Which team can say it created the greatest dynasty in sports history?
The New England Patriots, under coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, could be considered the best answer after winning Super Bowl 53 and delivering a sixth championship in the last 18 seasons. It's one of the longest-running success stories in major sports history, college or pro.
Sporting News' writers voted the Patriots No. 1 out of the top 15 dynasties in sports history, but they didn't exactly agree on the top spot. There were several different points of view, and we share them here.
MORE: Ranking top 15 sports dynasties of all time
Mike DeCourcy's pick: Patriots
Top three: 1. Patriots, 2. Alabama, 3. UCLA
DeCourcy's take: It never occurred to me it was all that hard to define a dynasty: a team that wins a lot of championships over an extended period of time. Obviously, there are different sorts of dynasties, though, and there are different ingredients that lead to them happening.
What UCLA did in basketball from 1964-75 was amazing because it encompassed a lot of different styles and a changing cast of players. It was less so because a smaller segment of the college sports world was deeply invested in the sport than today. That's also true of the Celtics' 1957-69 dynasty, when there were far fewer teams in the league.
I'm more impressed by the ones that stand today because of professional free agency, the college transfer contagion, the growing interest in sports at all levels and the growing number of teams in the pros. That's why, for me, it's New England.
MORE: Why Patriots' sixth Super Bowl matters
David Steele's pick: UCLA
Top three: 1. UCLA, 2. Patriots, 3. Celtics
Steele's take: Sports — especially college basketball — have changed drastically since the years 1963 and '75. But it hasn't changed so much that winning 10 national championships in 12 years is no longer the most untouchable accomplishment ever in team sports.
A deeper, broader talent pool, an expanded tournament field, early player exits, coaches chasing more money at other schools ... please. It's not as if Lew Alcindor or Bill Walton were staying for nine or 10 years — in Alcindor's case, he couldn't even play a full four years because freshmen were ineligible, the opposite of one-and-done. (Also, it was illegal for him to dunk in his last two seasons. Probably not relevant for this discussion, but always fun to point out.)
The nature of the game is constant turnover, no matter what the era. The programs, legendary players and coaches of Wooden's era played under the same rules and never got a sniff of the success UCLA had. We'll see NBA teams match the Bulls' eight-year run — and even the Patriots' stretch of six trophies in nine trips over 18 years — before any college basketball program comes within a thousand miles of the Bruins dynasty.
MORE: Ten greatest UCLA players
Michael McCarthy's pick: Patriots
Top three: 1. Patriots, 2. Bulls, 3. Celtics
McCarthy's take: There's a difference between dynasties in sport that encourage dynasties — and those that don't. No sport has done more to discourage dynasties than the modern NFL. What makes the Patriots' run so amazing is it took place in a league that demands parity. The NFL wants everybody to finish 8-8. The Patriots have torn up that script — and made the rest of the league look bad while doing it.
Start with their players. Belichick's teams have never had players with the sheer physical talent of Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio. Instead, they do it with sixth- and seventh-round draft picks (Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, Trent Brown) and cast-offs from other teams.
Unlike older dynasties from a different sports era (Lakers, Yankees, Canadiens), the Pats can't hang on to their best players for years at a time. Instead, Belichick has perfected the art of buying low and selling high. He knows he's always drafting at the bottom — and that other NFL teams will pick off his top free agents. So, he gets rid of stars just before their big payday.
Take a look at how Belichick protected Brady's blind side this season. He let 30-year-old left tackle Nate Solder walk. The Giants then overpaid him with a ridiculous $62 million deal. Meanwhile, Belichick replaced Solder with 25-year-old Brown, another former seventh-round pick. Result? Another Super Bowl. And his left tackle of the future. That's why the Pats are still playing chess while the rest of the NFL plays checkers.
MORE: Ageless Brady's act continues to impress
Ryan Fagan's pick: Yankees
Top three: 1. Yankees, 2. Celtics, 3. UCLA
Fagan's take: You'll read a lot of stipulations and distractions and framing in this article, but there's only one correct answer to this question. The Yankees own the greatest dynasty in American sports history — and as long as you define "dynasty" as consistently winning championships (Spoiler: There is no other accurate definition), it doesn't even really matter whether you prefer short stretches or a longtime span.
If you're looking at short term, the Yankees won six World Series titles in seven years (1947-53), and that was right on the heels of winning six World Series titles in eight years (1936-43). If you want long term, between 1947 to 1964, the Yankees reached the World Series 15 times in 18 years and won 10 championships. And if you want really long term, from 1936 to 1964 — a stretch of 29 years — the Yankees reached the World Series an incredible 22 times and won 16 titles.
The franchise went from Lou Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle — all scouted and signed as amateurs, before the benefit of a draft or free agency, by the way — without ever skipping a damn beat. (And two of the seven years in that stretch they didn't reach the Fall Classic? In 1944 and 1945, when most of the regulars were overseas fighting in World War II. Hard to hold that against the Yanks.)
You've no doubt heard lots of people today — here and elsewhere — saying the Patriots are the greatest American sports dynasty after winning their sixth Super Bowl in 18 years this weekend. I'm sorry, but no. Not even close. Best football dynasty? Sure. But in those 18 years, there was a stretch of nine consecutive seasons where the Patriots didn't win the championship. NINE! You can't go nine years without a title and contend for 'best American sports dynasty ever' consideration. The Yankees missed the World Series only seven times in 29 years and never went more than three years without a title (and that lone stretch, 1944-47, included the two WWII years).
Look at it this way: The Patriots' best 18-year stretch included six titles, three runner-ups and nine 'nothing' years. The Yankees' best 18-year stretch included 10 titles, five runner-ups and three "nothing" years. In no rational world where results are more important than stipulations can you possibly conclude that what New England accomplished was more impressive.
Sean Deveney's pick: Patriots
Top three: 1. Patriots, 2. UCLA, 3. Bulls
Deveney's take: Any discussion of dynasties needs to be put into context, and for me, the context must include some degree of difficulty. You can't look at the record books of teams like the post-War Yankees, the early Celtics and the UCLA hoops teams of the 1970s and be anything but impressed. But those teams were operating in different eras, in leagues that are not nearly as competitive as they are now and with rules that allowed them to remain atop their sports for extended periods.
With the Patriots, all that is different. NFL rules are designed to encourage parity, and for most of the league, parity is what we've seen. Consider the Rams — the team New England beat for its first Super Bowl title in 2002 and its most recent on Sunday — made the playoffs only three times in the intervening years, underwent seasons of 2-14 and 1-15 and moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles. That's how NFL salary cap rules are designed. You might be good one year, decent the next and gawd-awful after that. For the Patriots to reach nine Super Bowls in that environment, and win six of them, is the most impressive achievement in modern sports.
Bill Bender's pick: Bulls
Top three: 1. Bulls, 2. Patriots, 3. Alabama
Bender's take: Some dynasties ran longer than others, and some produced more championships than others. To this day I still haven't seen a higher dose of concentrated dominance at the highest level than the Bulls' run to six NBA championships in eight seasons, a stretch that was interrupted by Michael Jordan's retirement and subsequent comeback at the midpoint.
The Bulls were simply the best. Jordan was the best player. Phil Jackson was the best coach. Scottie Pippen was the best wingman. Dennis Rodman was the best role player. They had the best system on both sides of the ball. They had a 10-point lead before 'Sirius' by The Alan Parsons Project hit the United Center loudspeakers, and if they trailed by 10 in the fourth quarter, that was OK, because Jordan was the best clutch performer of all time. Tom Brady is a close second. That's why the Pats are No. 2.
The Bulls, however, were the best that's ever been, and they have six championships in eight years to prove it. That's why I'll take MJ over LeBron James and yesterday's Bulls over today's Warriors, and I don't think twice about it. Anybody who argues should ask his or her self: Have you ever seen the Bulls in Game 7 of the NBA Finals?
The answer is no. Nobody ever saw the Bulls in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. The series was always over by then.
Vinnie Iyer's pick: Patriots
Top three: 1. Patriots, 2. Alabama, 3. Bulls
Iyer's take: Let me first explain my obvious football and recency bias. Football is the hardest sport in which to sustain excellence. The modern era is also hardest period in history in which to maintain excellence. To be honest, it is virtually impossible to compare the best of different eras across vastly different sports. But if we're going to do it, we need to weigh in the varying degrees of difficulty.
To know how I got to this final trio, let me explain why classic teams from many decades past such as the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics, Montreal Canadiens and UCLA basketball didn't make the cut.
I respect the hell out of that kind of greatness. But back then, it was easier to keep teams together with no salary cap and early defections. There also were lesser competitive teams all-around and fewer playoff rounds. There was no real parity to crash the party. That also was a big factor in eliminating the '80s San Francisco 49ers and '90s Dallas Cowboys early in the process.
The Jordan Bulls made the cut because, in this time, I've never seen a team make the inevitable look so easy. When they got to the NBA Finals to win six championships in a eight-year stretch, it was more of a coronation than competition, even though they played multiple strong opponents in each three-peat.
With Bama, it's insane how Saban both can consistently recruit a high-volume of elite talent and then take it to another with big-game scheming and preparation. Since his third season in Tuscaloosa in 2009, he's batting 5-for-10 in national championships, during both the BCS and CFP eras. The Tide have been to seven title games and have won the brutal SEC six times.
When you also consider his relentless player and coaching staff turnover, what Saban has done is better than what anyone has done before — until you get to Bill Belichick.
The Patriots have both the best coach and individual player in any American sport, in all of time. Belichick's defensive acumen is his calling card, but echoing just as loud is how he gets unheralded versatile personnel to "do their jobs" in his unwavering successful systems. Then there's Brady. He has six Super Bowl titles leading the Patriots, and they've enjoyed nine AFC championships in his 18 seasons as starting quarterback. He is playing into his 40s with no slowdown.
The Bulls had Jordan and Phil Jackson, 'Bama has had a bunch of future NFL stars and Saban. When talking dynasties, however, the player-coach combination of Brady and Belichick knock out all the rest. Everything has changed around them, and they are still delivering rings.
