Good post. Personally even with all that success in a way I think one could say we underachieved. Because the pats don’t have anything to do with us. We are in the nfc and have had the conferences best qb for literally almost 25 years give or take a few bumps in the road. The pats didn’t affect our journey to the dance.YoHoChecko wrote: ↑26 Apr 2020 20:11That's fair. But I'm just pointing out that for a large number of those teams--like the Saints and the Cowboys and what the Eagles did before their Super Bowl run (there was that big offseason where the players deemed themselves some sort of gawdy nickname that flamed out entirely) and then after their Super Bowl run... it didn't work. That the teams who go all in aren't MORE successful than we are. The teams that push the chips in fail as often as they succeed (depending on what failure is.. if it's a Super Bowl, they fail much more often than they succeed).Drj820 wrote: ↑26 Apr 2020 19:54Well I am not avoiding reality for this particular offseason (I understand the cap situation). I was pointing out teams who had been very good, were close, and made moves to attempt to get over the hump. Several years of over the last decade with the best qb in football we have been in those exact situations...very good, close, and just not quite there yet roster wise. We continued to plan for three years down the road. Hence why the ship has remained steady for all this time.
But I do not consider our offseason last year to be in the same category as the examples I listed above. Why? Because we weren’t close or very good when we made massive overhaul moves that happened to work very well. We had just fired a coach, a gm, and missed the playoffs two years in a row.
I just don't think the "push the chips in, be aggressive, make a big run right now" model deserves any sort of special praise among fans, because it is no more successful than "be a perennial competitor and hope you can strike when the opportunities arise." We aren't perennial contenders at the expense of winning Super Bowls. If you show me a team that goes all in, wins the Super Bowl, crashes, reloads, gets close, goes all in again, and wins the Super Bowl again" as some sort of business cycle, then yeah, sure. Ok. But that team hasn't really existed. I guess the closest you could come is the Giants, but they got lucky more than pushed their chips in... and it hasn't happened for nearly a decade now.
Basically, the Patriots are the best in the business, primarily because Belichick is. And they blocked other teams from having that sort of sustained success because they're better than us. No one can win multiple Super Bowls in an era when the Pats win 6 of them. In our conference, ove rthe past decade, only the Seahawks and 49ers have made two trips to the Super Bowl, and no one has won more than one. No one has made as many trips to the NFC Championship game as us.
The Patriots beat everyone at this. Their domination does two things: 1) it sets a nearly impossible standard to try to replicate. And 2) It has diminished and blocked the accomplishments of other teams who could have had some of that success had the Patriots not existed.
That's really all there is to it. NO ONE is winning more Championships and games than we are... except the Patriots. Period.
Here is a post from the old forum I made on January 1st, 2020 (with a couple updated numbers given the outcome of the playoffs:In the 2010s, the Packers were 102-56-2 in the regular season and 10-7 in the postseason.
The Packers won 6 NFC North Division Crowns, and one Super Bowl.
The Packers appeared in the playoffs 8 times and appeared in the conference championship game 4 times.
No team other than the New England Patriots did better than ANY of those numbers.
The Packers have the....
- 2nd most wins (regular season, playoffs, and total)
- 2nd most playoff games played (tied with the Seahawks)
- 2nd most division titles
- 2nd most playoff appearances (tied with the Seahawks)
- 2nd most Conference Championship Game appearances
- 2nd most Super Bowl titles (no one but the Pats had more than 1)
So for all the things we've complained about; for enduring the 2 non-playoff years, the firing of a HC, the transition of a GM... for having a hole at ILB that never died and going from a record-setting offense to constantly questioning its effectiveness....
for all of that, the Packers have been, unequivocally, the second-most successful NFL franchise of this decade.
It's been a joy, it's been heartbreaking, it's been fun, it's been frustrating... and it's been remarkably successful. I'm glad to be a Packers fan and I'm glad to have spent most of the decade debating this stuff with you all.
That said, if you read my original statement that started this...it was completely neutral. I wasn’t downing one side or praising the other philosophy. I was just stating how I see that we have operated. It’s made us generally happy every Sunday, but we have also felt so close we could taste it...and not made a move like giving a 1st for a frank clark that might put us over the top. That’s all.