Superbowls are won by elite QBs and/or all time great defenses. Parity is a theory that doesn't account for inherent problem of one position being so important.
This is very true and the most frustrating thing about the NFL, the way that a single player/draft pick pretty much makes or breaks or the franchise (and there is pretty much no way to just go out and get a good QB, you have to be lucky).
the Giants being underdogs in the Super Bowl doesn't dispute or support that statement whatsoever. he was suggesting that parity doesn't truly exist in the NFL, and as a result the same teams consistently win the Super Bowl. an underdog winning the Super Bowl has nothing to do with parity as the teams that meet are generally two of the best teams to begin with. of course one is going to be an underdog in every Super Bowl regardless of whether they are evenly matched or not so an underdog winning does not reflect parity either. parity is about the competitiveness overall, not whether one team dominates or one team gets hot. that isn't true at all because parity has nothing to do with just the Super Bowl, it has to do with a level playing field that creates the same dynamics for each team to have to address and overcome to succeed. of course some teams are going to do it better or have better players. that doesn't negate the existence of parity.
Yes and no (IMO) there is parity in that every team has the same opportunity (more or less) to build a good team, but there is a lack of parity in that one position has so much more impact on your team than any other and if you dont have a good QB then there is very little that you can do to achieve parity with the teams that do (other than to draft and pray or be fortunate to score big in FA). with every other position you can work around it or get away with an average player but thats rarely the case with the QB. its not impossible as we and the niners have shown but it is very difficult. you could have $40m in cap space but aside from a freak occurence like this year with peyton its not going to help you get a great QB
I still dont feel Eli is elite, Yeah hes won 2, but lets be real. He shouldnt have won in San Fran, and all he had to do was put up 19 on the Patriots. I saw Rex Grossman drop 37 on the Patriots, does that make him elite to? hell no. The only truly elite QBs are Brees, Peyton, Brady, Rodgers. Roethlisberger and Eli have been carried by their defenses. Eli hasnt been recquired to put up many points in either Super Bowl run, the defense has held Brady, Favre, Rodgers, Romo, Alex Smith, etc all to 20 points or less.
First of all the 2011 Giants were different from the 2007 Giants. Eli is an elite QB, and without him that team is a 7 win squad at best. Both superbowls he led game winning drives. The guy is the best 4th quarter QB in football. Anyways in the above post the following QBs were listed: Brady (01, 03, 04) Ben (05, 08) Peyton (06), Brees (09) Eli (07 and 11) and Rodgers (10). Since 2000, the only two SB winners that didn't have perennial pro bowl QBs had all time great defenses. Unfortunately, at any given time there are only a handful of truly elite QBs on earth, and therefore parity is ruined a bit, despite the salary cap.
The game winning drives were great, but lets be real. Eli should have dropped 30+ on the Patriots defense. Eli only put up 19. I saw Sanchez put up 21, Grossman put up 37, Flacco put up 20. Eli has been helped RIDICOLOUSLY by his defense like it or not. I cant list many QBs that only put up 19 on the Patriots and wins. I think Eli is the only one to do so...which says ALOT about how much help his defense carries him and gives him.
Free agency and the salary cap didn't start until the late 1990s. You can't use the dominating teams from the pre-FA/pre-salary cap era as an argument against the parity that's enforced by the salary cap. FA and the salary cap put a premium on smart personnel management, good talent evaluation, and good coaching. The teams that have been successful in the FA/salary cap era have been those that have done those three things well. The teams that have sucked in the FA/salary cap era have been those that have done those things poorly.
Again this idea of good coaching personnel management salary cap yes they matter. Typically the teams who do well in those areas are consistently competitive (Jets, Ravens, Eagles, Bears, Falcons, Cowboys).....but bc of the salary cap, at the end of the day the elite QBs are what get you to superbowls and win them. It is such a wide advantage to have an elite QB that you can have teams who build horrible foundations, like Indy, and who got by with terrible coaching/scheming, but it didn't matter. Green Bay and New England are abominations on defense, truly awful. But it's rendered moot bc of the QBs. Here's the reality for you Bills fan, and for us as Jets fans. Unless Fitzpatrick and Sanchez become league leading QBs, OR their defenses are built to once a decade level, they will not win a Super Bowl.
Parity presents the opportunity to be good, but championships are won by those not satisfied with just being good.
All I have to say is... NBA=Broken System. and The Texans always could've tagged him. No other sport allows you to force a player to stay with your team (albeit at a very high cost).
The Texans have a solid team with many good free agents. They lost a very good starting right tackle and would have no way of keeping their stud center if they tagged Williams (they also would have paid $9 mil per year above the market value paid by the Bills). They have many mouths to feed in the near future (Schaub, Cushing, A. Johnson, etc.).
This is exactly why the NFL went the route of free agency. With the old system, teams could build dynasties more easily. Free agency was meant to spread the talent pool to a greater number of teams. I'm in my late 30s and remember when the same teams were dominant year after year, and the teams at the bottom of the pile had little chance to climb up. What they didn't know then that they know now is the importance of the quarterback position. I heard an interesting "stat" around the Super Bowl (not really a stat)... the last AFC quarterback to play in the Super Bowl who was NOT Brady, Manning, or Roethlisberger was Rich Gannon after the '02 season. That's nine years! Other than that though, I would say that the NFL is a more even playing field than it's ever been.
