Will NFC finally end its drought vs. AFC this season?
Fred Goodwin, CMA
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=3124172>
http://tinyurl.com/3a72fw
Friday, November 23, 2007
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
It has been a long, long time since the NFC won the annual
interconference series against its AFC counterparts.
How long? Well, Bill Clinton was still president. Most of the country
was fixated on O.J. Simpson's murder trial. Bosnia was the most
prominent international hot spot. The FBI was still desperately
searching for the Unabomber. Devoted Deadheads were mourning the death
of Jerry Garcia. And pro basketball fans were celebrating the
unretirement of Michael Jordan.
Consumers were still getting accustomed to ordering Christmas presents
online from the year-old Amazon.com and computer hackers were still
three years away from Googling anything. TLC was rhapsodizing about
"Waterfalls" and, on movie screens, loveable but bumbling Forrest Gump
was philosophizing over the meaning of life and chocolates.
The Atlanta Braves, Houston Rockets, New Jersey Devils and, yikes, even
the Nebraska Cornhuskers, were all champions.
Yes, it has been that long, 1995 to be exact, since the NFC won the
interconference series. The NFC topped the AFC in 33 of 60 matchups that
season, with the Dallas Cowboys punctuating the senior conference's
dominance by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17, in Super Bowl
XXX.
Since then, the NFC's less-than-scintillating performance against the
AFC should pretty much be XXX-out.
In the past 11 seasons, the AFC has registered a 370-300-2 record in the
AFC-NFC matchups, and has won the competition every year, except in 2000
and 2001, when the NFC held its own at 30-30 in each of those seasons.
The AFC also has claimed eight of 11 Super Bowl championships, including
the past four titles, and six of the past seven.
"It's obscene, ridiculous, really, that the AFC has owned the series for
so many years," said Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, who has been
around for the entire reign of terror by the junior conference. "It just
shouldn't be that way."
And maybe, at long last, it won't be that way this season -- thanks in
part to Favre and the Packers, who own a 3-0 mark for 2007 against AFC
foes with one interconference game left, a home contest against the
Oakland Raiders on Dec. 9.
Through the Thanksgiving Day games, the NFC surprisingly leads the
interconference series this season by a 24-22 count. And if those two
dozen victories don't seem like all that much, well, consider this: With
18 interconference games still to play, the 24 wins are as many as the
NFC managed in 2006, when the AFC posted a 40-24 record. And they are
nearly as much as the NFC's average of 24.6 wins the past three seasons.
So 24 wins for the NFC at this point of the season is progress of a
sort.
That the NFC has been so thoroughly manhandled for more than a decade
now, with the AFC's superiority reflected in a .557 winning mark, is
both incomprehensible and inexplicable. What it hasn't been is cyclical,
because, in the NFL, such pendulum swings clearly aren't supposed to
last so long.
It's as if the AFC never received the memo about parity.
"It really has been a long time," Indianapolis Colts center Jeff
Saturday said. "And it doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?"
Sensible or not, it's tough to argue with the recent history of the
series, and more difficult yet to pinpoint the differences that have
permitted the AFC to dominate for such an extended stretch.
For much of the time, the AFC has possessed the better quarterbacks and,
seemingly, made better draft choices. And though it has been more than
three decades since the old AFL's wide-open style, with offenses that
threw the ball all over the field and with little regard for game
situation, it seems the AFC has been the more imaginative of the two
conferences.
Many veterans who have played in both conferences say they have
witnessed little difference between the two in terms of overall player
talent. But Denver cornerback Champ Bailey, who played the first five
seasons of his celebrated nine-year career in Washington until he was
dealt to the Broncos in 2004, has noted there is a palpably different
feel between the conferences.
"I don't know if it's just because [the AFC] has been so good for as
long as I've been in the league or whatever, but there is kind of this
sense that it's the better conference," Bailey said. "Even when I was
with the Redskins, you felt that way. It just seems that AFC teams carry
themselves a little different. There's a different air to them or
something. It looks like AFC teams are more confident, especially when
they are playing NFC teams. It's as if there is this superiority
complex."
Bailey is hardly the only player in the league who feels that way. In
fact, several New England veterans, none of whom wanted to be identified
because of obvious consequences, noted that the Patriots' coaching staff
prepares for games against NFC opponents harboring what one player
termed "something bordering on disdain."
Said one New England player: "It's not a lack of respect. It's more
like, 'Hey, [the NFC] just isn't as good as us.' That feeling just
[emanates] from the top on down when we're playing an NFC team. I mean,
doesn't it show?"
The results do.
Since Bill Belichick became its coach in 2000, New England has a 22-8
record versus NFC teams, with a matchup against Philadelphia on Sunday
and the season finale against the New York Giants on Dec. 29 still
remaining.
Even more remarkable is that half of the Patriots' eight defeats to NFC
franchises during the Belichick era came in his first season with the
team, when New England was 0-4 in interconference play and just 5-11
overall. Since that 2000 season, the Patriots have never lost more than
once a season to NFC opponents, and they are 13-1 since the start of the
2004 season.
And that doesn't even include the Pats' three Super Bowl victories.
"They pretty much define what [the AFC] has been about in the series,"
Philadelphia free safety Brian Dawkins said.
To this point of the 2007 season, though, the NFC has ignored the
definition. Or at least two of the conference's four divisions have.
Nine of the 16 NFC franchises, including all four teams in both the NFC
East and NFC North, have winning records in the interconference
competition. There are four NFC teams undefeated against their AFC
counterparts.
In terms of the interconference competition, the NFC certainly is split
into the haves and the have-nots this season. The NFC East and NFC North
have played, respectively, the teams from the AFC East and the AFC West
in 2007, and have amassed a cumulative 18-4 record in those matchups
(the Pats having beaten the Cowboys and Redskins for two of those four
wins). None of the eight teams in those two NFC divisions has more than
one loss in the interconference series.
On the flip side, the NFC South is a woeful 3-11 versus its AFC South
counterparts and all four of its teams have losing records. The NFC West
is 3-7 in games against the AFC North and, of its four teams, just
Arizona (2-1) is on the plus side of the ledger. In fact, Arizona is the
only club in either the NFC South or NFC West with more than one victory
against AFC teams.
Still, the NFC, which has become accustomed to losing the season series,
will take the results of 2007 over those of the previous 11 seasons.
This may well be a serendipitous season, in which the schedule has
unwittingly placed the NFC's best divisions against the worst divisions
in the AFC. But players from the NFC, who have grown weary of losing the
interconference series, didn't make excuses in the past and aren't about
to issue any apologies now.
"Maybe it's time," Dallas tight end Jason Witten said, "for things to
even out some, huh?"
Things are exactly even in the current ESPN.com Power Rankings, with the
NFC sporting five teams among the top 10 and eight in the top half of
the poll. It may be a one-team league right now, with everyone chasing
the Patriots, but at least there are some NFC teams in the chase, and
the conference is finally holding its own in interconference play.
--
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
Lamneth
"Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
lol
steven schindler
"Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
Personally I would just as soon see the Packers go 4-0 and all the rest of
the NFC teams go 0-4 in the regular season. Wouldn't that get Len's goat.
Imagine that a 4-54 record for the AFC every single year against the NFC. I
never understood the "I'll root for anyone in the NFC over the AFC because
that's the Packers conference" I can understand a little bit for the old
timers that might still be holding a grudge against the "upstart young
whippersnappers from that AFL bunch" but hey, lets face it, if you are going
to let that bother you then you must be one heck of an old grouch and no one
wants to watch a football game with you anyway
Someone wasted a hell of a lot of time doing research for this useless
article, and I just wasted a bit more reading and responding to it. I
apologize to anyone reading this for wasting your time as well with my
equally unimportant response.
Cobb
"Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
Lamneth
"Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
I guarantee you even though they won't play each other that the vaunted
Buffalo Bills could give the Packers all they could handle. BTW the Bills
aren't even the 4th best team in the AFC. The NFC may be closing the gap a
little but it's gonna be a half dozen years before they challenge anyone.
John Heim
common. I mean, not any more than the Patriots and Eagles. I think this is
just more evidence that people have an instinctive urge to do a kind of
"them vs us" thing. Anybody who ever gave racism any thought realizes it's
stupid. I guess no matter what you do, people will find some way to have a
"them" and an "us".
"Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
jusford
> "Fred Goodwin, CMA" <fgood...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:gNO1j.46606$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Will NFC finally end its drought vs. AFC this season?
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
All you had to do was read who wrote the article, that was my tip to
move on.
Tarkus
> Someone wasted a hell of a lot of time doing research for this useless
> article, and I just wasted a bit more reading and responding to it. I
> apologize to anyone reading this for wasting your time as well with my
> equally unimportant response.
Hey, it was better than some idiot quoting the entire article, just to
write "lol" at the bottom.
My team (the Chiefs) reside in the AFC (and the AFL previously), but I
root in games based on how well I like or hate the teams involved, not
by their conference or even division.
I mean it's kind of cool in an abstract sense when the AFC dominates the
regular season and/or the Super Bowl (and I hated it when it was the
other way around), but as far as individual games go, I throw all that
out the window.
For example, I was thrilled to no end when the Bucs kicked the crap out
of the Raiders a few years ago. (The Gruden angle made it especially
sweet.)
Lamneth
"Tarkus" <karn...@atlantabraves.net> wrote in message
news:13kgti4...@corp.supernews.com...
I read it and reacted. Simple as that.
J Buck
research for this useless article, and I just wasted a bit more reading
and responding to it. I apologize to anyone reading this for wasting
your time as well with my equally unimportant response.>
article, just to write "lol" at the bottom.>
There's a lot of that going on. Irritating as hell that lazy bastards
can't take 5 seconds to cut and paste.
Darby OGill
I don't understand why top posting is considered so uncouth. It is useful
for short responses/retorts to running threads, cutting to the chase while
providing the background for a reader hasn't been keeping up.
>
who'sthat
wrote:
It's not the way it's been done for years, that's why.
Lark
> Will NFC finally end its drought vs. AFC this season?
>
> interconference series this season by a 24-22 count.
Almost half of those 24 wins are against the Dolphins, Jets and
Raiders, who are a combined 0-11 against the NFC. They have 1 game
left against those 3 (Green Bay vs. Oakland), while the AFC still has
4 games left against the Rams and 49ers.