It'll have at least four parts: NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA.
In a day and age where I now think you have to take a serious look at economic contraction, I felt I would actually look at the teams in the four major sports as a concept of the bottom line, rigged or otherwise -- at least if you want to represent the games as any degree of contests...
Wins and losses.
There are many other factors you can give as far as things go, but I wanted to take the last seven seasons and find out just which teams just do not cut it.
We'll start in the NFL, listing win totals only (each team is 112 games, so 56 is .500):
New England: 12, 12, 12, 14, 13, 11, 12. 86-26. Three Super Bowl Championships, a fourth appearance. 13-4 in the playoffs. Last year was their first One And Done since 2010. Last time they MISSED the playoffs was in 2008.
Kansas City: 11, 9, 11, 12, 10, 12, 12 77-35 the last seven years. If or when we have an NFL again, they are the defending Super Bowl champions. Five playoff wins.
Seattle: 13, 12, 10, 10, 9, 10, 11 75-37 the last seven years, two Super Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl Championship, eight playoff wins.
Pittsburgh: 8, 11, 10, 11, 13, 9, 8 70-42 regular season. Three playoff wins
New Orleans: 11, 7, 7, 7, 11, 13, 13 37-11 the last three years, 69 wins regular season total. Three playoff wins, and two of the most egregious rig-jobs in the recent history of the NFL to eliminate them the last two years.
Green Bay: 8, 12, 10, 10, 7, 6, "13" 66 wins regular season. Five playoff wins, but have lost their last three NFC Championship Games. And if you think that crappy Draft they just had was not a tell that, if we get a season this year, they KNOW it's Tom Brady and Tampa Bay this year...
Philadelphia: 10, 10, 7, 7, 13, 9, 9 65 wins regular season, four playoff wins, and a Super Bowl Championship.
Denver: 13, 12, 12, 9, 5, 6, 7 64 regular season wins, five playoff wins, two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl Championship
Dallas: 8, 12, 4, 13, 9, 10, 8 64 wins regular season, two playoff wins.
Baltimore: Had just won the previous Super Bowl before the seven years started. 8, 10, 5, 8, 9, 10, 14. 64 wins regular season, one playoff win.
Carolina: 12, 7, 15, 6, 11, 7, 5 63 wins regular season, three playoff wins, one Super Bowl appearance.
Minnesota: 5, 7, 11, 8, 13, 8, 10 62 wins regular season, two playoff wins
Indianapolis: 11, 11, 8, 8, 4, 10, 7 59 wins regular season. Four playoff wins.
LA Rams: 7, 6, 7, 4, 11, 13, 9 57 regular season wins, two playoff wins and one Super Bowl appearance.
Arizona: 10, 11, 13, 7, 8, 3, 5 57 wins regular season, one playoff win.
Buffalo: 6, 9, 8, 7, 9, 6, 10 55 wins regular season, last playoff win was in 1995!
Houston: 2, 9, 9, 9, 4, 11, 10 54 wins regular season. Two playoff wins. (Only four in the team's existence, has never seen the AFC title game.)
Cincinnati: 11, 10, 12, 6, 7, 6, 2 54 wins regular season, but 21-43 in the last four years. Last playoff win? 1991!
Atlanta: 4, 6, 8, 11, 10, 7, 7 53 wins regular season, three playoff wins, one Super Bowl appearance.
LA Chargers: 9, 9, 4, 5, 9, 12, 5. 53 wins regular season, two playoff wins.
Detroit: 7, 11, 7, 9, 9, 6, 3 52 wins regular season but only 9-23 the last two years. Last playoff win? 1991. They've lost in the Wild Card round in their last EIGHT playoff appearances.
San Francisco: Lost the Super Bowl entering this period. Then: 12, 8, 5, 2, 6, 4, 13 50 wins regular season, more wins last year than the three previous combined, and another Super Bowl appearance, with four playoff wins.
Miami: 8, 8, 6, 10, 6, 7, 5 50 regular season wins. Last playoff win? 2000.
Tennessee: 7, 2, 3, 9, 9, 9, 9 48 regular season wins, two playoff wins -- but the trend is upward with four straight 9-7 seasons.
Chicago: 8, 5, 6, 3, 5, 12, 8 47 wins regular season, last playoff win was in 2010.
NY Jets: 8, 4, 10, 5, 5, 4, 7 43-69 the last seven years. 21-43 the last four. Last playoff win was in 2010.
Raiders: 4, 3, 7, 12, 6, 4, 7 43-69 the last seven years. 17-31 the last three, 11-21 under Chuckie. Last playoff win was the 2002-03 AFC Championship.
NY Giants: 7, 6, 6, 11, 3, 5, 4 12-36 the last three years, only one more win in those three years combined than in 2016! 42-70 for the seven years. Last playoff win was 2011-12's Super Bowl.
Washington: 3, 4, 9, 8, 7, 7, 3 41-71 the last seven years. Last playoff win: 2005.
Tampa Bay: 4, 2, 6, 9, 5, 5, 7 38-74 regular season. Last playoff win was the Super Bowl over the Raiders. And now, if you don't get the idea this Brady to Tampa thing might not literally be "Save The NFL In Florida!!!!"...
Jacksonville: 4, 3, 5, 3, 10, 5, 6 36-76 regular season, two playoff wins to get to the AFC title game in 2017.
Cleveland: 4, 7, 3, 1, 0, 7, 6 28-84 the last seven years. Their last playoff APPEARANCE was in 2002, their last playoff win was in 1995! Last winning season was in 2007.
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So what do we have, if you wanted candidates for contraction:
Cleveland and some subset of the Florida teams including Jacksonville appear nearly locks. Miami would have SOME tradition, but there is very real question as to the future of professional sports in the state of Florida at large before this virus fucked up everything.
Looking at these numbers, one has to start wondering if Brady to Tampa might also be the NFL saying that the NFL has to be saved in the state of Florida, and they might need a blatant pump-job for the next season (if we get it!! -- and if we don't, there's nothing to say Brady can make it back at 44!!!) to get it done.
From there, it's a bunch of tradition with the Raiders (who I think are a question if the new stadium in Las Vegas doesn't take!), the Giants, Jets, and Bears (who probably would be safe enough on legacy...
Detroit and the Chargers probably would also be on the chopping block. San Francisco's 13-3 last year probably saved them consideration on my list as well.
But my list of candidates for the chop, if we take this with some degree of reasonability:
- Cleveland
- At least Jacksonville
- Possibly Miami and Tampa Bay as well
- Las Vegas if the stadium doesn't take
- Washington if they can't get the team some competent ownership
- Detroit
- LA Chargers
I think the league has conspired against Cleveland since their 1999 return (check out Terry Pluto's book False Start: How The New Browns Were Set Up to Fail). Also, I wouldn't be surprised if two Florida teams were contracted (I always thought that the NFL expanded too early in the 70's. If they would have waited a few years, maybe they could have given Tampa's team to Memphis).
ReplyDeleteI think Bottlegate finished the Browns off, however.
DeleteBut the situation in Florida is completely untenable in any of the four major sports at this point.