getting past each of those dynastic hurdles was pretty impressive. After that, their 5 more wins over the next 7 seasons was - in some respect - anticlimactic.
Disagree. The 1991 victory was very impressive. Although the Bills didn’t manage to get a Super Bowl win they were the best AFC team of that era. The Bills had 5 Hall of Famers on that team. The Giants had 1. The Bills had Jim Kelly at QB. The Giants had a back up. Jeff Hostetter didn’t go on the be Tom Brady. He remained a mediocre QB but he did win a Super Bowl.