This is a strange ranking, one that was spurred by essentially the tear-down of the Harbaugh-revolution San Francisco 49ers - which itself will probably be a separate piece. I was really saddened today by the retirement of both Patrick Willis and Justin Smith, the two key defensive pieces of those 49ers teams, in particular the 2011 49ers, the team that came from nowhere to go 13-3 with the NFC's best defense. I really enjoyed that team a tremendous amount, and it got me thinking which were my favorite individual one-season team's that I enjoyed. I'm not talking about my teams, like the '08 Colts or '12 Broncos, but other teams that I have no distinct fan connection to, but enthralled and engaged me nonetheless.
We'll start with some honorable mentions:
There is another 2008 team on this list, quite a bit further up, but I still have to give a shout-out to the 2008 Steelers, who were a fantastic team that played a 3-4 defense about as well as it can be played. They immediately took pole position in the AFC in 2008 after Brady’s ACL tear and the slow start of the Colts after Manning’s knee procedure late in training camp. Yes, technically the Titans were the wire-to-wire #1 seed, but I think far more people believed in the Steelers. This team mixed absolutely dominant defense, and a clutch offense that was bad enough to play a string of close games, but good enough to win most of them. I’ll remember them for playing the league’s toughest schedule, but generally succeeding in a most workman-like way. In each of the 4-game quarters of the NFL season, they went 3-1. They won two of my favorite non-Colts games of that season, a 20-13 win over the Dallas Cowboys in Pittsburgh, and a 13-9 win over the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore to lock up the AFC North and a 1st round bye. The one difference between this Steelers teams and the others is they could cover really well, as their pass defense wasn’t susceptible to the usual foil of their playing style. The Steelers had such a great swagger that year, with emotionless James Harrison and emoted Troy Polamalu leading the core, but it was also a special year where guys like Aaron Smith, Travis Kirschke and Casey Hampton all stayed healthy all year long. My favorite stat from this team, they never allowed a 100-yard rusher, or a 300-yard passer all regular season long… and offensive levels weren’t that different in 2008. They were the main event in my personal favorite NFL season.
All the notes that rang true for the ’08 Steelers, and ’09 Bengals, and ’13 Panthers, hold true for this team as well. The 49ers weren’t the best defense in the 2011 season, that was Baltimore’s (as seen by Baltimore’s 13-6 win over San Francisco on Thanksgiving), but the 49ers were still excellent on that side of the ball. Patrick Willis and NaVarro Bowman were both amazing, and Justin Tuck was absolutely inhuman that season. The corners and safeties all played up to, if not exceeding, their talent level. The defense hummed all year long. But the real reason I enjoyed this team so much was on the other side of the ball, of how damn creative the 49ers were on offense. Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman took over an offense that had some nice young lineman (Iupati, Staley, Goodwin), and a great, but mercurial TE (Davis), and a flailing QB (Smith), and turned it into an effective throwback offense in the modern times. In the great offensive explosion of 2011 (the year Brees broke Marino’s record the 1st time, and Rodgers set the QB Rating record), the 49ers won 13 games by great defense, but also by perfect execution of a run-based offense. There were counters, and traps, and zones, and all the high-school offensive staples that were thought to have been left behind by the NFL in the 70’s. Smith became a short passer, which worked perfectly, as he had by far the best season of his career. The offense had no reliable WR, but used guys like Delanie Walker and Kendall Hunter in interesting ways. The o-line was the best run-blocking o-line I have seen in my time watching football closely. The 49ers played in few memorable games in the regular season (only two wins really came to mind, the win over the Lions where Jim Schwartz got mad about how hard Jim Harbaugh shook his hand, and the win against the Steelers that featured a blackout in Candlestick), but this was the start of the great 49ers revival. For years Candlestick Park was a desolate, cramped old ground that could barely capture any of the magic of the great 49ers’ dynasty. In 2011, it was still desolate and cramped, but that magic came back in full. The 49ers going 13-3 with the best defense and a creative, flexible offense, was by far the most surprising story of the 2011 season, and one that captivated me even before their legendary pair of playoff games.
We'll start with some honorable mentions:
8.) 2005 Chicago
Bears
The ’05 Bears played 4-3 defense as good as I’ve ever seen.
I don’t remember much about the only team close to them in that regard in
modern times (the ’02 Bucs, who were actually reasonably better than the
Bears), but I do remember the Bears getting a ridiculous slew of takeaways
early in the season, and winning games with no offense at all. They were so
good on defense, that they went 11-5 scoring just 262 points. They had an 8-game
winning streak where QB Kyle Orton, in his rookie season, went 103/195 (52.8%),
for 1034 yards and 7-7 TD-INT, for a QB rating of 65.2. Of course, it helps
when your defense gives up 68 points in those games, comprising half the season.
The season ended woefully as that top ranked defense caved in a terrible
performance against Carolina in the divisional round, but until then they were
a joy to watch on that side of the ball.
7.) 2008 New York
Giants
There’s two ’08 teams that actually made my Top-5, which is
no surprise given my claim that the 2008 NFL season was my favorite regular
season of my lifetime following football. The Giants epitomized what was so fun
about that season: every team had a flaw that kept them from being a great
team. There were a lot of really good teams, and the Giants were one of them,
but they could have been so much more. I liked that Giants team because they
were so good during their 11-1 start that it was almost like they were intent
on proving Super Bowl XLII was not a fluke. Despite losing Michael Strahan to
retirement, and Osi Umenyiora to an ACL tear in the preseason, the defense
continued to play well under Steve Spagnuolo. Spags started blitzing more and
more without his outside guys, and the Giants defense was very strong. The
offense, though, was a machine. Eli Manning played more carefully and
intelligently than ever before, and the running game was amazing. Three backs,
all ended up with 5.0 ypc, including 1,000 yard seasons from both Brandon
Jacobs and Derrick Ward. Of course, then Plaxico Burress shot himself and it
all went to hell. Still, the ’08 Giants proved that the Super Bowl the year
before was slightly less of a fluke, and probably played as good as they ever
have under Coughlin for 12 weeks, captivating me and a country of disbelievers
heading into the season.
6.) 2010 Oakland
Raiders
Technically, the Raiders are one of ‘my teams’, though
basically over time I’ve become estranged from them, my 1st football
wife, now squarely an ex-wife. That’s why I didn’t put the 2002 team on here,
one I followed week-in and week-out. The 2010 Raiders were an
honest-to-goodness good team. The Raiders had just gone 29-83 in the previous 8
seasons, but somehow they went 8-8, and by no fluke either. The season started
badly, but quickly turned after a loss in San Francisco. They next went to Mile
High, to play the McDaniels Broncos, and won 59-14. That is not a misprint.
Darren McFadden was finally healthy and showed the ability that Al Davis
drafted him for. The next week they won 30-3 against Seattle. They entered the
bye a game back after beating KC 23-20 in a well-played game. They ended up
missing the playoffs, but for once provided hope for Raiders fans. They went
6-0 against the AFC West, including beating the Chargers for the first time
since 2003, and then doing it again. In games Jason Campbell started, the team
went 7-5 and pretty much emulated what Al Davis would want his team to be. They
ran it well, threw deep reasonably well (Jacoby Ford played the speedster
role), and rushed the passer with all abandon, picking up 47 sacks. It wasn’t a
great team, but for once it was a squarely above average one; which was damn
exciting for Raider nation.
5.) 2008 Pittsburgh
Steelers
There is another 2008 team on this list, quite a bit further up, but I still have to give a shout-out to the 2008 Steelers, who were a fantastic team that played a 3-4 defense about as well as it can be played. They immediately took pole position in the AFC in 2008 after Brady’s ACL tear and the slow start of the Colts after Manning’s knee procedure late in training camp. Yes, technically the Titans were the wire-to-wire #1 seed, but I think far more people believed in the Steelers. This team mixed absolutely dominant defense, and a clutch offense that was bad enough to play a string of close games, but good enough to win most of them. I’ll remember them for playing the league’s toughest schedule, but generally succeeding in a most workman-like way. In each of the 4-game quarters of the NFL season, they went 3-1. They won two of my favorite non-Colts games of that season, a 20-13 win over the Dallas Cowboys in Pittsburgh, and a 13-9 win over the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore to lock up the AFC North and a 1st round bye. The one difference between this Steelers teams and the others is they could cover really well, as their pass defense wasn’t susceptible to the usual foil of their playing style. The Steelers had such a great swagger that year, with emotionless James Harrison and emoted Troy Polamalu leading the core, but it was also a special year where guys like Aaron Smith, Travis Kirschke and Casey Hampton all stayed healthy all year long. My favorite stat from this team, they never allowed a 100-yard rusher, or a 300-yard passer all regular season long… and offensive levels weren’t that different in 2008. They were the main event in my personal favorite NFL season.
4.) 2009 Cincinnati
Bengals
You’ll notice a trend here that all of my Top-5 teams are
defense-first teams, the type of teams that won a lot of games 20-16. I
generally like that type of football. I have to say it is a bit hypocritical,
since I love teams QBed by Peyton Manning that put up star wars numbers, but
not those QBed by other guys. Anyway, back to these Bengals. The 2009 team
started out innocuously, losing in Week 1 on an 80-yard hail mary to Brandon
Stokley. They then decided to win a whole bunch of well played close games. My
favorite part of the team was how solid but unspectacular they were on defense.
They were really pushed by a bunch of above average players playing really well
in Mike Zimmer’s scheme. Antwan Odom (there’s a blast from the past) led the
team in sacks, though I think 4 of his 8 were against the Packers. The Bengals,
though, fit in against the tough AFC North, sweeping both the Ravens and
Steelers. They beat the Steelers 23-20 and 18-12, and the Ravens 17-14 and
17-7, including a long TD drive to win the first Ravens game. They won a bunch
of these close games against good teams, generally winning in a way very
familiar to, say, the 2003 New England Patriots. Of course, what really
endeared them to me was the way they rallied around tragedy. First was the loss
of Mike Zimmer’s wife, to which they won that game in Baltimore the following
week. Second was the death of Chris Henry. The game right after was one of my
favorite regular season games from 2009 (not involving the Colts), when the 9-4
Bengals went to San Diego to play the 10-3 Chargers. The game was essentially
for the #2 seed (the Patriots were 8-5 at the time). For weeks the Bengals had
been criticized for sputtering on offense, but for once they let Palmer loose,
and he played really well. In San Diego, they played the Chargers to a draw,
before losing 24-27 after a crazy catch and fumble lost them the ball in plus
territory. It was a tough way to lose, but the Bengals won a lot of fans that
day – most notably Chad Ochocinco emotionally dropping to his knees after
catching a long TD pass in honor of Chris Henry, with his face filling up with
tears. The Bengals were not a great team, but they were an incredibly
resourceful one, setting the stage for the 2011-14 run in all reality.
3.) 2013 Carolina
Panthers
It took me a while to warm to the Panthers, but it was their
combination wins over the 49ers and Patriots, both games they were underdogs
in, that put me squarely on their side. I was a fan of their defensive players
long before 2013, and I thought Cam Newton was getting a raw deal early on, but
what bought me was their incredible defensive attitude. In a conventional 4-3,
they played both the conventional notes and some incredible jazz. How else to
explain a team that had two great 3-down linebackers who were simply amazing in
coverage, and a front that could rush 4 with aplomb, but also a team that
blitzed secondary guys so damn much. The 2013 Panthers had 59 sacks, the first
team in 7 years to get that high. Their two main DEs, Greg Hardy and Charles
Johnson, accounted for 26, but after them the next highest was 4 (Thomas
Davis). They had six players get either 3 or 4 sacks, and only two were
lineman, with three of their safeties (Munnerlyn, Mikell, Mitchell). They were
so creative and so overpowering. Just like with the 2008 Steelers and 2009
Bengals, they were involved in my two favorite non-Broncos related games, their
24-20 win over the Patriots on MNF (their real coming out party), and their
17-13 win over the Saints in Week 17 that gave them the NFC South. Both wins
were in Carolina, both involved solid defense (or great defense, in the case of
the New Orleans game), and both involved super clutch Cam Newton-led drives for
TDs late to win. Sure, there was some controversy in the way the Patriots game
ended, but that game itself was fascinating. The Patriots played well, pretty
much as well as they played against the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, given their
lesser talent in 2013, but the Panthers played them really to a draw. They won
because they got one more drive late. Cam was great, Kuechly and Davis were
super human, their secondary was filled with fun guys who blitzed all the time,
Hardy and Johnson were studs, and I had a serious man-crush on Ron Rivera, a
guy who became the delight of all stat-heads for openly admitting that he was going
to be more aggressive on 4th down, a strategy that worked
spectacularly. I tip my hat to the 2013 Carolina Panthers, the most forgotten
great defensive season of the past 10-years, given who ended up winning the
Super Bowl that season.
2.) 2011 San
Francisco 49ers
All the notes that rang true for the ’08 Steelers, and ’09 Bengals, and ’13 Panthers, hold true for this team as well. The 49ers weren’t the best defense in the 2011 season, that was Baltimore’s (as seen by Baltimore’s 13-6 win over San Francisco on Thanksgiving), but the 49ers were still excellent on that side of the ball. Patrick Willis and NaVarro Bowman were both amazing, and Justin Tuck was absolutely inhuman that season. The corners and safeties all played up to, if not exceeding, their talent level. The defense hummed all year long. But the real reason I enjoyed this team so much was on the other side of the ball, of how damn creative the 49ers were on offense. Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman took over an offense that had some nice young lineman (Iupati, Staley, Goodwin), and a great, but mercurial TE (Davis), and a flailing QB (Smith), and turned it into an effective throwback offense in the modern times. In the great offensive explosion of 2011 (the year Brees broke Marino’s record the 1st time, and Rodgers set the QB Rating record), the 49ers won 13 games by great defense, but also by perfect execution of a run-based offense. There were counters, and traps, and zones, and all the high-school offensive staples that were thought to have been left behind by the NFL in the 70’s. Smith became a short passer, which worked perfectly, as he had by far the best season of his career. The offense had no reliable WR, but used guys like Delanie Walker and Kendall Hunter in interesting ways. The o-line was the best run-blocking o-line I have seen in my time watching football closely. The 49ers played in few memorable games in the regular season (only two wins really came to mind, the win over the Lions where Jim Schwartz got mad about how hard Jim Harbaugh shook his hand, and the win against the Steelers that featured a blackout in Candlestick), but this was the start of the great 49ers revival. For years Candlestick Park was a desolate, cramped old ground that could barely capture any of the magic of the great 49ers’ dynasty. In 2011, it was still desolate and cramped, but that magic came back in full. The 49ers going 13-3 with the best defense and a creative, flexible offense, was by far the most surprising story of the 2011 season, and one that captivated me even before their legendary pair of playoff games.
1.) 2008 Baltimore
Ravens
I’ve expressed my love for the 2008 Baltimore Ravens in two
forms. First, as a part of my overall ‘Ode to the Ravens’, and then as a part
of my Ode to the 2008 NFL Season. Let
it not be lost, the 2008 Baltimore Ravens play an integral piece of formulating
my basis as a football fan. I loved football before the 2008 season. I can
remember distinct things from pretty much each season since 2002, with
increasing levels of memory by the time 2006 and 2007 came about. That said, I
didn’t ‘know’ football until really 2008. That was the year I started
commenting at Football Outsiders, or the Colts blog Stampede Blue, or my
personal favorite (now closed) Colts fan blog, 18 to 88. It was a formative
year in developing an interest and a love into a further understanding. During
the 2008 football season I developed a better understanding of the game, on how
offenses played, how defensive schemes worked, of the criticality of certain
defensive positions, and of how important coaching can be. The 2008 Ravens didn’t
teach me all of these things, but they were the fulcrum for it all. The team itself
was imminently likable. Gone was the somewhat-smug-ness of the Brian Billick
Ravens, and in came the joyful enthusiasm of John Harbaugh. Rex Ryan was still
the defensive coordinator, and they brought in Cam Cameron to coach the
offense. The offense itself was given over to a rookie QB in Joe Flacco. 2008
was the first year that rookie QBs really got the reins from day 1 in a while
(Matt Ryan was the other one), and under Flacco the team excelled. Obviously,
like all these other teams, the defense was fantastic. All the stats the ’08 Steelers
finished #1 in, the Ravens basically finished #2 in. They weren’t as dominant
as the 2006 Ravens defense, but they were as exciting. Their best player that
year was Ed Reed, having probably the 2nd best year of his career.
Reed picked off 8 passes, returning two for TDs (including a record 108-yard
return in the game that got Donovan McNabb benched), and returning a fumble for
a TD as well. He was everywhere, as was Terrell Suggs and Bart Scott and Ray
Lewis, and a healthy Haloti Ngata. But much like the ’11 49ers, the Ravens
offense offered a crash-course into play design and utilization of offensive
scheme and talent. Unlike the Ravens offense from 2009-2012, which was pretty
slow, boring and predictable (Ray Rice runs and Joe Flacco throws deep), Cam
Cameron went to work with a rookie Joe Flacco and unleashed some interesting
stuff. The Ravens used 6-OL a lot, the first time I was cognizant of that
happening. They used FB Le’Ron McClain a ton in both the running and receiving
game. They were a fun team to watch on both sides of the ball, and played in
some downright great games, including that 13-9 loss to the Steelers. I don’t
think I’ve ever seen a stadium, a city, a game-day atmosphere more charged than
that for a regular season game. It was perfect, the rebirth of a rivalry, and,
truthfully, a franchise. The Ravens haven’t looked back since, but this current
glory era started in 2008, with a team that captivated me, captivated a whole
football loving country, and showed just how good a defense with a creative
offense can be.
