Blast From the Past

Reading Sports Guy's column from yesterday, this quote really stood out:

Barring injuries, it's going to be an enormous, enormous deal if somebody beats New England this season. That's the sign of a truly great team, regardless of the sport. During my sophomore year in college, I remember watching the '89 Niners and thinking, "There's no way in hell they can be beaten. You'd need about 35 things to happen." As it turned out, they outscored their opponents by a 442-253 margin in the regular season, lost two games by a total of five points and rolled through their three playoff opponents by the unfathomable score of 126-26. Yeah, the '92 Cowboys were great; so were the '94 Niners and the '98 Broncos. But the '89 Niners were on a different level, and we haven't seen anything like it since. Now we're seeing it again.

So I looked up that 1989 team's stats. Even though I was only 8 years old, I remember realizing there was something different about that team. There was a swagger to them that no team has had since. Until this Pats team. Any opposition team is just glad to even be within striking distance going into the 4th quarter...then promptly gives way to a tidal wave of talent, the way the Cowboys rolled over on Sunday. The only games that won't be blowouts are their road date with the Colts and home game against the Steelers. Other than that, look out. This is greatness.

Also Nolan and Hostler may want to rethink their run-run-pass-punt game plan based on the 1989 49ers', especially this little eye-opener:

Like many other dominant teams, and contrary to the "accepted" notion of how football games are won, the 49ers excelled in throwing the ball and in pass defense. San Francisco averaged an amazing 9.49 yards per pass attempt, more than two yards better than the league average and more than a yard better than the next best team...Want to be surprised again? This number, the difference in yards per pass attempt, correlates better with winning percentage than any other single statistic – better than turnovers, yards rushing or anything else you can name.

Time to upgrade that receiving corps. Now.