Moving up the franchise list: Patriots about to pass Oakland for all-time wins

[everlong]

The Patriots tied the Oakland Raiders in wins this past weekend with 434. For younger fans it's probably surprising they weren't long ago ahead of them. I was 8 when Ben Drieth porked the Patriots and for years and years they were one of the top franchises while the Pats were more often than not a joke, mid 80's excluded in the pre Kraft era. So for myself and people my age or older if you had said this day would come we would have laughed at you.

The Pats actually need two more wins coupled with Raiders losses to move ahead of the Raiders percentage wise due to the Pats having more losses and the Raiders ties.

Raiders 434-370-11
Patriots 434-372-9

They can additionally leap over the

Browns 498-428-13

With two more wins and Browns losses. If the Browns some how lose at home to the Jags there would be the added benefit of doing it against them in Foxboro in two weeks. BB being a historian of the game and his history in Cleveland I think this would be of some interest to him in historical context.

The Vikings 428-363-10 are also in range but would require the Pats to win three more games than the Vikes the rest of the way this season.

That would leave only the Bears, Cowboys, Dolphins, Packers, 49ers, Ravens and Giants with better winning percentages as a franchise. Twenty years ago there probably weren't 7 teams below them.

 

[Armchair Quarterback]

The Patriots tied the Oakland Raiders in wins this past weekend with 434. For younger fans it's probably surprising they weren't long ago ahead of them. I was 8 when Ben Drieth porked the Patriots and for years and years they were one of the top franchises while the Pats were more often than not a joke, mid 80's excluded in the pre Kraft era. So for myself and people my age or older if you had said this day would come we would have laughed at you.

The Pats actually need two more wins coupled with Raiders losses to move ahead of the Raiders percentage wise due to the Pats having more losses and the Raiders ties.

Raiders 434-370-11
Patriots 434-372-9

They can additionally leap over the

Browns 498-428-13

With two more wins and Browns losses. If the Browns some how lose at home to the Jags there would be the added benefit of doing it against them in Foxboro in two weeks. BB being a historian of the game and his history in Cleveland I think this would be of some interest to him in historical context.

The Vikings 428-363-10 are also in range but would require the Pats to win three more games than the Vikes the rest of the way this season.

That would leave only the Bears, Cowboys, Dolphins, Packers, 49ers, Ravens and Giants with better winning percentages as a franchise. Twenty years ago there probably weren't 7 teams below them.

The Belichick era obviously can be credited with the bump up in winning percentage. What most people don't realize is with the exception of 1981, 1989-1993, 1995 and 2000, the Patriots have been .500 or above every year since 1976. 29 out of the last 37 seasons have been .500 or above and 6 of those 8 losing seasons came in a 7 year span.

 

[SacPete1]

Very good post, thank you.

I was 10 when Dreith made that call and it was the day I became a Pats fan. I grew up in Ottawa and didn't have an NFL team until that game. I liked the way Grogan played and I didn't like the arrogance of the Raiders. The roughing the passer call freaked me out and solidified the Patriots as my team forever.

 

[everlong]

The Belichick era obviously can be credited with the bump up in winning percentage. What most people don't realize is with the exception of 1981, 1989-1993, 1995 and 2000, the Patriots have been .500 or above every year since 1976. 29 out of the last 37 seasons have been .500 or above and 6 of those 8 losing seasons came in a 7 year span.

I guess part of it is that many of the years you listed were epically bad. The other part is the Patriots will be in the playoffs for the 21st time this season. Prior to Kraft owning the team accounts for 6 of those trips.

6/33 vs 15/20.

 

[jmt57]

This deserves a :bump2: and a :thumb:


I knew the Patriots were getting close to catching the Raiders for the most wins of all the old AFL teams before the season began, but I had completely forgotten about it until now. It's something to stick in my back pocket for every time some fan of another team attempts to claim that over their existence the Patriots have been bad far more often than they have not, and that the recent success is not the norm.

Of all twenty teams that began play from 1960 on, only the Dallas Cowboys - who had an historical and well documented run from 1966-1985, and again for all of the '90's - now have more victories in the history of their franchise. Of the twelve other teams with more wins over their team's history, nine began play in the 20's or 30's, two in the 40's, and one in 1953.



Congrats to the Patriots for what has been 53 years of superior performance, despite the oft-repeated comments from some that would make you think otherwise. In those 53 years the Patriots have had only 18 losing seasons.

 

[primetime]

In those 53 years the Patriots have had only 18 losing seasons.

But they had only been to the playoffs six times in the 33 years prior to Kraft/Parcells/Bledsoe.

 

[Rusty Coupe]

The Patriots are also tied with the Raiders with 22 playoff wins.

NFL standings since AFL?NFL merger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SalemPats]

During the 80s and early 90s we were what the Tennessee Titans are today. An odd good year, but mainly average. But as a kid I my two favorite players were Fryar and Tatupu

 

[reflexblue]

The Patriots tied the Oakland Raiders in wins this past weekend with 434. For younger fans it's probably surprising they weren't long ago ahead of them. I was 8 when Ben Drieth porked the Patriots and for years and years they were one of the top franchises while the Pats were more often than not a joke, mid 80's excluded in the pre Kraft era. So for myself and people my age or older if you had said this day would come we would have laughed at you.

The Pats actually need two more wins coupled with Raiders losses to move ahead of the Raiders percentage wise due to the Pats having more losses and the Raiders ties.

Raiders 434-370-11
Patriots 434-372-9

They can additionally leap over the

Browns 498-428-13

With two more wins and Browns losses. If the Browns some how lose at home to the Jags there would be the added benefit of doing it against them in Foxboro in two weeks. BB being a historian of the game and his history in Cleveland I think this would be of some interest to him in historical context.

The Vikings 428-363-10 are also in range but would require the Pats to win three more games than the Vikes the rest of the way this season.

That would leave only the Bears, Cowboys, Dolphins, Packers, 49ers, Ravens and Giants with better winning percentages as a franchise. Twenty years ago there probably weren't 7 teams below them.

The ravens, you must mean the colts. As a fan since 74, and looking back over all those years the Pats being the butt of jokes is imo pretty baseless. The Pats were one of the top teams in the 60's, the second half of the 70's, and again in the mid to late 80's and from the mid 90's until today. EVERY team has ups and downs, its cyclical. But for some reason up until Parcells took over the Pats were considered one of the door mates of the NFL. There are plenty of other teams with much worse records from the sixties to the ninties than this team. As for Drieth, i was in my early twenties, i remember the atrocities well. And if this is suppose to be a game with rules and unbiased fair officiating then what was called and what wasn't called could be atrocities. For anybody that wasn't around to see this game, or for those to young to remember what happened, i hope its possible to see a replay of this game, you'll be shocked. THeres a reason Dreith was never allowed to ref a Pats game (at least in Foxboro) again.

 

[everlong]

The Patriots are currently 67 games over .500 and Tom Brady is currently 103 games over .500, Drew Bledso was 3 games over and Matt Cassell 5 games over. So 111 games over total in this era means they were 44 games below. That's obviously not as bad as a team like Detroit, Arizona or Tampa over the same period of time but it does put them on par with a team like the Jets.

 

[reflexblue]

But they had only been to the playoffs six times in the 33 years prior to Kraft/Parcells/Bledsoe.

That doesn't mean that they didn't win a lot of games. In the days before FA, there were great teams that stayed together for many years. IMO it was much harder to breakthrough to the absolute top.

 

[jmt57]

In those 53 years the Patriots have had only 18 losing seasons.

But they had only been to the playoffs six times in the 33 years prior to Kraft/Parcells/Bledsoe.

A lot fewer teams made the playoffs then as well, so that's somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison. For example in the AFL only two of eight teams made the playoffs. That would be the equivalent of just eight of today's 32 teams making the playoffs, rather than the 12 teams that do make the post-season. It was not only a smaller whole number but also a smaller percentage.

The point is that the "Patriots have been the worst team in the history of the NFL before Brady" internet smack talk that continually crops up is without merit. Only one-third of all seasons in the entire history of a franchise ending in losing seasons is very good; I am sure there is a very short list of franchises that can make that same statement. It's even more remarkable when you consider that more than half of that history came in an era before the salary cap, and the team was operating on a shoestring budget with an owner who lacked the deeper pockets of his colleagues.