Girod Street End Zone

Claude Coupee
Lead Correspondent

Like any good Saints fan, I have spent the wonderful weeks since the Super Bowl doing what I was supposed to:  periodically checking popular websites like ESPN and www.nfl.com to make sure nobody had changed the score of the game.

To make sure that Steve Bartkowski hadn’t snuck in to throw one last pass, or Mike Lansford hadn’t maybe kicked an extra field goal, or Jerry Rice hadn’t scored a touchdown at our five-yard line, or Eric Allen hadn’t stopped by to take just one more back to the house, or Mike Ditka hadn’t come around to help us redo the 2006 draft.

No, not this time. 

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So then the thought comes, they can’t really take it away from us, but can they steal the dignity?  The fun?  The perfection of joie?   Can they somehow minimize the triumph, put an asterisk on it, like Ford Frick did or Tex Schramm (f*** that guy) wanted to?

Sort of like the devil in Milton’s Paradise Lost, maybe you can’t kill God, but nobody says you can’t try to poison his dog?

Even though I’ve yet to see even one meaningful instance of anyone trying to limit the triumph with “The fix was in for Katrina” or “This is just more Obama socialism”, I’m still a proud Saints fan, and I can take nothing for granted.  The only way I knew to sooth the raging turmoil in my fan-brain that doesn’t involve a BAC at the “massive organ failure” level was to look for myself at how the 2009 Saints team stacks up against the Super Bowl winners for the last 10 years, and now we share it with you.

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There are other websites, such as www.footballoutsiders.com or www.pro-football-reference.com, with far better algorithms (and twenty-somethings with a lot more free time on their hands) that do these massive Godzilla vs. Mothra computations on whether the 1996 Packers would have beaten the 1925 Pottsville Maroons, etc., etc., presumably using all kinds of factoring techniques that can create a reasonable apples-to-apples comparison of teams from different years, if not eras.

Our approach wasn’t the “Which one of the last 10 Super Bowl winners was the ’best team’”, since that doesn’t necessarily allow for matchup issues in a head-to-head competition, and lots of other factors.  We used a little more of a “What kind of season did you have, start to finish through winning the Lombardi?” test, looking at a number of different factors of regular season and post-season  success:

1.  Overall record (sort of obvious)
2.  Offensive rankings in the league that season (just how dominant were you on offense)
3.  Defensive rankings in the league that season (see no.2)
4.  Point differential (scored over allowed) (were you strong statistically but weak in the clutch, or vice versa?  Strong in both?)
5.  Length of longest winning streak (did you just rule?)
6.  Conference seeding in the playoffs
7.  Strength of playoff opponents, based on the potential seeds you would have played if there had been no upsets:  did you play the hardest playoff opponents you could, or did some high seeds get knocked off and ease your path? (example, the Saints played the NFC 4 seed, the NFC 2 seed, and the AFC 1 seed, the highest seeds they could have theoretically played, so that grade was 0, while the 2003 Patriots, a no. 1 seed, played a 5 seed instead of a 4 seed, then a 3 seed instead of a 2 seed, and the NFC no. 3 seed instead of the no. 1, so that grade was 4; the lower grade score, the tougher playoff schedule you played)
8.  Winning margin in Super Bowl (again, did you rule when it counted?)

While some of these obviously have some overlap/redundancy, the overlap also rewards across-the-board greatness.  If you were 13-3 in a year where that was tough to come by, and you also had a no. 1 seed, that’s great.  If you were 13-3 in a year where other teams were going 15-1 and 14-2, not so much, and your lower score in the “playoff seed” category will reflect it.

We then laid all the results out in a grid, and ranked the last 10 Super Bowl winners 1-10 in each category.   For instance, in regular point differential, the best among the winners was the 2004 Pats, at plus 177, so they got a score of 1 for that category, the next best was the 2009 Saints at plus 169, so they got a 2, the next was the 2000 Ravens at plus 168, so they got a 3, etc., and the worst was the 2007 Giants at only plus 22 for the season, so they got a 10 for that category.  Ties in a category, we split the points:  four Super Bowl winners went 12-4 in that year, which would have been spots four through seven, so they each got scores of 5.5 for that category.  We then added up each team’s ranking score for all eight categories, lowest aggregate point score wins.

Saving the suspense, here are the results:

2009 Saints, 26 points
2000 Ravens, 33 points
2004 Patriots, 36 points
2003 Patriots, 41 points
2002 Bucs, 43.5 points
2005 Steelers, 46 points
2006 Colts, 48.5 points
2008 Steelers, 52 points
2001 Patriots, 54 points
2007 Giants, 60 points

For those so inclined, we have some notes on each category at the end of the post; we just didn’t have the patience or the technical skill to include the entire grid table.

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What does this all prove?  Why, of course, nothing.

But it does indicate that, if anybody tries to tell you that this team wasn’t a deserving Super Bowl champion, or didn’t put together one of the elite season-long performances of the last decade, you can safely tuck them into your “idiot” category and move on.

Look, we were as surprised as anybody, but that’s how the scores came out.   Maybe these past great teams increase in our memories over time, and that skews the impression of our off-the-cuff comparisons.

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I am sure you can quibble with the methodology:  Were these the right categories?  Were their better ones that were omitted, in favor of some included overlaps?  Was, for instance, ”Super Bowl victory margin” overweighted, since it counted as much as “point differential for the whole season”?   Here are some general responses:

–  To the extent you’re worried we created something skewed to the Saints particular type of season arc, we created the system, and picked the categories, before we even started looking at data.  There may have been a bias in including “winning streak” knowing in the back of my head that the Saints opened 13-0, but it’s a factor, and would have richly rewarded the 2007 Pats or the 2004 Eagles if they had won those Super Bowls. 

–  We really tried to balance regular season vs. post-season weighting, but remembering that what’s crucial is how you close out in the playoffs, which is why “playoff road” and “big game finish” were 25% of it.

–  Sure, question all you want, and keep re-running the numbers with slightly different categories here and there, but even if the Saints don’t finish on top, they’ll be up there, and where they are here makes sense.  Including non-SB winners like the fabulous 2007 Patriots, who were probably the best team of the decade, the 2009 Saints had the fourth or fifth longest winning streak of the decade, one of the best point differentials of the decade, had the best record in the NFC and beat a no. 1 AFC seed by two touchdowns in a decade marked by close Super Bowls?  How much better a season can you have?

– We actually think the whole thing holds up pretty well, in that the decade’s more memorable teams were the 2003-2004 Pats and the crazy-dominant defense of the 2000 Ravens.  I’m not sure if the 2009 Saints beat any of those teams head-to-head, but on the other hand, the teams on the bottom end, well, weren’t the 2001 Pats the team that all the stars, and the Tuck Rule, aligned for?  Aren’t the 2007 Giants remembered more as a club that got hot at the right time and sprang the huge upset?  Do either of those Steeler teams stand out for anything, other than taking advantage of a down year in the NFC in 2005, and all the high AFC seeds getting knocked off for them in 2008?  Given the year we just saw, which end of the spectrum properly houses the 2009 Saints?

The bottom line is that you now have more than your heart and your gut to confirm that the 2009 Saints were one of the great teams of the last decade, and that you should enjoy this knowledge with continued satisfaction and confidence.   Now crack open a beer and enjoy re-watching Porter’s interception return just one more time.

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If you’re wondering if the 2009 Saints are more Tommy Tutone and Zager & Evans than U2 or The Rolling Stones, we’re working on more as regards the Saints chances of sustaining success over the next few years, but that’s enough for today, and we’ll need something to kill time with during OTA’s and minicamps.

Also, given that we really follow the NFL and not all that much college football, we’ll have a little something to say about the draft before and after Thursday, but like the teams themselves, you’re sort of on your own to guess that one out this year.

Although, in Our Year of Firsts, I am going to have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of  “…and with the 32nd pick of the NFL draft, the Saints select…”

GO SAINTS GO!

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Category notes:

1.  Overall record:  The 2003 and 2004 Pats were tops at 14-2, the Saints next at 13-3.  The 2007 Giants were worst at 10-6.
2.  Offensive rankings in the league that season: Only the Saints had the no. 1 offense, and only three of the 10 teams (Saints, 2006 Colts and 2004 Pats) finished in the top 10 in offense that year.
3.  Defensive rankings in the league that season:  The Saints had the worst defense.  Oddly, the 2002 Bucs and the 2008 Steelers finished no. 1 that season in defense, while the awesome 2000 Ravens defense was only second that year (to the Titans, IIRC) overall, so they only got a 3 score instead of a 1 score in that category.
4.  Point differential:  The 2004 Pats were first at 177, with the Saints second at 169.  The only three teams below 100 were the 2001 Pats (plus 99), the 2006 Colts (plus 67, despite a 12-4 record that only got them a 3 seed that year) and the 2007 Giants (plus 22; that the Giants so obviously brought up the rear, really lets you know what a huge upset that Super Bowl was.)
5.  Length of longest winning streak:  The Pats won their last 15 games in 2004; what lowered their overall score that year was a relatively easy playoff slate (5 seed, 3 seed, 3 seed) and only a three-point victory in the Super Bowl against the Panthers.  I broke a couple of ties on the basis of two six-game winning streaks rather than one, and the fact that one nine-game streak ran through the end of the season while the other one didn’t.  The 2002 Bucs never won more than five games in a row.
6.  Conference seeding in the playoffs.  Only the Saints and the 2003 Pats were Super Bowl-winning no. 1 seeds. There were two no. 1′s, four no. 2′s, and one each of the rest.
7.  Strength of playoff opponents:  Six teams actually had to run the maximum strength table to get in.  The 2006 Colts (a 3 seed playing a 6, a 2, a 4 and a 1), the 2008 Steelers (a 2 seed playing a 4, a 6 and a 4) and the aforementioned 2003 Pats had reasonably easier roads.
8.  Winning margin in Super Bowl: Four teams won by three points, and only the 2002 Bucs and 2000 Ravens enjoyed sizeable blowouts, for which they were rewarded under the system.  Say what you will about how we were up only seven with four minutes to go and the Colts driving, but a 14-point margin is, well, a 14-point margin, and is there any doubt who controlled that game for the last three periods?

Also a couple of thoughts on those great Pats teams:  a lack of statistical dominance on either offense or defense during the regular seasons took off some of the luster, and an easy playoff road in 2003 and a three-point Super Bowl win in a very ragged game against an Eagles team that just wasn’t up to the bright lights in 2004 also took some of the edge of the greatness.   Again, I am not saying the 2009 Saints were a better team….but you have to work more than a little bit before declaring even the 2003 or 2004 Pats as vastly superior to us, too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 18th, 2010 at 10:47 am and is filed under The New Orleans Saints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.