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Location: East Texas, with the Clan of the Cave Bear
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What makes success?
Let me stress the front office. It is uber important to winning and in more ways than just talent accumulation. This includes ownership. Strong front office management flows downhill to the very base elements of the organization. And this can makeup for shortfalls in talent. Good front office, good coaching staff, strong and positive HC makes the team better even if they have a talent shortfall.
Let's look at not necessarily winning championships but also not excluding challenging for championships but putting winning seasons together, fielding strong cohesive and successful teams .
To me this is a very challenging exercise. Extremely. And it is hard to look at it with an impartial eye.
Ownership: There are some great owners that "help" their teams. This may be accomplished in several ways from being totally hands off and hiring as great GM to be the Chief Operating Officer to having an eye for the game and being more engaged with operations.
Stronger ownership teams IMO: SF, Philly, Seattle, KC, and maybe Pitt . The best of these is Philly IMO with SF close behind. Pitt seems to have struggled for a few years now and could be eliminated from my list. GB seems to be the only different animal here as they are owned by stockholders and the central figures would CEO/GM with a Board of Directors. This has to be determined to be successful when looking at their record.
Weakest ownership teams (classically bad): Miami, Houston, LV, Washington. Honorable (or dishonorable) additions that can be a tier up would be NO, Dallas, NYJ, Arizona, Chicago and maybe Detroit. I might add that Dallas seems to be climbing out of this pit of despair but for 2 decades Jerry Jones was a strong liability to on field success.
Now to be sure a strong QB and a strong HC can elevate a team to on field success. But you would need both factors plus non-detrimental front office.
The most obvious teams would be Reid / Mahomes at KC (obviously an easy choice). Philly with Hurts/Sirianni. And then Burrow/Taylor deserves mentioning since they arrived in Cincy the Bengals are challenging for the AFC Championship. Prior to that Cincy hadn't won a playoff game in 31 years. To be clear though this could be much more Burrow than Taylor.
In SF I have to say it is strong coaching and especially HC because the QB has been in flux. There's just no other way to look at it. And in Buffalo I have really mixed feelings in that in some instances I feel that their have been QB failures and in others coaching failures but surely with Buffalo's recent success they deserve to be in this mix but there is also something not quite meshing well.
So obviously some of you are more intimately aware of some situations than I because in many I am just and NFL on the outside looking in. What is your take both overall and with specific teams?
(Yeah, we're in the NFL Dead Zone waiting on training camps to start -- just trying to stimulate discussion here)
A combination of a good ownership, a good front office, a solid coaching staff, and the commitment to winning.
I agree.
But.. Let's take a look at some historically bad teams and decide where things went wrong.
So.. Green Bay Packers.. This is one I don't really have an answer to.. So, I kinda hope someone can clue me in on what went wrong here. From.. Honestly, from the time Lombardi left to the early 90's.. They were bad. From 1968 through 1992.. They made the playoffs twice, winning 1 game and that was the '82 strike year. They finished above .500 5 times (And one of those was an 8-7-1 season)
Packers "ownership" is generally really good.. Coaching was.. Hit and miss at the time. Lindy Infante, Dan Devine, Bart Starr.. Where was the problem at that time? honest question here, because that's.. Too far back for me.
Jacksonville.. That was an ownership issue. Washington.. oh yeah, ownership.
Detroit.. Been a bit of everything. The Matt Millen problem you have to go back to ownership for allowing that. The Fords wouldn't admit when they screwed up. And, they screwed up a fair amount. Getting rid of Wayne Fontes probably one of the biggest mistakes.
Cardinals from.. the 40's to the late 90's. again, a little of everything. And when you have that, you kinda have to look back to ownership.
At the end of the day.. We could probably trim your list down to just ownership. Because.. IF they're allowing it.. They're the problem.
But.. Let's take a look at some historically bad teams and decide where things went wrong.
So.. Green Bay Packers.. This is one I don't really have an answer to.. So, I kinda hope someone can clue me in on what went wrong here. From.. Honestly, from the time Lombardi left to the early 90's.. They were bad. From 1968 through 1992.. They made the playoffs twice, winning 1 game and that was the '82 strike year. They finished above .500 5 times (And one of those was an 8-7-1 season)
Packers "ownership" is generally really good.. Coaching was.. Hit and miss at the time. Lindy Infante, Dan Devine, Bart Starr.. Where was the problem at that time? honest question here, because that's.. Too far back for me.
Jacksonville.. That was an ownership issue. Washington.. oh yeah, ownership.
Detroit.. Been a bit of everything. The Matt Millen problem you have to go back to ownership for allowing that. The Fords wouldn't admit when they screwed up. And, they screwed up a fair amount. Getting rid of Wayne Fontes probably one of the biggest mistakes.
Cardinals from.. the 40's to the late 90's. again, a little of everything. And when you have that, you kinda have to look back to ownership.
At the end of the day.. We could probably trim your list down to just ownership. Because.. IF they're allowing it.. They're the problem.
I'd say ownership, GMs, team structure, who is really calling the shots running the show. I've always thought recently that Dallas should be more successful and does Jerry do more harm than good?
Packers having had 2 great QBs, and only 2 SB wins is disappointing. Can't put it on the "owners", is their structure, way of doing business a hindrance? Thompson was very conservative, criticized for the lack of FA use. Gute has used it more but his drafts haven't been stellar. Murphy (CEO) reaching 70 soon, he'll be out. He set up a silo system for him, Gute, Ball (the money man). Everyone goes to Murphy, like the coach for instance instead of directly to the GM. Many in the media don't think it's a good system. Packers, a solid organization, but the lack of playoff success is troubling.
Saints had 1 SB with Drew Brees, what's up with their organization? Wonder about Payton going to Denver will he have success there with Russ? I did not know Dennis Allen was the HC. Saints have always been known for being in cap trouble, can a team with those issues be successful?
This season will be interesting with the coaching changes, QB changes, going to be a fun one! Thanks for the topic, I stayed on the NFC!
Detroit.. Been a bit of everything. The Matt Millen problem you have to go back to ownership for allowing that. The Fords wouldn't admit when they screwed up. And, they screwed up a fair amount. Getting rid of Wayne Fontes probably one of the biggest mistakes.
William Clay Ford was the singular owner. For the majority of his tenure he was hands off and was fiercely loyal to his GM's. It was never an ego thing of refusing to admit he screwed up. Fontes was fired after the culmination of giving up 58 points in the playoffs and then going 5-11.
Junior, the vice chairman, backed his old man and Chuck Schmidt publicly but he did redeem himself years later by forcing the issue with Millen and finally saving us from that disaster.
Tim Green, in his book THE DARK SIDE OF THE GAMEwhich I recommend mentions that obviously, teams that win have a long term plan and stick to it. They also always have an owner, GM and Head coach who are on the "same page' with this plan, working together to reach these goals. Sure, it can be tweaked and altered slightly, but the overall long term plan stays intact.
This leads not just to wins, but to Dynasties.
BUT it does not always end up so easy. One must have a Workable plan and
Now I can start with MY FINZ, who have one of the three most inept owners in the NFL, currently on exile in West Virginia
Living here
WHO Has the mentality of "Well, lets try something different and if it does not work then we will start over and try something different...." now he goes and gets a GM who has experience ONLY in that system, not in formulating long term plans but in starting over every season, hoping to get it right once...
WELL Look at MY FINZ ...it has not worked yet.
SO lets look at the FINZ model for failure. Take an owner who does not know nor care what he is doing, who seems to understand that win or lose, ticket sales or none, he will still make his percentage thanks to the NFLs profit sharing rules, so off the bat, he has no motivation to win.....He has been through a new GM every few years, who fires the coach, starts fresh and piddles around with free agents, draft picks......and bad coaches.
Except for one: Old TUNAFISH himself Bill Parcels. Parcels walked away because the mess was so bad in Miami. Think about that. One of the most successful and brilliant minds in the game looked at Ross and Co and said "no way"
As for the Pesky Red Birds, who will (spoiler alert)be the worst team in 2023-24 season....failure was because they did not follow a plan, not considering injuries, depth or overall style....and did not build on a long term plan.
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Once we get the right personnel in the front office and on the sideline, we need to consider the talent on the field. QB is still the most important position, but teams have won super bowls with mediocre QBs. so long as they had powerful defenses and superior Offensive lines. I think this is where the idea of deciding what style of team one wants comes in. IF I were building a team from scratch, I would go and get 5 solid O-Linemen first and 4 good backups, 4 solid defensive linemen first and then build from there. It does take 11 men on the field to win a down, but I would skimp on special tams before I would skimp on O-Line.
Except for one: Old TUNAFISH himself Bill Parcels. Parcels walked away because the mess was so bad in Miami. Think about that. One of the most successful and brilliant minds in the game looked at Ross and Co and said "no way"
Parcells said no to Tampa Bay under Culverhouse as well. Bill isn't an idiot.
I had actually forgotten he was with the Dolphins back in the day.
In SF I have to say it is strong coaching and especially HC because the QB has been in flux. There's just no other way to look at it. And in Buffalo I have really mixed feelings in that in some instances I feel that their have been QB failures and in others coaching failures but surely with Buffalo's recent success they deserve to be in this mix but there is also something not quite meshing well.
Since 2019, the only team with a better win/loss record is the Chiefs. And since 2017 when the new HC/GM combo took over only the Chiefs and Saints have a better win/loss record. And that includes the 2017 season in which they broke the 17 year playoff drought with Tyrod Taylor playing poorly and the 2018 season that saw a raw Josh Allen take over.
They have certainly built something in Buffalo and it's about to enter it's 7th season. I'd compare these current Bills to the early 2000 Colts. They have not been able to get over the hump in the postseason. But if they can get enough cracks at it the law of averages says they should eventually win one or at least make the Super Bowl.
Also keep in mind that Buffalo has relatively new ownership. The new owner took over in 2014. After a couple of early coaching and GM changes, they have settled in on the current duo for the last 6 seasons.
For me it's an organization that wants to win and is disciplined. That starts from the top down. You have owners who are committed to the team. You have a GM that is shrewd. You have a head coach who has a system and gets a lot of buy in from management, and that has a record of success. Lastly, players who buy into the system, work well together, and want to WIN.
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Yeah, we're in the NFL Dead Zone waiting on training camps to start -- just trying to stimulate discussion here)
