It seems odd to me to attempt prove a team’s win-loss record is not a true indicator of strength by offering up the opponents’ win-loss records as an indicator of strength.
There are a lot more of them. I generally subscribe to the Bill Parcells model of you are what your record says you are. Occasionally, however, a team could luck into an exceptionally easy (or overly hard) schedule and feast on scrubs all season long, inflating their record. It’s highly unlikely that would happen to eight teams, but it could happen to one.
Conceptually it’s basically just adding more of the same kind of data, which is what statistics is all about. Like if I flip heads seven times in a row, I could effectively debunk that as abnormal by flipping that same coin a hundred more times and showing that the head % steadily approached 50%.
Tony Dungy, is that you? 
Right down to the crappy game manager coach who chokes in the Playoffs.
Interesting take. I don’t know enough about that Cardinals team to agree or disagree, but it seems legitimate. I’d only argue that with Fitzgerald and Boldin, the Cardinals were probably more consistently able to convert medium yardage third downs than the Eagles are right now (especially with Warner being so quick and accurate on short routes and McNabb… not). DeSean Jackson can blow by people, but he hasn’t yet developed a consistent way to break press coverage for short yardage. Luckily, tams don’t press him much because nobody in the league can keep up with him on the go routes.
It’s conceptually odd, but there’s no other way to prove it. I agree with what Ellis Dee said about Bill Parcells (and Ellis’s point is a well-stated one), but in this case, an exception has to be made. The Eagles are a misleading 11-4 team in the same way the Vikings were a misleading 10-1 team with holes no one noticed because everyone was busy slurping on Favre (slow O-Line that can’t stop athletic D-Lines or pass protect well, a secretly susceptible pass defense that doesn’t generate turnovers). You’d only have a real point if you attempted to prove that the win loss records of the teams the Eagles played are just as misleading, which from top to bottom, aren’t. Is KC or TB secretly better than their record? Carolina might be without Delhomme, but I can’t see another team on Philly’s schedule that’s not who we think they are. The Eagles are not who you think they are.
That isn’t to say they can’t win it all, I just don’t see them as any better or worse overall than the over NFC teams.
That’s not remotely fair. The man isn’t a game-managing genius by any stretch, but he’s never once lost a first round playoff game. He’s never once gone 1-and-done in the playoffs. He has a winning record in the playoffs (and a better win% in the playoffs than multiple HoF coaches). He has either over-achieved with his talent or underperformed (I’m inclined to believe that, aside from 2004, those other Eagles teams overachieved and weren’t as good as they seemed). It’s just uninformed and silly to say Reid chokes in the playoffs. He hasn’t been said to have had the most talented roster in the NFL over the last three seasons as Norv Turner has (one reason why I think he has overachieved, his rosters have been loaded with bad offensive players for almost his entire coaching tenure). And we’re light years from the real choke artist of the NFL playoffs, Marty Schottenheimer.
Tampa are better than their record in the sense that they’ve lost two games on bad (horrific, actually) calls - but they’re still not good.
I agree with this completely; say what you will about Reid and the Eagles, those fuckers know how to win playoff games.
I would, however, say that they choke in conference championships.
I couldn’t argue with that. Half of those losses were on the road, half at home, so no excuses there. The more I think about it though, the more I’m starting to think those pre-2004 teams just overachieved. Making those Conference Championships was probably their ceiling. They just didn’t have a lot of offensive talent (Duce Staley at RB, Todd Stinkston, James Thrash, and Freddie Mitchell at WR, ugh). It seems strange to me (and strangely compelling) that Reid and McNabb are going to carry around that reputation as playoff losers when, in reality, they probably had no business getting to those games anyway.
The NFC basically sucked for the first half of the 2000s. The Eagles were a good team and easily the class of the conference during that time. I don’t necessarily think they should have won a bunch of Superbowls, but they absolutely should have made it to at least three of them.
Pluck the early 2000s Eagles out of time and drop them into today’s NFC and they’d likely be one and done. But back then, they were the best the NFC had to offer.
Maybe that’s exactly true, and certainly if you make 5 conference championships, you should reasonably make more than one Super Bowl. But what if what you say is true, and yet what I say is also true: the Eagles were a good team, but nowhere near great, and not good enough to make a long run to the Super Bowl? Good teams can get surprised, especially when they don’t have any dominant offensive players like those early Eagles teams. Great teams rarely get surprised. Maybe Andy Reid was really good at game-planning that first game, but the lack of a go-to offensive guy to rely on just always caught up with them (along with his in-game mistakes, of course).
But seriously, how could you expect the Eagles to have done any better? From 2000-2003 (4 seasons), the Eagles went 46-18. That sounds remarkably good. But one of those seasons McNabb was the team’s leading rusher, they had one 1000 yard rusher (the great, incomparable Duce Staley at 1029 yards), and not even one 1000 yard receiver. Their leading receivers were Chad Lewis, James Thrash, and Todd Pinkston (twice). I’m sorry, but those teams aren’t Super Bowl teams, in any era. How did those teams even make the Conference Championships? I seriously don’t get it (and I didn’t watch the games closely enough to understand at the time).
You could say the same thing about the Patriots, who won three.
I suppose so, I mean, that comparison is certainly apt. QB-heavy, light on skill position player stars for both teams. But, Troy Brown was better than anything the Eagles had during their run (so was Deion Branch, sad to say). And I’d rather have Corey Dillon or even Antowain Smith than Duce Staley. And as much as I love McNabb, he’s no Tom Brady. Andy Reid may be both overrated and underrated at the same time, but the one thing he undoubtedly isn’t, is Bill Belichek. Those Patriot teams were amazing in their execution and stability, but they only reinforce by comparison just how pathetic the skill positions were for those Philly teams. They overachieved, not underachieved.
I’m unconvinced the Patriots skill positions were any better than the Eagles during the early 2000s. You mention Antowain Smith and Duce Staley.
Smith: 3.9 YPA, 6881 yards, 136 Rec for 982 yards, 57 TDs, Career AV 48
Staley: 4.0 YPA, 5785 yards, 287 Rec for 2587 yards, 34 TDs, Career AV 52
I don’t really know what “Career AV” actually is, but from a cursory reading it sounds like the guy who runs pro-football-reference is trying to put together a footballoutsiders-style metric for easy comparison among players. The higher the number the better the player. We can see above that the actual numbers look pretty similar, though I’d give Staley a slight edge for having a slightly better average and being a better receiver. Smith’s TDs help ameliorate that, so I’d say the two are basically a wash. Assigning Staley a 52 and Smith a 48 seems pretty acccurate to me, at least as far as relative value to each other is concerned.
I don’t really feel like transcribing a bunch of receiver stats, mainly because I’m still kinda drunk. (Merry New Year!) Just looking at Career AV for the leading receivers of the early 2000s for both:
Eagles
113 Terrell Owens
32 James Thrash
28 Todd Pinkston
Patriots
55 Troy Brown
36 Deion Branch
22 David Givens
Note that each of the listed Patriots receivers was the team’s leading receiver during a Superbowl winning year. Brown in 2001, Branch in 2003 and Givens in 2004. The year when the hapless Givens was the leading receiver, the Eagles had Terrell Owens. You also mentioned Corey Dillon, but it’s not like Brian Westbrook sucked.
I know Eagles fans have always been quick to point to blame the receiving corps for the Eagle’s inability to win conference championships, but I think that’s overly simplistic. The Patriots had the same issues at the skill positions, never had an elite skill position like Terrell Owens, and still managed to win three Superbowls.
The problem here is you’re factoring in the years where Smith was on the Bills, which drags his numbers down, as if that matters to how good he was on the Patriots. And you add in the good years Staley had on the Eagles before the team was ever good, which was beyond the point I was making. Remember that we’re talking about the Patriots that won three Super Bowls and the Eagles that lost in the Conference Championships and how they compare. I was specifically talking about those 4 years where the Eagles where considered “the class of the NFC,” as you say, and specifically the years that people disparage the team for choking. Here are the relevant stats:
Smith (on NE in '01): 1157 yards, 12 TDs, 4.0 y/c, 19-192-1 receiving, 12 AV (if that means anything to you)
Staley (his *best season from *'00-'03 specifically cherry-picked to show his best performance): 1029 yards, 5 TDs, 3.8 y/c, 51-541-3 receiving, 11 AV
Pretty significant difference in receiving, but still less effective running and in scoring offense. This was Staley’s best possible year during the stretch where everyone says they choked in the playoffs. And Corey Dillon was significantly better than Smith, to boot. The Patriots had one good season and one very good season from RBs during their three Super Bowl seasons, the Eagles got one good season out of four.
Again, you’re factoring in stuff that isn’t relevant to the discussion at all. Owens was on the team in '04, when they went to the Super Bowl (so the whole “they choke in the Conference Championships” is completely moot for that season, since they didn’t choke in the Conference Championship). And you’re using career AV scores here, instead of the season where it was relevant. Here’s how those guys look in the years we’re talking about:
Eagles
James Thrash ('01): 63-833-8, AV 8
Todd Pinkston ('02): 60-798-7, AV 8
Todd Pinkston ('03): 36-575-2, AV 7 (had to double check that he was the leading receiver that year because 36 catches?!, but he was, at least by yardage)
Patriots
Troy Brown ('01): 101-1199-5, AV 16
Deion Branch ('03): 57-803-3, AV 7
David Givens ('04): 56-784-3, AV 10
Plain and simple: the Patriots had more offensive talent than those early Eagles teams. And that Deion Branch AV score is a little misleading because he was the Super Bowl MVP that season and neither Thrash, nor Pinkston, nor any of the Eagles receivers were good enough to have done even that.
Westbrook wasn’t a full-time starter until 2004, though he had a good season with limited committee-style work in '03. That '03 Eagles team wasn’t very good at all, and without Westbrook coming on as he did, they might not have made the playoffs, let alone make it to the Conference Championship. He wasn’t yet the Westbrook we know today, though he was showing flashes that made him an outright starter in '04.
But that’s misdirecting the issue. Let’s count the Super Bowl records of the Eagles and Patriots with elite talent at the WR spot:
Eagles: 0-1
Patriots: 0-1
So that isn’t even the issue. The issue is that those Eagles teams which are so famous for not making a Super Bowl in 3 straight trips to the Conference Championship game, didn’t have enough talent to have reasonably been there at all. The Patriots won Super Bowls with better talent… what’s the problem? That’s how it’s supposed to work. Better talent and better coaching, and the better QB on the field, results in more Super Bowls. Sounds right to me.
We’re quick to point the blame on our receivers because they were awful. Troy Brown was better than all of them. The one time the Eagles got a good receiver, they made the Super Bowl, and that WR and McNabb were Pro Bowlers. That might seem an oversimplification, but it really isn’t. That was the one glaring problem all those failing Eagles teams had: they couldn’t get a big play or a first down from the WR spot with any confidence or consistency. When they fixed that, they fixed their problem.
I don’t see how those '00-'03 Eagles teams can be reasonably expected to have gotten to a Super Bowl, let alone win one, with their obviously mediocre talent at the skill positions. I don’t see how it could be reasonably held against the Eagles for losing a Super Bowl against a better Patriots team, either. They overachieved from '00-'03, and fell just short in '04 with a really good team.
If the thing holding back the Eagles were their receivers, how can you say the Patriots team that beat them in the Superbowl was better?
Well crap, the Giants seem to be phoning it in.
No - phoning it in would have been a closer game.
BTW, has any team ever been down 24-0 or worse at halftime in consecutive games before, as the Giants have just done?
Truly pathetic.
Well as I said upthread, I’m jumping on the Cowboys bandwagon for this postseason. Here’s hoping that they can figure out a way to do the impossible: make the Eagles lose their first playoff game.
I would be on the Saints bandwagon, as I was most of the year. Shockey and Vilma help with the NY connection, the downtrodden area could use lift, etc… But they just seem like total chokers now, at least to me. Tough to root for that.
The Dallas Cowboys shut out the Eagles 24-0 and took the #3 playoff seed and the NFC East title!
The Cowboys earned another title today … winningest regular season NFL team:
Regular Season Winning %
-
Dallas Cowboys…434-314-6, 0.5802%
-
Chicago Bears…686-498-43, 0.5794%
-
Miami Dolphins…387-281-4, 0.5792%
Tie games count. They’re worth 0.5 wins for the purposes of calculating win percentage.
EDIT: I assume they’re still on top of the list.
If ties don’t count, they were already tops on that list anyway at 433-314, 0.5797