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A flawed final four The best in this year's NFL a long way from greatness
When it comes right down to who's best and who's not, the four teams playing in the NFL's conference championships Sunday are probably as good as any. Probably as good as any that played all year. Objections in Tennessee? A cry for the dear dispatched Titans? Get a downfield passing game, for crying out loud. Learn how to beat Baltimore in Nashville and then we can talk. No, this season the Minnesota Vikings, the New York Giants, the Oakland Raiders and the Baltimore Ravens are the best of the NFL, as they have been pretty much all season. Yet not one of them, not when taken as a whole, inspires images of greatness. Not one, years from now, will move us to say "Now that was a team." Maybe it's the fault of Paul Tagliabue and his push for parity, where free agency and salary caps conspire to level the playing field with mediocrity. Maybe that's made it easier for a team that is very good on one side of the ball -- say, Baltimore and its defense, or Minnesota and its offense -- to dominate a team that is only pretty good on both sides. Whatever the reason, what we're left with is four would-be prom queens, each with a big fat zit. Have you seen the Giants' receivers lately? Or the Minnesota defense? The Baltimore offense? The Raiders with their backs against their end zone? Sure, you can win a Super Bowl without being flawless. Teams do it all the time. Heck, Washington won two with Mark Rypien and Doug Williams at quarterback. The thing is, this season a flawed team definitely will win the Super Bowl. Trent Dilfer, who looks up at Rypien and Williams, could join the ranks of so-so Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks with a Baltimore offense that went five games without scoring a touchdown. Five games! Randy Moss and Cris Carter and Robert Smith and Daunte Culpepper will be remembered if the Vikings win the Super Bowl. But can you forget a defense that is terrible against the run (4.5 yards a run allowed), awful against the pass and ranks 28th overall? "It doesn't matter," insists Minnesota coach Dennis Green. "I think we are probably one of the better defenses. ... I'm not saying we are the best, but I think we have a defense that is competitive as the other guys." Sure you do, Dennis. The Giants, with Amani Toomer and Ike Hilliard as the wideouts, and Kerry Collins at quarterback? C'mon now. Maybe you like the Raiders, probably the most balanced of the remaining four. But they don't look so good when the light is on, either. More penalties than all but three other teams. The league's second-worst defense inside their own 20. Not so pretty. The franchises themselves, too, hardly bring greatness to mind. Minnesota, remember, is 0-4 in the Super Bowl, last losing some 24 years ago. The Giants, who have won both the Super Bowls they've been in, still haven't been to one in a decade. And they still are the Giants, a sometimes dysfunctional bunch always measuring themselves against the Jets. The Oakland/L.A./Oakland Raiders, unless you happen to be stuck in the Silver-and-Black past, have been struggling for years. The last time they won a Super Bowl was almost 17 years ago when they were in Los Angeles and Al Davis was simply known as a pain in the league's butt, not "maverick owner Al Davis." The Ravens, as a franchise, and their carpetbagging owner, Art Modell ? They conjure up no image at all. So two of these teams will make it to the Super Bowl and one will win on January 28 and we will have a team that, when champs are discussed a decade from now, we're liable to say, "Who won that year?" That's the NFL this season. Zits and all. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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