NFL's Most Influential Teams

[TanksAndSpartans]

Thanks T&S ...

I read somewhere that Friedman tried to lobby to be included in the initial HOF classes in the early 60s but rubbed voters the wrong way. You cant blame him if he was one of the first true advocates of forward passing.

You're welcome. Yep, from my memory of reading the book, I believe his biographer implied some may not have cared for his personality (arrogance), so was it that or antisemitism that kept him out - we don't know. I would have liked to see Friedman on the NFL's 100 year team. They had like 20 QBs, so what would have been one more .

P.S. Here is the back of his 1955 Topps football card:

Friedman.jpg (225.24 KiB) Viewed 1913 times

[NWebster]

Catching up, but influential can be totally different from good or quality. Major innovations should be recognized no? The T, the 4-3 the 3-4, heck in 89 when Wayne Fontes brought in Mouse Davis to install the Run N Shoot people scoffed at 4 wideouts on the field and not having a fullback, find fullbacks now. Today nobody runs that scheme but aspects of it are in every playbook.

Of course all this is complicated by the fact that there's very little new under the sun and that we often confuse popularizers with inventors as with Zone Blitz (not LeBeau), The Flex (not Landry), The Shotgun (not Hickey), etc. But I think the influential team would be the one that made the scheme,tactic, approach or whatever part and parcel of what they do.

As always I go back to The Hidden Game and our own Bob Carroll who wrote up one of the best short concise histories of the evolution of strategies in those pages. I'd look to those teams and coaches above what SI published.

Unrelated (maybe somewhat related) I almost feel like we needa PFRA fact checkers on football related articles. No Dwight Freeney did not "invent" the spin move.

[JohnTurney]

Of course all this is complicated by the fact that there's very little new under the sun and that we often confuse popularizers with inventors as with Zone Blitz (not LeBeau), The Flex (not Landry), The Shotgun (not Hickey), etc. But I think the influential team would be the one that made the scheme,tactic, approach or whatever part and parcel of what they do.

No Dwight Freeney did not "invent" the spin move.

part and parcel ... populariized ... advanced/developed ... all those better terms/phrases than invented ... "invented" is a high bar to prove, the others are reasonable and can be argued

[SeahawkFever]

Wouldn't it would very much depend on how one defined "influential?"

I don't know that the 1968 Jets brought anything to the table that was new or "influenced" strategy or tactics.
But by virtue of winning the Super Bowl they changed football history forever.

That list (only the top ten of 50?) seems to be a hodge-podge of teams thrown together by a committee for a variety of reasons.
It'd be interesting to see a list with clearly defined criteria.

No game ever benefited a player more than Super Bowl III did Joe Namath. He got ton of endorsements, publicity, praise for his talent. Had the Jets lost, Joe Namath might not be in the HOF and would be remembered historically mostly for the 427,000 dollar contract. The AFL had gotten the NBC TV deal before the Jets signed Namath, who has often been wrongly credited for it.

Namath would still also be the first quarterback to throw 4,000 yards in a season in the pros and also had four all pro selections by the AP (three seconds and a first, with one of the seconds post merger), but I would be inclined to agree that he's not in Canton without Super Bowl III.

[SeahawkFever]

The February edition of Sports Illustrated arrived today, and one of the articles was a list of the 50 most influential NFL teams (single season). I thought the group might be interested in hearing their top 10:

10) 1961 Green Bay Packers
9) 2001 New England Patriots
8) 1946 Los Angeles Rams
7) 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers
6) 1981 San Francisco 49ers
5) 1985 Chicago Bears
4) 1950 Cleveland Browns
3) 1972 Miami Dolphins
2) 1958 Baltimore Colts
1) 1968 New York Jets

If you ask me, given Paul Brown's many innovations (from what I can tell, he's credited with the draw play, the first playbook, the first practice squad, the first coaching staff, and several other football innovations), I think his first pro team, the 1946 Cleveland Browns, should be very high on that list. It also featured the pro debuts of a handful of Hall of Fame players (Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Bill Willis, and Lou Groza to name four).

Then again, being an AAFC team, the 46 Browns may not have occurred to the SI writers.

[Saban1]

The February edition of Sports Illustrated arrived today, and one of the articles was a list of the 50 most influential NFL teams (single season). I thought the group might be interested in hearing their top 10:

10) 1961 Green Bay Packers
9) 2001 New England Patriots
8) 1946 Los Angeles Rams
7) 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers
6) 1981 San Francisco 49ers
5) 1985 Chicago Bears
4) 1950 Cleveland Browns
3) 1972 Miami Dolphins
2) 1958 Baltimore Colts
1) 1968 New York Jets

If you ask me, given Paul Brown's many innovations (from what I can tell, he's credited with the draw play, the first playbook, the first practice squad, the first coaching staff, and several other football innovations), I think his first pro team, the 1946 Cleveland Browns, should be very high on that list. It also featured the pro debuts of a handful of Hall of Fame players (Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Bill Willis, and Lou Groza to name four).

Then again, being an AAFC team, the 46 Browns may not have occurred to the SI writers.

I agree!