HOW EXACTLY DOES A make it to the Super Bowl? What s the common element, the defining factor, in the chase for championships?
Well, nowadays there isn't one. If you're looking for Super Bowl trends, you won't find them. They don't exist.
Oh, they used to. Experience used to be a factor, but the past four Super Bowls produced four first-lime winners: the St. Louis Rams in 1999, the Baltimore Ravens in 2000, the New England Patriots in 2001, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last season.
A potent offense also was very helpful. Even the Pittsburgh Steelers' great "Steel Curtain" teams in the 1970s developed a powerhouse attack in the later years of their dynasty. The San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders sure could score in their glory days, too. So could the Denver Broncos.
But not anymore. Simply look at the Ravens, Patriots, and Bucs, all of whom won the Super Bowl with run-of-the-mill offenses. That makes three straight NFL champions that lacked a dominant offense.
Does this equate to a trend? Does it mean defense paves the way for Super Bowl tides these days? Nope. The Rams of 1999 and the Broncos of 1997 and '98 relied primarily on high-powered offense to go all the way.
So maybe a coach with a proven track record is the key to postseason success. Again, sorry. Baltimore's Brian Billick and Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden were anything but proven postseason commodities when their teams won it all. Same for Bill Belichick of the Patriots, although his resume as an assistant coach was quite impressive before he led New England to the promised land. Even Barry Switzer--remember the BOZO THE COACH headlines?--won a Super Bowl with the Cowboys in 1995.
Clearly, in today's NFL there are few, if any, accurate indicators of postseason success.
"There are so many factors that go into a championship season, or even in a season that gets you to the playoffs," says Dick Vermeil, who was the Rams' coach when they won the Super Bowl in 1999 and has a shot at capturing another title this year with the Kansas City Chiefs. "Years ago, the team with more star players would be a championship contender, but now there aren't many teams who have that."
Indeed, you won't find many offensive trios that rival what Dallas had in the 1990s, with Troy Aikman at quarterback, Michael Irvin at wide receiver, and Emmitt Smith at running back. The only team today that comes close to that is the Indianapolis trio of quarterback Peyton Manning, wide receiver Marvin Harrison, and running back Edgerrin James, but the rest of the Colts' roster doesn't measure up to the depth Dallas had.
This leaguewide lack of depth is what has had the biggest impact on flaming today's blurry playoff pictures. It's tougher than ever for teams to withstand the injuries that are inevitable through the course of a 16-game season. Teams no longer can stock up at certain positions the way, say, San Francisco did with its offensive line in the 1980s, so they are extremely vulnerable. The road to the Super Bowl, then, has become something of a crapshoot.
The reason for the dearth of depth, and the ensuing madness? Free agency and the salary cap, which took effect in the mid-1990s.
The salary cap has forced teams to concentrate on signing their top-echelon players while often filling other spots with second-level performers. Sometimes, as was the case with New England in 2001, those fill-ins are so good at their roles that the entire product meshes perfectly--and at the right time. And presto: The Vince Lombardi Trophy heads to Foxboro, Mass. In most cases, however, the role players don't produce enough firepower to deliver a championship.
And with flee agency allowing players to crisscross the map, the deck gets reshuffled each season. How can any type of trend develop when there is major upheaval in the league from year to year? It can't.
Still, we aren't totally dismissing the idea that there are at least some common denominators in postseason success. Here are a few, though they aren't so significant that they have become definable trends:
* Short-term continuity. In the past, continuity was built and maintained over years and years. Go from the great Green Bay Packers teams of the 1960s to the Miami Dolphins and Steelers of the '70s to the Raiders and 49ers of the '80s to the Cowboys of the early '90s. Without free agency to disrupt their rosters, those teams were constructed through the draft and were kept intact for a long period of time. The players on the offensive and defensive units got to know each other so well that everything became second nature. Such familiarity bred championships.
Now the best any franchise can hope for is a few years of stability. If a team doesn't reach the mountaintop in that short time, it is forced to start over. Look at what has happened to the Raiders. After going to the Super Bowl last year, their small window of opportunity has closed.
* Leadership. This can come from either the coaching staff or several players. When it comes from both places, as it clearly did last season in Tampa, the results are special.
Has any journeyman ever provided better leadership than Trent Dilfer did at quarterback for Baltimore in 2000? Has any coach done a more masterful job than Mike Shanahan did in Denver in 1997?
Think of the great teams of recent vintage, and the names of great leaders come to mind. In Baltimore, there were linebacker Ray Lewis and safety Rod Woodson in addition to Dilfer. In Denver, quarterback John Elway, linebacker Bill Romanowski, and tight end Shannon Sharpe complemented Shanahan. The Packers had Brett Favre. The Cowboys had Aikman, Smith, and Irvin.
If you're looking for some teams that could contend for this season's Super Bowl title, home in on the ones that possess true leaders. Manning is the ultimate field general in Indy. Kansas City is driven by Vermeil, running back Priest Holmes, and tight end Tony Gonzalez. The key to the Minnesota Vikings' turnaround has been the newfound leadership provided by wide receiver Randy Moss. The toughness of quarterback Steve McNair and the steadiness of coach Jeff Fisher have defined the Tennessee Titans.
"Leadership is a pivotal thing," Baltimore's Billick says. "If you have strong leaders on your team--people like Ray, for instance--success often follows them. They work hard, set an enviable example, and get everyone around them believing. The talent, the work ethic, the willingness to sacrifice--all of that is part of leadership."
* Front-office stability. This is an underrated part of the equation. The last team with front-office turmoil to get to the Super Bowl was the Patriots in 1996. That was when coach Bill Parcells complained about being a chef who was not allowed to buy the groceries after owner Bob Kraft sided with general manager Bobby Grier on personnel decisions.
There have been some other minor skirmishes, such as with the 2000 season's New York Giants, who used media speculation that head coach Jim Fassel's job was in jeopardy as a motivator and rallied all the way to the Super Bowl. In reality, though, Fassel never was in real danger of losing his job, and the team's ownership has been as solid as any in the league.
The Bucs didn't put everything together until they brought in Gruden last year to provide an offensive spark. But the real factor in Tampa Bay's success has been longtime general manager Rich McKay, who rebuilt the roster from the ground up and has kept it stocked.
Other models of stability have been Baltimore under Billick and general manager Ozzie Newsome and New England under Belichick. The Ravens and Patriots haven't had as much overall talent as some other teams, but they have developed a winning mindset.
On the other hand, the Rams, for all their stars, haven't won another title since their awesome 1999 season. Part of the reason has been the upheaval caused by Vermeil's "retirement" following the Super Bowl win. His departure knocked the Rams off-track just enough to prevent them from becoming the dynasty they had the potential to be.
One trend that has disappeared is the importance of home-field advantage. Since 1993, there have been only two instances in which the clubs that had or tied for the best record in the AFC and NFC both reached the Super Bowl. Furthermore, the Broncos won the Super Bowl as a wild card in 1997, the Titans reached it as a wild card in 1999, and the Ravens won it as a wild card in 2000.
In addition, road teams won conference rifle games in 1994 (the San Diego Chargers at Pittsburgh), 1997 (Green Bay at San Francisco, Denver at Pittsburgh), 1998 (Atlanta at Minnesota), 1999 (Tennessee at the Jacksonville Jaguars), 2000 (Baltimore at Tennessee), 2001 (New England at Pittsburgh), and 2002 (Tampa Bay at the Philadelphia Eagles).
Hey, maybe that's a trend, although you'd be hard-pressed to find a coach who wouldn't want home-field advantage.
