Seattle wins with a bullet!

The Big Game has been played and it is that time of year again when I update my All-Time-Greatest list.  Fans of the Sagittarius Project will recognize this annual posting from years back, which I also added to my notes page last year.  I will cross post to the blogspot list so that non-friends can read it as well, although I suspect more hits here (even without a hit counter).

Annual readers know that to determine greatness, I add trophies - Super Bowl, NFC, NFL, AFC and AFL.  I do not count non-title game wins, such as division championships and pre-NFL league championships, including those won by the Packers and others before there was a Title Game.  If I were to count the old victories, I would also have to count equivalent wins - which would be division championships.  That would be quite a job because my spreadsheet contains annual rankings, allowing me to track a team's position over time.  Even excluding early non-title game wins, Green Bay was an early leader, who then ebbed and regrouped in the 1960s, ebbing again until  recently.  Their  last Super Bowl has them firmly in place in the top spot with 15 wins and nothing that happened this year changed that. Likewise, Pittsburgh (14), Dallas (13) and the Giants (12) remain unmoved at the top.  San Francisco, even though they lost the NFC Championship, is firmly in 5th place all time with 11 trophies.  For quite a few years, they were tied with Washington, who remains in 6th with 10.  Washington was tied with New England, put New England's loss gives them one more loss than Washington has, so New England goes to 7th.  By winning the AFC title game, Denver moved to eighth and by losing the Big Game, they form a tie with Chicago both teams having records of 9 wins and 7 losses.  Indianapolis is 10th - and last year  they were tied with Denver until Denver moved forward this year.  Win with Manning - slide without Manning.  Even in defeat, he is the most significant player of our time.

So what about Seattle?  They were 28th last year.  They are now 21st, going from 1 and 2 to 3 and 2.  While they still have a long way to go to threaten Green Bay's All-Time record, a seven position rise must be considered impressive.  Here is the table to illustrate the point:

Over the last few years, I added a table that assumed it was more important to be in a championship game than to win won when defining All-Time-Greatness.  While I don't believe that, fans of the New York Giants might, given their long string of appearances in Championship games over time.  Dallas is also a major player in that ranking system.   (both have 24 appearances in championship games.  Pittsburgh has 23 while Green Bay and as of this year, San Francisco, have 21 and share 4th place.  Oakland has been 6th while Washington and New England were tied for 7th - a tie broken this year with New England's championship appearance - sliding Washington to 8th.  I now count St. Louis tied with Washington.  I had not before because I was breaking ties with the number of wins.  This year I removed the tie breaker.  Denver follows Washington and St. Louis at 10th.  Seattle is still moving fast in such a ranking - although it serves Denver this year more than Seattle because they started higher, moving from 29th (almost the basement) to 24th.  This ranking is added below: