CONTINUING OUR TOUR OF THE GREATEST NFL TEAMS BY DECADE

The 49ers came within one game of becoming the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls.

The Giants ended that run in the NFC Championship, and they did it the hard way — with a brutal hit from Leonard Marshall that knocked Joe Montana out of the game and out of the next season.

One week later New York stunned Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV, the only Super Bowl ever decided by a single point.

Montana sat out all of 1991, and Washington stepped into the void. Joe Gibbs and the Redskins won their third Super Bowl in nine years, keeping the NFC East’s grip on the title locked tight.

Then the Cowboys arrived and took the throne. Dallas became the third straight NFC East team to win it all, pounding the Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. A year later they did it again, handing Buffalo a fourth consecutive Super Bowl loss while also eliminating the 49ers in back-to-back NFC Championship Games.
January 1993 at Candlestick became the first of three straight NFC title-game wars between Dallas and San Francisco. The Cowboys won their then-record sixth NFC crown and announced the start of a new dynasty.

Jimmy Johnson built that dynasty through 51 trades from 1989 to 1992. The biggest one sent Herschel Walker to Minnesota and brought back the draft capital that jump-started the rebuild. One of those picks became Emmitt Smith, the future all-time leading rusher who added league MVP and Super Bowl MVP honors in 1993.

Johnson walked away after the second title, and the 49ers briefly took the crown back. Dallas returned in 1995 and beat Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX, but the window closed fast.

The Cowboys have not reached another NFC Championship Game since.

Brett Favre and the Packers kept the NFC winning streak alive in Super Bowl XXXI. Then Terrell Davis and the Broncos finally broke through for the AFC in Super Bowl XXXII. Davis and John Elway finished the job the next year in Denver’s repeat, Elway’s final season.

The NFC owned the early part of the decade. The Cowboys owned the middle of it. And for a stretch, the rest of the league was simply playing for second place.

Runner-up: Denver Broncos • Honorable mention: San Francisco 49ers

Enjoy all of the NFL, NCAAF, NBA and NHL games this weekend ... and try to get some shuteye, too! 

9 WEEKS DOWN UP, 9 MORE TO GO

Nine weeks down, nine to go, and the NFL playoff picture already has a beauty of a head-scratcher.

If the postseason started today, nine teams would return from last year’s bracket, five would join them, and the NFC North would send every team it has. Meanwhile, Carolina would host a playoff game at 3–5. Go figure.

AFC — Buffalo has the inside track. The 7–1 Bills would get the bye, while Denver (7–2), Jacksonville (6–2) and Pittsburgh (6–2) would host New England (5–4), Cincinnati (6–2) and Kansas City (6–2), respectively. Get this: those three road teams have combined to represent the AFC in each of the last 10 Super Bowls. Cleveland (5–4) is the first team out, with Las Vegas and Baltimore (both 4–5) and Houston (3–5) still in the chase.

NFC — The North wants the whole bracket. San Francisco (7–1) has the edge for the bye over Chicago (7–2), with Detroit (6–2), Minnesota (6–2) and Green Bay (6–3) all in the field. The Giants (5–2–1) and Panthers (3–5) would get home games as division leaders. Seattle and the Rams are both 5–4 and on the outside looking in. Dallas (4–5) and Washington (2–5–1) still have a path through the East, while New Orleans (3–5), Tampa Bay (3–6) and Atlanta (3–6) are all within half a game of Carolina. Four teams. Three wins apiece. Somebody gets a home playoff game.

BETCHA DIDN’T KNOW — Back entering Week 7, all eight teams in the AFC and NFC North were above .500. Before this season, only three divisions had reached that point with every team sporting a winning record since the 2002 realignment. The 2023 AFC North became the first division in the Super Bowl era to finish with all four teams above .500. At this year’s halfway mark, the NFC North has a different feat in its sights. Six wins gets Green Bay the last ticket today. In the South, three gets Carolina the keys to the stadium.

THE HOOSIERS KEEP WINNING. BUT NOT IN THE POLLS.

Curt Cignetti doesn’t waste keystrokes.

When the Indiana coach fires off a post, it’s not for likes—it’s a flare.

Thursday’s message was simple and pointed: how, exactly, are the “bad losses” of the teams above the Hoosiers being weighed? The emojis did the rest of the talking.

Indiana sits at 8-1 with a single defeat, that one coming against an Ohio State squad that was ranked No. 4 and still had its starting quarterback. The Buckeyes have since lost Julian Sayin for the year, dropped two straight with a true freshman under center, and tumbled to No. 20.

Meanwhile, the teams that jumped or stayed ahead of Indiana carry blemishes that look worse on paper. Georgia’s only loss was at home to unranked Auburn. Alabama is sitting on two defeats. Texas has two losses to unranked opponents. Tennessee and Notre Dame leapfrogged the Hoosiers after beating then-ranked Kentucky and then-No. 1 Miami, respectively. Those results are real.

The selective weighting of everyone else’s losses is the part that doesn’t add up. The committee’s explanation is the new emphasis on schedule strength.

While Indiana was idle, the Big Ten teams it had already beaten mostly lost in Week 10. Northwestern (now 6-3 and the best win on Indiana’s résumé) fell to Iowa without its starting quarterback. Rutgers lost to Wisconsin. Nebraska lost to Illinois. Michigan lost to Michigan State. Minnesota lost to UCLA.

In other words, the résumé took a collective hit while the Hoosiers watched from home. That is the stated reason they slid from No. 4 to
No. 9.

It is also the reason the margin for error just got thinner. A win over No. 18 USC on Saturday, followed by a potential Big Ten title-game date with No. 4 UCLA, would immediately restore the top-tier résumé the rankings just discounted. Anything short of that and the same committee that moved Indiana down for what other teams did will have fresh material to keep them down.

Cignetti’s post wasn’t a complaint. It was a reminder that the rules keep shifting, and the Hoosiers just learned exactly where they stand.

UTSA over North Texas by 10

You are going to have a tough time convincing us that UTSA doesn’t carry two football teams, one for home and one to travel. The ironically named Roadrunners are 37-5 in the Alamodome and, under HC Jeff Traylor, 27-1. The road team? Embarrassed in Boca Raton last week when Florida Atlantic dropped 60 on them in a 31-point rout, with the Owls gaining 566 yards, 342 on the ground, and wiping out UTSA’s shot at the playoffs. North Texas is, for the second straight year, one of the most remarkable stories in college football. In 2025, behind HC Eric Morris and freshman sensation Drew Mestemaker, the Mean Green finished 12-2 and was the runner-up in the AAC. Morris and Mestemaker bolted for Oklahoma State, and former Troy/West Virginia coach Neal Brown came in along with 70 new players, with zero starters remaining. The result is 7-2, thanks to an offense leading the nation with 343.8 pass yards per game and 191.7 on the ground, adding up to a national best 535.4/gm. That production means UNT is averaging a second-best 44.6 PPG in the nation, backed by a defense #2 in the national turnover margin at +1.6. There are more games this weekend with bigger name value, but none with the entertainment potential of this one. We see North Texas as the coyote in this scenario, and we’re hitting them with an Acme Clincher:
The Roadrunners average 181.3 rushing yards, and North Texas gives up 172.3. UTSA is 24-2 SU and 18-4-1 ATS in games under head coach Jeff Traylor in which it rushes for 215-plus yards.
Beep Beep!

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