Browns legend Otto Graham is considered the most productive passer in history. Hy Peskin/SI

By Kerry J. Byrne, Special to SI.com, ColdHardFootballFacts.com

The need to "establish the run" is so firmly ingrained in football culture that most people don't bother to question it.

But the Cold, Hard Football Facts aren't most people.

After years of studying pro football history, and after pioneering our "Quality Stats" that have a direct correlation to winning football games, two eternal truths emerge:

• Running the ball well is so distantly related to victory that it's legal for them to marry in all 50 states.

• The NFL is all about passing the ball well ... and it always has been.

You can routinely identify winners and losers in almost any NFL game simply by looking at who posted the highest average per pass attempt -- in other words, who fielded the most effective passing game. Week 3 of the 2008 season proved a textbook example: teams that posted a higher average per pass attempt won 12 of 16 games. Teams that ran more effectively (based upon YPA) were just 8-8.

Both results are fairly typical in any given week. The passing game is a very reliable measure of victory. Gauging winners by a team's ability to run the ball is a statistical coin flip.

But don't take last week's game as the final word.

Instead, consider no less an authority than the entire length and breadth of the passing game in pro football history. Consider, in other words, the Cold, Hard Football Facts.

The passing game made its modern evolution with the development of the T-formation in 1940. Since then, the most irrefutable truth in football is the same irrefutable truth in modern military circles: victory is forged through air superiority.

We looked at each of the signature dynasties and greatest teams since the advent of the T formation, and found one constant: dominant teams dominate with great pass offenses and/or great pass defenses. Their ability to run the ball is almost irrelevant.

The 1940s Bears

The Bears ruled the 1940s, with four wins in five title-game appearances and a decade-long record of 81-26-3 (.750).

The Bears were largely bolstered by the innovative T-formation -- the spread formation of its time in that it was pioneered in the college ranks. The T-formation made it one back's job to take snaps from center and gave him the primary duties of calling signals and passing the ball. In other words, it helped the Bears develop the player recognized today as the first modern quarterback, Sid Luckman.

The primary benefit of the T-formation was not seen in the ground game. The primary benefit of the T-formation was seen in its revolutionary effect upon the passing game.

For an entire decade, the Bears utterly destroyed opponents when they passed. Just look at Luckman's average of 8.42 yards per pass attempt over his 12-year career (1939-50). It's still the second highest average in NFL history, 58 years after he last stepped on the field.

The Bears, in other words, dominated the 1940s because they dominated through the air.

The 1950s Browns

The Browns of 1946 to 1955 stand indisputably as the sport's greatest dynasty: they appeared in 10 straight pro football championship games, winning seven of them. Cleveland dominated the fledgling AAFC during its four seasons (1946-49), winning all four championships and posting a spectacular 52-4-3 (.907) record (including postseason).

The Browns proved to be a big fish in a big pond, too, after moving to the NFL in 1950. They appeared in a record six straight NFL championship games from 1950 to '55, winning three (1950, 1954, 1955).

Pro football's greatest dynasty was built upon pro football's most explosive passing attack. Quarterback Otto Graham led the Browns in those 10 straight dynasty years, and stands today as the most productive passer in history, with a record 8.63 yards per attempt during his six NFL seasons. (Graham averaged an utterly unstoppable 9.51 YPA during Cleveland's four years dominating the AAFC).

It's no coincidence the most productive passer in pro football history led the greatest dynasty in pro football history. It's a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

The 1960s Packers

The greatest fallacy in pro football wisdom is the need to establish the run. The second greatest fallacy is the belief that Vince Lombardi's Packers dominated on the ground and that Bart Starr was merely a game-managing quarterback.

The truth is the Packers were the most effective passing team of the decade and that Starr is one of the most ruthlessly efficient passers the game has ever seen. He led the league in passer rating five times in the 1960s (only Steve Young, six times, exceeded that mark) and averaged 7.85 yards per pass attempt, the eighth best mark in NFL history.

Starr's average is also the best of his era -- better than Johnny Unitas (7.76), Len Dawson (7.68), Sonny Jurgensen (7.56), Y.A. Tittle (7.52) or any of the other signature signal-callers of the 1960s.

Starr also did it with a ground game that's largely overrated. The Packers were a dominant ground team in the early 1960s. But later in the decade, including during their run of three-straight titles of 1965-67, the Packers offense was carried by Starr.

The Packers, in those three straight championship years, ranked 11th, 14th and fourth, respectively, in rushing yards per attempt. They ranked second, first and first, respectively, in yards per pass attempt. By 1967, the Packers had lost Hall of Fame running backs Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor. But, thanks to Starr, they still fielded the most efficient passing attack in football and were still champions.

The Packers were also dominant on pass defense. The 1967 Packers, for example, surrendered just 4.88 yards per pass attempt, making it the stingiest pass defense of the Super Bowl Era.

Combine a consistently great passing game with a consistently great pass defense and you have the only team in history to win five NFL titles in seven years. The Packers grabbed those rings no matter how well or how poorly the ground game performed, and no matter how many Hall of Famers were lugging the rock.