Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/rambl ... heartbreak

Recently, Football Outsiders did a series dealing with heartbreak dynasties. This link has the top 5 and links to the rest of the series.

Interesting article but I dont believe the Rams should have been ranked so high because they simply didnt have a QB after Gabriel. The Broncos, Vikings, Bills and Eagles did. I can understand the Vikings being rated on top but I believe the Bills should be right there with them. Tarkenton was rightly a HOF QB but teams knew his arm was average and game planned around it. Kelly had a great arm but played poorly in the SBs and they lost four straight. I still maintain though, that if Levy could make the HOF as coach, so should Dan Reeves, who lost three SBs in four seasons, even with Elway at the helm.

Brian wolf wrote: I still maintain though, that if Levy could make the HOF as coach, so should Dan Reeves, who lost three SBs in four seasons, even with Elway at the helm.

Those Bills teams though in my opinion were far better than those '80's Bronco teams. Those Bills teams were some legit Super Bowl teams but just had the misfortune in the Super Bowl of running into teams from arguably the toughest division since the merger (early '90's NFC East) who had built themselves up to compete against one another.

Brian wolf wrote:Interesting article but I dont believe the Rams should have been ranked so high because they simply didnt have a QB after Gabriel. The Broncos, Vikings, Bills and Eagles did. I can understand the Vikings being rated on top but I believe the Bills should be right there with them. Tarkenton was rightly a HOF QB but teams knew his arm was average and game planned around it. Kelly had a great arm but played poorly in the SBs and they lost four straight. I still maintain though, that if Levy could make the HOF as coach, so should Dan Reeves, who lost three SBs in four seasons, even with Elway at the helm.

They lost four straight? Who knew?

Sorry Jeffrey ... Lets get your take. Do you believe Dan Reeves deserves to be in the HOF, despite the SB blowouts ? Unlike Levy, he took multiple teams to the SB ...

Brian wolf wrote:Sorry Jeffrey ... Lets get your take. Do you believe Dan Reeves deserves to be in the HOF, despite the SB blowouts ? Unlike Levy, he took multiple teams to the SB ...

I'll take a stab at this. During his time at Denver it's hard to say if it was him who was most responsible for the teams success or was it John Elway (and the teams roster overall was pretty average). With the Giants he had just as many losing seasons as he did winning seasons and he was fired after only four seasons. Likewise with Atlanta while he did have that one year in '98 overall though he had five losing seasons vs two winning seasons.

Take Elway off that Broncos team and he may have been viewed as a head coach that was at best average.

On the other hand, Reeves almost beat Levy in the AFC Championship Game in Buffalo with Kubiak at QB. Fumble at the end and 3 Treadwell missed field goals sent Denver home. Personally, I love both Reeves and Levy. Both class acts and both deserving of HOF, IMO.

I usually just accept the "suspension of disbelief" required by Football Outsiders' historical opinions, but this is one of the the strangest articles I have ever seen. Let's start with the basic premise of the article....'teams that consistently came up short'...cool! You don't need an ivy league education to understand that! As Jeffrey Miller said...the Bills lost 4 straight Super Bowls! No one has realized this until now. OK, lets take a look at the article...so, it's titled "Dynasties of Heartbreak". What?! Does anyone really consider the 1973-1996 Broncos to be a dynasty? And is it really a heartbreak to lose Super Bowls by 20-30-40 points?

John Ralston earned "heartbreak points" despite the fact he never coached in a postseason game. Chip Kelly was part of the Philadelphia Eagles "dynasty". I don't know how to comprehend this manipulation of history. Yeah, the Bills and Vikings lost 4 Super Bowls with a lot of the same players on all 4 teams. The Broncos lost 3 Super Bowls with a lot of the same players, and another Super Bowl in the 70's that is somehow connected as part of the 'dynasty' via this article. Glad Football Outsiders is around to enlighten us. To me, the Rams are the most interesting team because they were consistently good for a long period of time, yet would choke immediately in the playoffs. I think people tend to overlook them historically, and that's why IMO it took so long for Jack Youngblood to make the HOF and why Harold Jackson hasn't gotten within sniffing distance. The Eagles are also interesting because they were home favorites in two straight NFC Championship games and Donovan McNabb played abysmally in both. They finally broke through and lost to the Pats in the Super Bowl (McNabb Vomit Game), yet for the next 10 years of their alleged "dynasty", they would make the NFC Championship only one more time and would miss the postseason 50% of the time.

Absolute nonsense.

Reeves coached three teams and had losing records with two of them.

In 23 seasons, he averaged about 8.5 wins and 7.5 losses a season.

Doesn't look like an HOF resume to me.

rhickok1109 wrote:Reeves coached three teams and had losing records with two of them.

In 23 seasons, he averaged about 8.5 wins and 7.5 losses a season.

Doesn't look like an HOF resume to me.

He also rode a HOF QB to three SB's with an antiquated offensive system and average talent (which Reeves really didn't try to upgrade. When Wade got in, he upgraded the talent right away, and it put the Broncos on a path to two SB wins, one of which was against Reeves).