NFL: The death of dynasties in the pass-based era

With the 2010s almost closed, it time to say it: Dynasties are dead in the NFL and it’s going to be difficult for them to come back.

The NFL began in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association. In the first 13 seasons, the champion wasn’t decided by a championship game. After the season was over, whoever had the highest winning percentage was declared the NFL champions. Since 1933, however, there has been a championship game to determine the league champion.

We walk about the New England Patriots as a dynasty because of their lengthy playoff run. They’ve made the playoffs for 15 out of the last 17 seasons. However, in terms of world championships, this run isn’t a dynasty. That dynasty ended with their three championships in four years run.

Since the league began, every decade has seen at least one franchise win consecutive championships. The 20s saw the achievement done by the Canton Bulldogs, the Green Bay Packers in the 30s (three-straight), the Chicago Bears in the 40s, the Cleveland Browns in the 50s, the Packers twice in the 60s (61-62 and 65-67), the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 70s (twice), the San Francisco 49ers in the 80s, the Dallas Cowboys in the early 90s, the Denver Broncos in the late 90s and the aforementioned Patriots in the 2000s.

The NFL rules now favor offensive football (mostly in the passing game), and we will likely not see another team win back-to-back titles again. Why? It’s not because of the salary cap, because the Patriots won three in four years with the cap. It’s much easier to sustain winning when the winning is based on a balanced approach on offense (even one that favors the run) and a good or great defense.

The stars of the 49ers of the 80s and the Cowboys of the 90s were on the offense — Jerry Rice and Joe Montana compared to Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman — but it’s not like the defenses were average. The 49ers teams in the late 80s had Charles Haley, Bill Romanowski and Ronnie Lott, while the Cowboys had Darren Woodson, Deion Sanders and Haley.

The league tried to create parity when they instituted a salary cap, but if you’re smart enough, you can figure out a way to keep players together long enough to win multiple titles. The Patriots may be considered a dynasty by the masses, but even the Patriots have only won consecutive AFC titles once.

In the early part of the “18-year dynasty,” Brady only had over 550 passes in a season once, and they didn’t make the playoffs that season. Since then, he’s had at least 565 passes in any season except for 2010 — that he played 16 games. In that timeframe they have as many Super Bowl losses as they did wins early on.

From 2001-06, Brady averaged  pass attempts per game in the playoffs. Since then, he has averaged 47 pass attempts per game. This includes a jump from 36 to 50 passes per game in the Super Bowl.

It’s very difficult to sustain great offense based around the pass game in and game out, let alone year in and year out. We now have a league that’s fun to watch, but get used to a different team winning the Super Bowl every year — maybe we’ll get a repeat champion twice in a span of three years — because that’s what will likely happen. The league got the parity it wanted, but not due to equal spending, but a philosophy shift.