THE GREATEST DYNASTY
Patriots led by Belichick, Brady are the most dominant professional sports team in history
The New England Patriots earned their sixth Super Bowl ring in 18 seasons on Feb. 3, extending a brilliant run that started in 2001 with coach Bill Belichick and Tom Brady as the team’s starting quarterback. To be this good for this long in a league with a salary cap is a titanic accomplishment, one that certainly warrants the use of the word “dynasty.”
It’s also appropriate to call the Belichick/Brady era one of the best sports dynasties of all time, regardless of league. Perhaps even the best once you account for league size and parity, though there is some very stiff competition for that spot from the likes of the New York Yankees, Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, as well as a few candidates from the NHL such as Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers. But once you account for how difficult it is to win multiple Super Bowls over almost two decades, and how integral Belichick and Brady were to the entire run, the parity of the NFL, its 53-man rosters and salary cap limiting the amount of talent any one team can keep from year to year, it’s clear the hyperbole surrounding the Patriots dynasty is warranted.
The easiest, and most fair, way to compare the title chances of teams in each of the four major pro sports — NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB — is to see how likely a random team in that league is to win a championship. Such a comparison accounts for the number of teams in that league at a given time, as well as the league’s playoff format. For example, in 1953, an NHL team had a 67 per cent baseline chance at making the playoffs and from there a 25 per cent chance of hoisting the Stanley Cup, equating to odds of 5 to 1. In 2001, the NFL, by comparison, saw 12 of their 31 teams (39 per cent) qualify for the playoffs, with one of those 12 winning it all (31 to 1). We can then use that to estimate the odds of winning a certain number of titles over a span of years. Obviously there are times when some squads are more dominant than others (such as the Golden State Warriors), which would skew those odds, but overall we can get a good sense of how difficult it is to be the last team standing time after time after time.
From this analysis, the odds of the Patriots carving out this dy- nasty, with six Super Bowl rings since 2001, are 71,000-to-1. That is staggeringly high. Heck, your odds of being injured by a toilet are approximately 10,000-to-1. A 71,000-to-1 unlikelihood makes the Patriots’ dynasty easily the most impressive achievement in NFL history. It is not, however, the least likely performance across the pro sports world ... until you add some context.
NFL
1991-97 Dallas Cowboys: three titles in seven years, 700-to-1 1981-89 San Francisco 49ers: four titles in nine years, 5,000-to-1 1974-79 Pittsburgh Steelers: four titles in six years, 38,000-to-1 Let’s start in the NFL. There are a few dynasties worth exploring as challengers to the crown but the two to focus on are the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1974 to 1979 and the San Francisco 49ers from 1981 to 1989.
The Steelers hoisted four Lombardi Trophies in a six-year span, the only NFL team in history to win four Super Bowl titles in six years. The 49ers won four Super Bowl championships in the 1980s (1981, 1984, 1988 and 1989) and had the most wins of any NFL team in that decade with 104. But the Belichick/Brady Patriots won three titles in four years from 2001 to 2004 and won three rings in five years from 2014 to 2018, making their sustained success longer and more impressive, especially in light of the presence of a salary cap, which wasn’t introduced to the NFL until 1994.
NHL
1965-71 Montreal Canadiens: five titles in seven years, 200-to-1 1953-60 Montreal Canadiens: six titles in eight years, 900-to-1 1976-79 Montreal Canadiens: four titles in four years, 21,000-to-1 1980-83 New York Islanders: four titles in four years, 160,000-to-1 1984-90 Edmonton Oilers: five titles in seven years, 170,000-to-1 In addition to the Canadiens’ run from 1953 to 1960, they also torched the league from 1965 to 1971 (five Cups in seven years, 200to-1 odds) and again from 1976 to 1979 (four straight championships, 21,000-to-1 odds) yet all three of those, while long shots, were easier to conceive than the Patriots’ string of Super Bowl wins given the surrounding conditions.
The Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers (1984 to 1990), win- ners of five Cups in seven years ( 170,000- to-1), do look better in comparison to the Belichick/ Brady era, as does the Mike Bossyled Islanders dynasty from 1980 to 1983 (four straight, 160,000-to-1). However, remember those are just the objective odds of any NHL team achieving what the Oilers or Islanders did during those runs. There is one bit of surrounding context that mutes those achievements (relative to the most elite sports teams ever) compared to the Patriots, though we start to get a bit subjective. Gretzky was by far the best player in the world during that span, scoring 1,065 points with the next best scorer, Mario Lemieux, more than 200 points behind him (838). And he was joined by Hall of Famers Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and Grant Fuhr. That team could be assembled in part because there was no salary cap in the NHL until 2005. Bossy’s Islanders also included four other Hall of Famers: Bryan Trottier, Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies and Billy Smith.
By comparison, Brady hasn’t really held that kind of company. Fun exercise: Can you name any surefire Hall of Famers on the Patriots’ title-winning teams (so, no Randy Moss) beyond Adam Vinatieri and one year of Darrelle Revis?
MLB
1936-39 New York Yankees: four titles in four years, 50,000-to-1 1996-2000 New York Yankees: four titles in five years, 145,000-to-1 1949-53 New York Yankees: five titles in five years, 800,000-to-1 The New York Yankees, as a franchise, might have no peer. Over the course of 116 seasons, the Yankees have won 27 World Series titles, 40 pennants and produced 54 playoff appearances. Along the way, they’ve enjoyed several different dynastic periods (and benefited from the lack of a salary cap).
The size of the competitive field improved the odds of the older Yankee dynasties. New York’s four-year run from 1936 to 1939 and five-year run from 1949 to 1953 were certainly prolific, resulting in nine championships combined. And despite the fact there were only 16 teams in the majors back then and the only post-season opportunity a bestof-seven series in the World Series, it is still very hard to win five titles in five years.
The teams led by shortstop Derek Jeter and unanimous Hall of Fame inductee Mariano Rivera, however, are worthy of inclusion at the top of any sports dynasty list: four titles in five years from 19962000 is almost twice as unlikely to what we’ve seen from the Patriots, and the Bronx Bombers did it in a time when there were 28 or 30 teams in the league. Impressive. If you’re arguing in favour of the Patriots though, you’re pointing to the Yankees’ payroll and the lack of a salary cap.
NBA
1999-08 San Antonio Spurs: four titles in 10 years, 4,000-to-1 1980-88 Los Angeles Lakers: five titles in nine years, 40,000-to-1 2000-10 Los Angeles Lakers: five titles in 11 years, 55,000-to-1 1956-69 Boston Celtics: 11 titles (!) in 14 years, 8.8 million-to-1 And one more ...
Like any NBA dynasty the number of players on the court, compared to players on a football field, makes the odds a little more favourable than the baseline odds we’ve listed above. And having one of the best players on your team tilts the odds even more in your favour. Look no further than LeBron James, whose teams have appeared in the NBA Finals every year from 2011 to 2018. James led the league in total wins above replacement in that span during the regular season (171) and took things to a new level during the playoffs (62); Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors rank second and third with 26 and 22 post-season wins above replacement, respectively, during that run.
Couple a dominant player with fewer teams to contend with and it’s a bit easier to establish a dynasty, such as the 14-year stretch from 1956 to 1969 when Russell’s Celtics reigned supreme. That said, Russell and the Celtics aren’t even the most impressive NBA dynasty we’ve ever seen.
1991-98 Chicago Bulls: six titles in eight years, including two threepeats, 18.5 million-to-1 Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls are the sports dynasty gold standard. The Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons with two three-peats (1991 to 1993 and 1996 to 1998), including a then-best 72-10 record during the 1995-96 season; the Warriors won 73 games in 2015-16. Jordan would also be named league MVP four times and Finals MVP all six times — and that doesn’t include six all-NBA and all-defensive first team honours. That entire eightyear run by Chicago would carry odds of almost 18.5 million-to-1 for an average NBA team.
So, do the Patriots stack up to those teams with worse odds of accomplishing their dynastic achievements? Here’s the twist that makes the Patriots the top sports dynasty in my eyes. Belichick and Brady could argue that repeating as NFL champions is much harder than it is in the NBA, especially for a dominating team such as the Bulls.
The Patriots’ total dynasty from 2001 to today could certainly be argued as the best we’ve ever seen among the four top North American sports leagues. And if you want to throw in a kicker, consider you are more likely to be struck dead by a meteorite, asteroid, or comet while reading this article than you are seeing another run like the one being produced by Belichick, Brady and the Patriots in your lifetime.
If that isn’t enough to be labelled as the best dynasty in sports I don’t know what is.
The Patriots’ total dynasty from 2001 to today could certainly be argued as the best we’ve ever seen among the four top North American sports leagues.