Rank these five team performances over a 20-year period.

[Ben E Lou]

I'm working on a ranking system. These five teams rated quite close to one another (as they should) in my latest update. Given NO other information, how would you rank these performances:

	wins	losses	ties	winpct	division	playoffs	ConfChampAppear	bowlwins	bowllosses
TEAM1	179	141	0	0.559	6	9	3	2	0
TEAM2	168	152	0	0.525	12	12	2	1	1
TEAM3	188	132	0	0.588	4	9	2	0	1
TEAM4	178	139	3	0.561	4	6	5	1	1
TEAM5	184	136	0	0.575	2	10	1	1	0

[Ramzavail]

1,2,4,5,3

[BYU 14]

1, 4, 2, 5, 3

[dubb93]

2, 1, 4, 3, 5

[Young Drachma]

1, 2, 4, 5, 3

[Landshark44]

1 4 5 2 3

[larrymcg421]

2, 1, 3, 5, 4

[JonInMiddleGA]

1,4,2,5,3

[CrescentMoonie]

1, 5, 3, 4, 2

[Vince, Pt. II]

Two and three are obviously the tough ones to peg here. Two could just be in an historically weak division, or they could have come out of/entered a serious swoon. The sustained excellence, though (12 divisional round games) is impossible to ignore.

Then you have the Braves, I mean team three. Regular season excellence and SOME postseason success...But no ring.

1, 4, 5, 2, 3

[JPhillips]

1,4,2,5,3

[CU Tiger]

42135

[tarcone]

1,3,4,2,5

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Two and three are obviously the tough ones to peg here. Two could just be in an historically weak division, or they could have come out of/entered a serious swoon. The sustained excellence, though (12 divisional round games) is impossible to ignore.

Actually, TEAM2 didn't reach the divisional round 12 times, they won that weak division 12 times.

[digamma]

1, 5, 4, 3, 2

[jbergey22]

1, 2, 4, 5, 3

[Warhammer]

2>1>3>4>5

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Actually, TEAM2 didn't reach the divisional round 12 times, they won that weak division 12 times.

No, they won a strong division 12 times and then tanked for draft picks

[vex]

42153

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Then you have the Braves, I mean team three. Regular season excellence and SOME postseason success...But no ring.

1995 World Series - Wikipedia

[tucking fypo]

2, 1, 4, 3, 5

[TroyF]

As said above, 2 and 3 are just brutal to rate. a .588 winning percentage over a 20 year period and only 4 division titles? Holy hell, that's just horrific luck. That kind of sustained excellence over a 20 year period is insane.

If you took just the last ten years in the NFL, only 4 franchises come in at .588 or higher. (Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Colts for those interested, Denver just missed the cut by percentage points)

Now we are talking 20 years? That's unbelievable.

But. . . not titles, very little hardware. Someone else in their division is pretty damned good and left them in the dust.

I'd go: 1, 5, 2, 4, 3. . . but I feel horrible putting 3 in last. They just don't have titles.

[wustin]

1, 5, 2, 3, 4

[Carman Bulldog]

1,5,3,4,2

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TroyF

As said above, 2 and 3 are just brutal to rate. a .588 winning percentage over a 20 year period and only 4 division titles? Holy hell, that's just horrific luck. That kind of sustained excellence over a 20 year period is insane.

Celeval was a really strong owner.

[Ben E Lou]

ALL: Thanks for the feedback. Looking at it helped me shape my system quite a bit. The teams in question were the following. They are now re-ranked using the system that is in place (for now) for my rankings pages. (I just picked a few random 20-year periods in IHOF history until I found one that showed several good teams bunched together. The time frame in question was 2012-2031.) They still show up quite close to one another in the updated system, but the ordering changed.

abbrev	TEAM	wins	losses	ties	winpct	division_titles	playoffs	conf_appear	bowlwins	bowllosses	score
ORL	TEAM1	179	141	0	0.559	6	9	3	2	0	143.2
SYR	TEAM4	178	139	3	0.561	4	6	5	1	1	142.0
GEO	TEAM3	188	132	0	0.588	4	9	2	0	1	141.7
NPL/HAR	TEAM5	184	136	0	0.575	2	10	1	1	0	138.5
ATL	TEAM2	168	152	0	0.525	12	12	2	1	1	138.4

Digging deeper (and you can see the histories yourself if you care, by clicking the links):

• ORL (team 1) was feast or famine during that time. They had a 9-year run with 8 playoff appearances, 4 14+ win seasons, and 2 titles, but in the other 11 seasons only made the playoffs once, and 6 times had 6 wins or less. That sort of performance is the hardest for me to quantify over a longer time period. They were clearly dominant for a time, but pretty much stunk it up otherwise.
• SYR (team 4) was more consistent, and in a tough division. They only had 2 seasons with fewer than 7 wins during the time. They missed the playoffs in seasons with 10 and 11 wins during the range in question.
• GEO (team 3) was even more consistent than SYR: only one season with fewer than 7 wins, but only once did they go deep into the postseason. There was at least one other very strong team in their division for almost the entirety of the time frame in question, so it's a bit odd that they had such a strong regular season record but struggled in the postseason. Their division won five rings during these 20 years.
• NPL/HAR (team 5) had one title and a bunch of nondescript playoff runs. They played in a solid division with SYR.
• VIC (team 2) definitely benefited from a weak division. (I guess 12 division titles with 0 WCs combined with the low winning percentage should have made that obvious.) They won three straight division titles with 7, 8, and 8 wins at one point. Their one title was won in a season where they were 10-6 division champs.

[Julio Riddols]

Hey, if zapa ever leaves Orlando, I'd love to get back in there. I miss the Talons.

[TCY Junkie]

I looked at first post before I noticed it was updated. Was going to post 14352. Thought I wouldn't see it by posters and then saw your results. Thought one championship wasnt that good when you thought about twenty years so put 3 ahead of them. Thought it was funny your results matched mine.

[Ramzavail]

I would always put a team with 0 bowl wins lower than a team with one or more.

I really didn't look at much at win pct and I don't think the public would either. Nobody cared about the Braves winning pct, but everybody knew they won 14 straight divisions. I'd take a team with 12 division titles and a bowl win over a team with a better winning pct and 0 bowl wins.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

I would always put a team with 0 bowl wins lower than a team with one or more.

I really didn't look at much at win pct and I don't think the public would either. Nobody cared about the Braves winning pct, but everybody knew they won 14 straight divisions. I'd take a team with 12 division titles and a bowl win over a team with a better winning pct and 0 bowl wins.

I would argue it depends. Knowing now who the teams were, I would have knocked VIC down a peg or two. That was an odd division though, the non VIC division winners typically did some damage in the playoffs, I had 1 run to the championship and one to the conference championship, SAO won a title in there, and FTW went to a title game IIRC. VIC, who won the most division titles, had disappointing runs for the most part.

The point I wanted to make though, is a run like Celeval's is impressive. Regardless of whether or not you win any titles, winning a lot of games is tough to do, and they were always a tough opponent. They just had bad luck in the playoffs. Still, part of the game is to get the chance to play for the title, and they did that consistently. They had one season in the 20 years with fewer than 7 wins. They also did this in the same division with ORL and TUC there as well.

[Ramzavail]

I was still going under the premise that I didn't know any of the backstory

[Warhammer]

As a sidebar, it is crazy how good the Northeast and Southeast divisions were. Boston, Syracuse, Rochester, and NPL was a crazy good division. The Southeast was not far behind, Snapfinger being the main slouch.

Also, in my previous post I was wrong about SAO, their title came before this period.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

I was still going under the premise that I didn't know any of the backstory

Fair enough. I am just fascinated by this.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Celeval was a really strong owner.*

* Celeval had some help, of course.

[Ramzavail]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

As a sidebar, it is crazy how good the Northeast and Southeast divisions were. Boston, Syracuse, Rochester, and NPL was a crazy good division. The Southeast was not far behind, Snapfinger being the main slouch.

Also, in my previous post I was wrong about SAO, their title came before this period.

tell me about it - I am Rochester

[Kodos]

And I was Rochester during the period Ben is talking about.

[Ramzavail]

heh

[Vince, Pt. II]

Did the former SLO Burn ever win a title?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Did the former SLO Burn ever win a title?

http://www.fof-ihof.com/teampagehistory.php?teamid=0