“Fill up your champagne glass. No, I’m not talking to the overbearing 17-0 1972 Miami Dolphins team. I’m talking to The Hoodie and the best quarterback of our generation, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. When Anthony Gonzalez and Reggie Wayne dropped potential touchdown passes against the New England Patriots Sunday, it was impossible to believe that the Indianapolis Colts were going to be able to overcome those mistakes and beat the Patriots.”
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Fill up your champagne glass.
No, I’m not talking to the overbearing 17-0 1972 Miami Dolphins team.
I’m talking to The Hoodie and the best quarterback of our generation, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.
When Anthony Gonzalez and Reggie Wayne dropped potential touchdown passes against the New England Patriots Sunday, it was impossible to believe that the Indianapolis Colts were going to be able to overcome those mistakes and beat the Patriots.
If ever a team was to finally go undefeated and force the ’72 Dolphins to stop celebrating their 35-year-old accomplishment, it’s the ’07 Patriots.
But what happens if the Patriots go 18-0 and then lose the Super Bowl?
They will have outdone the ’72 Dolphins record, but let’s be honest, without a Super Bowl victory, an 18-1 record for the Patriots will mean nothing.
So much has been made of how dominate the Patriots have been, winning three Super Bowls in four years.
More has been made of the ’72 Dolphins undefeated season.
Through all of this hype, the best dynasty in football history has been overlooked.
Shockingly, I’m talking about the Cleveland Browns.
Confused?
Let’s go back in time to 1946.
When the Browns joined the All-American Football Conference in 1946, the NFL was a separate league.
Don’t let that statement fool you. The AAFC has plenty of credibility, including 16 players in the Hall of Fame from 40s era.
Plus, if you’re going to discredit the AAFC, you’ll have to brush aside the American Football League, another rival to the NFL from 1960 to 1969.
That would be absurd.
The Browns were 52-4 in the four years of the AAFC, including postseason play.
Find another team with that kind of supremacy in four years.
Not to mention the team won every AAFC Championship, four total.
In the 1948 season the Browns went 14-0, but since NFL records do not include any of the AAFC accomplishments, the feat goes unmentioned; which is a complete joke.
The Browns merged with the NFL in 1950, but the powerhouse was not left behind.
The team’s opening game against defending NFL Champion Philadelphia Eagles was a 35-10 blowout.
The Browns were considered an expansion team in 1950 and in their first four years compiled a 42-11 record.
For six straight years, the Browns won their division and played for the NFL Championship, winning in 1950, ’54 and ’55.
To put things in perspective, from 1946-55, the Browns won seven championships in 10 years.
In those 10 years, the Browns went 96-15.
Had the Super Bowl been implemented prior to 1967, it’s clear the Browns would have been a front runner.
Coming from a guy who primarily bases the all-time greats with how many Super Bowls they have won, it’s a wonder I even consider the Browns to be among the greatest dynasties in all of sports.
But the numbers don’t lie.
Ten of the team’s 21 Hall of Fame players played during the dynasty era as well.
It’s a shame to Browns fans the NFL rejected the AAFC from its beginning and that it took so long to add the Super Bowl.
Cleveland might be singing a different tune with seven Super Bowl rings.
Yet, the team is left with none, and its reputation of best football dynasty ever lives solely in dusty record books that the NFL neglects.
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