Tuesday, December 23, 2008

NFL Play-Offs

This is the last week of the NFL season and the final teams to qualify for the play-offs will become known. Get ready for a lot of bellyaching by some 10-6 or 9-7 teams that fail to qualify. But if you want to see what it really feels like to deserve to be in the play-offs and not make it, take a look at the following link: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1967/

The 1967 Baltimore Colts only lost one game all year and tied for the best record overall in the NFL that season and yet did not make the play-offs. The lost out on a tiebreaker to their Coastal Division rivals, the Los Angeles Rams (for whom their franchise would one day be traded), coached by George Allen.

The following year, the 1968 Colts would again only lose one game, going 13-1 but would get upset by the New York Jets and former Colts coach Weeb Ewbank. Thus, over the course of the two years, the Colts would go 24-2-2 and yet not garner the Super Bowl title.

A slightly less accomplished 1970 Colts team, in its first year in the newly-formed AFC would go on to take the prize, however, showing how so much in sports involves simple good fortune and being in the right place at the right time.

This last really great series of Baltimore Colts teams went 43-8-4 over the course of four season and played in two Super Bowls, winning one and fully deserves to be considered one of the most accomplished teams of all time.