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The Historical Facts of the 49ers Franchise |
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The Historical Facts of the 49ers Franchise |
Written: June 15, 1996. Updated: February 14, 2005
In 1996 when the NHS was born, the 49er Bandwagon was at full steam. Indeed, it's one of the very reasons why the NHS website was created. It's hard for those that didn't live through it to imagine, but not only was there the usual hype that we still see remnants of today, but picture this: every day, Niner-haters endured arguments from 49er fans claiming not just that they thought the 49ers were the best team ever, but that it was a fact that the 49ers were the best NFL franchise in history.
Naturally, we at the NHS got sick of it quicker than you could say "Ted Popson", because there's nothing that grates at our sensibilities like ignorant 49er fans that don't know the facts (yes, an oxymoron). So below was our very patient presentation to these rubes, where we focused on the many possible reasons why the 49ers could be considered the best team ever -- then presented the actual, crushing reality: they're not the best in any meaningful historical category.
Today, the NHS doesn't receive the daily emails claiming the 49ers as "best ever". In fact, more often we get messages from Niner fans claiming, "I never said they were the best ever." Mm-hm. Right.
But perhaps the 49er fans and media do finally get it. Maybe this page has reached its goal and has become irrelevant. Still, this page stands as a testament to the sheer ignorance of the "best ever" myth we once had to fight on a daily basis, and is the only place on Earth where you'll find all the historical truth of the 49ers in one place, much to the media's chagrin.
The first and foremost reason why your typical 49er fan became a 49er fan is because they won a lot (they ain't called the Bandwagon for nothing). To the front-running 49er "Faithful" that was magically born in 1981, everything comes down to winning. What the 49er fan doesn't realize is that when we look at the history of winning, the 49ers lose.
One can objectively assert that the team with highest winning percentage in history has a right to be called "the best ever". Here are the top winning percentages for NFL franchises (source NFL Hall of Fame, thru 2004):
Rank Team
1. Miami .600
2. Oakland .585
3. Chicago .574
4. Dallas .573
5. Cleveland .572
6. 49ers .565
Conclusion: the 49ers have no "best ever" claim based on their winning percentage.
One can also objectively assert that the best team ever is the one that has won it all the most times. Here are the championships totals (thru 2004):
12: Green Bay -- 9 NFL (1929-31,36,39,44,61-62,65), 3 Super Bowls (1966-67,96)
9: Chicago -- 8 NFL (1921, 32-33,40-41,43,46,63), 1 Super Bowl (1985)
8: Browns: 8 -- 4 AAFC (1946-49), 4 NFL (1950,54-55,64)
6: New York Giants -- 4 NFL (1927,34,38,56), 2 Super Bowls (1986,90)
5: Dallas -- 5 Super Bowls (1971,77,92-93,95)
5: Washington -- 2 NFL (1937,42), 3 Super Bowls (1982,87,91)
5: 49ers -- 5 Super Bowls (1981,84,88-89,94)
Conclusion: Tied for fifth is nice trivia for the 49ers, but their precious little five is a far cry from Green Bay's 12 -- and it hardly gives them an argument to be considered the "best ever".
Objective Conclusion: If any 49er fan goes on their stereotypical "best ever" rant and tells you the 49ers are the greatest franchise of all-time, ask them how not having the best winning percentage and not winning the most championships adds up to them being the best? There is simply no objective basis whatsoever to any Bandwagon fan's cry of "best ever".
The 49er fan will not accept your facts as to all-time numbers. He/she will quickly say that all those years don't matter since all that really matters is the "modern" era, Super Bowl wins, or the 20 years following 1981 (as if there is something magical about the number 20 or 1981).
So the following are the subjective ways 49er fans attempt to define their beloved team as the best ever. These reasons are subjective because they are ignorant of the total objective history of football (see above). Instead, the 49er fan selects the parameters to determine their desired result. For example, a 49er fan may say to you that the 49ers have won more games than anyone during 1981-1999. In their mind, this translates to the 49ers being the "best team ever".
Of course, we in the rational world understand the lack of logic in choosing your preferred answer first then trying to tailor the facts to prove your answer. You can't just cut out a chunk of time in history while ignoring the rest. You can't say "oh, 20 years is a good measure of who is the best team ever." Yet, alas, the 49er fans do.
So our first conclusion is that the usual reasons given by the Bandwagon as to why they are "best ever" are simply subjective and should bear no weight. Just smile at them and nod your head because they don't understand their own ignorance. However, just for fun, let's go over some of these subjective arguments:
Niner fans believe that since they have won the most Super Bowls, they are "the best ever". But "Super Bowl" is just another phrase for "NFL Champion", and as we pointed out above, the 49ers are far, far away from being first in total championships. Why should we give more weight for the years where we have a fancy name and trophy? The extra significance the Bandwagon gives to Super Bowl wins -- as opposed to all those other silly championships Green Bay won -- is subjective, and rejected.
Here are some other points to make in response to the typical Bandwagon claims:
Of course, the 49ers in actuality are TIED for the most Super Bowl wins. Are 49er fans therefore saying that based on this, the Cowboys are also the best team ever? Can we have two best teams ever? Perhaps it is like how two "best QBs ever" (Joe and Steve) co-exist in the schizophrenic 49er fantasyland?
Well, neither have the Bears or Jets. Of course, the quick response is that the 49ers have never lost in five tries. That sounds good, but is it really something to brag about? Isn't it actually an admission that the 49ers are just second-banana? What it really admits is that the 49ers have only been in the Super Bowl five times, whereas the Cowboys have five Super Bowl wins and have been there three additional times (8 total). Which bears more weight, winning the five times you are there, or winning five PLUS reaching the Big Dance more times overall? There's also the little fact that the Cowboys won three Super Bowls in four years, something the 49ers never accomplished.
Do we really need to spend time on this one? Based on the number of moronic emails from Niner fans, we do. The logic of claiming the 49ers are the best team because they were "the first to five" redefines idiocy. What about the Steelers, who were the first to four? Perhaps the Packers should be considered the best since they were the first to one? Plus, again, they weren't the first to reach five championships. Overall, the first to reach a benchmark makes for interesting trivia, but really carries no persuasive value.
Conclusion: It's silly to focus on the Super Bowl to decide who is the best team ever, since professional football has been around a lot longer than the 1960s. But even if we play along, the history of the Super Bowl does not show that the 49ers are the best ever; if anything, it anoints the Cowboys as the best.
The following arguments are when 49er fans again focus on specific years in NFL history to define the 49ers as the best team ever while ignoring the rest of history. We hope you understand the absurdity. Nevertheless, we will once again play along:
49ers in the 1980's
Championships: 4
Win%: .689While this the foundation of why many overrate the 49ers, let's look at other teams in other decades:
Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s
Championships: 4
Win%: .692Green Bay Packers in the 1960s:
Championships: 5
Win %: .722Conclusion: Being the best for a decade does not make a team the "best ever" since it is illogical to block out arbitrary chunks in time and then make blanket historical conclusions. What's more important is the long run (see the objective facts, above). Also, it has been done several times, and we would have multiple "best teams ever". Finally, if we were to stupidly attach significance to performance within a decade (as if there's something magical about "decade"), the 49ers again come in behind the Packers and Steelers, since those teams won more championships and had better winning percentages during their respective decades.
This an NHS favorite 49er argument since it really reveals their lack of perspective and logic. Since the 49ers are one the more successful teams in recent history, they must be the "best ever", right?
First, this shows the character of the 49er fan. All that counts to them is winning now, and if they don't win, what do they care? They won't be 49er fans anymore-- just like they weren't fans before the winning started in1981. Is there any wonder why they are often referred to as "bandwagon fans"?
Next, attaching special significance to the modern era over past eras completely disrespects those that played the game long before any of us were in diapers. The best team in the last 1, 2, 5, 10 or whatever years is fun to talk about, but when considering the "best team ever," what matters is the long haul. We have already shown where the 49ers rank over their lifetime.
Finally, they don't possess the mental faculty to conceive of time before 1981. They consider the "modern era" to begin when Joe was drafted. Again, if we want to play along by attaching any significance to the modern era, let's not arbitrarily pick 1981, but let's examine the facts using an objective year that signified the beginning of an era:
Win-Loss Records since the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger (thru 2004)
1. Dolphins 338-196-2 (.633)
2. Steelers 324-210-1 (.607)
3. Raiders 313-217-6 (.591)
4. Cowboys 316-220-0 (.590)
5. 49ers 314-219-3 (.589)Conclusion: Despite the Bandwagon pipe-dream to the contrary, and even despite all of their tainted, gaudy records of the '80s and '90s, the 49ers are still not "the most successful team in the modern era".
Certainly the 49ers had an impressive-looking run of making the playoffs during the '80s and '90s, but does it mean the 49ers are the best team ever? Again, let's put the 49er success into historical perspective:
NFL PLAYOFF APPEARANCES BY SEASONS (thru 2004)
1. Cowboys 27
t. Rams 27
3. Giants 26
4. Cleveland 24
t. Minnesota 24
6. Green Bay 23
7 . Chicago 22
t. Pittsburgh 22
t. 49ers 22Conclusion: The Bandwagon has a myopia about their success. To them, it seemed like the 49ers were "great for forever". That's because their entire fandom began only once the 49ers started to win. Coincidentally, it was at the same time when their division became pathetic and handed them a free trip to the playoffs year after year. But to history, their success is a flash in the pan. Despite reaching the playoffs just about every year for almost 20 years of awful NFC Worst freebies, their playoffs appearance total still is barely cracking the top 10. What the hell were they doing all those other years? Sad.
Objectively, the facts show the 49ers are not the best team now or ever.
Any subjective reasoning in the mind of the 49er fan is contradicted with facts showing that the 49ers are not even close to "the best ever" standard.
The facts that you have seen above add up to one conclusion: the 49ers cannot and should not ever be called the "best ever", or anything close to it. But for years, 49er-haters had to hear that exact claim thousands of times from thousands of people, including members of the media.
Is this to say the 49ers did not had any success whatsoever? No. What it says is that in the face of all the years of arrogant, belligerent, ignorant 49er fans spouting off to the contrary, the 49ers' success is overrated.
Lately, all those Niner fans that used to scream "Best Ever!" have been denying they ever said it; instead, they now smugly say, "They might not be the best ever, but certainly they are among the NFL's elite!" -- once again as if it's a fact instead of opinion and nobody could possibly argue otherwise. This disclaimer is wholly a result of them being so defensive about their reputation -- Niner fans know that the rest of us think of them as the number one Bandwagon in the NFL. So they think that if they say "among the best ever", instead of their classic "best ever" mantra, this makes them seem like reasonable, rational people that aren't overrating the 49ers, and thus not living up to the Bandwagon stereotype.
It's a good try, but no. Everyone sees the transparency of this technique. By trying so hard in vain so often to get the 49ers even among the elite, it's serving the purpose of making the 49ers overrated. And the funny thing is that despite their 100% conviction that the facts show the 49ers among the elite, the real facts as displayed here show the 49ers rank no higher than 5th, 6th or 7th on any historical ranking of little things like winning percentage, championships, or playoffs appearances.
There are 32 teams in the NFL. Being 5th best is not even 90th percentile, and last we checked 90% is the cutoff for an "A" grade. So factually, the 49ers, at their very best, grade out no better than a "B"... no matter how much they want to pretend they are "elite".
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created: June 15, 1996; updated: February 14, 2005
copyright© 1996-2001 49er-Haters Society (NHS)