Month: February 2015

  • The Greatest NFL Teams – The Salary Cap Era

    In 1994, the NFL implemented the salary cap, making it far more difficult for teams to stockpile talent in backup positions. Some say the 49ers’ dynasty, with Steve Young backing up Joe Montana as Montana advanced in age was a big motivator in getting the cap approved. It definitely changed the game. Only two teams […]

  • The Greatest NFL Teams – The Modern Age

    In 1978, the modern age in the NFL began as the contact rule and blocking rules were modified to open up the passing game. This allowed receivers to use the middle of the field. The NFL also went to a 16-game schedule. I find it difficult to make comparisons of teams or even players before […]

  • The Greatest NFL Teams – Age of Expansion

    The AFL arrived in 1960, and professional football was never the same. Within a year, every team was playing a 14-game schedule. The Super Bowl began in 1967. The leagues merged in 1970. Before the AFL there were 12 professional teams. By the end of the ’60s, there were 26. The Age of Expansion ran […]

  • The Greatest NFL Teams – The Formative Years

    With major rules changes coming every few years and the financial strength of each franchise being very different, I wouldn’t argue that any teams from this era deserve to be in the “best-ever” category. But they should be recognized. This era began with the debut of the NFL draft in 1936 and ended with the […]

  • The Greatest NFL Teams, Part I

    In order to determine the greatest teams in NFL history, I created a season score based on points scored and allowed as well as wins and losses and playoff performance. I divided NFL history into five distinct eras, as follows: I. 1922 – 1935: The Beginning. The NFL was founded in 1922 with 18 teams […]

  • Defense Wins Titles… or does It?

    One of my biggest pet peeves occurs when an NFL announcer states, as if it’s grade-A proven fact, that defense wins titles. It sounds so simple and catchy, yet when we look at how NFL teams behave, they spend as much on defense as they do on offense. They draft offensive players just as highly […]

  • Football Frontier Blog

    Welcome to the Football Frontier Blog. Unfortunately, the old Frontier Blog was lost when our ISP was doing maintenance and deleted the database. While they advertised heavily that they did regular backups of web content, it turns out they don’t. I was able to find some of the old content in web archives, but only […]