Friday, February 11, 2011

The Football Top 10 All Time

Last weekend, I learned that Green Bay had more championships than I thought. From 1921 through 1933, the championship was awarded to the team with the best win-loss record. There were no playoffs, as the entire league was the size of a large division in baseball.

Should these champions ships count? Of course they do - however they should not be considered the equivalent of winning a Super Bowl in my view. You are, of course, free to think differently. My entire point in doing this list year after year is that everyone is free to conclude what all-time greatness means. There is no one answer to this question. Certainly the League's view that statistical championship percentage is more important than the absolute number of championships lacks common sense, which opens the door for better measures.

If the pre-1933 championships were counted, then all Division titles should also go into final rankings, since they are equivalent. I will leave that calculation to someone with better automated data, especially if it includes, as mine does, a flow of rankings throughout the years. As far as doing it manually, even I am not that OCD.

Without further ado, here is this year's top 10. Since I am feeling less OCD, I will only include rankings by number of trophies.