Colts ranked #2 overall franchise in entire NFL by National Football Post

…than any team in the NFL over the past decade. Yeah, Belichick’s at the top. But losing your right hand men (Crennel, Weis, Mangini, McDaniels, Pioli, Dimitroff, etc) consistently every year definitely takes a beating on the team and the Patriots keep pushing on. I would argue that the Patriots have gone through the equivalent of losing Dungy multiple times. Imagine losing BOTH your offensive and defensive coordinator in the same year. Imagine losing the greatest defensive and offensive coordinators in the league after only 2 seasons- after preparing them for those positions for years before. Imagine losing the guy who goes and find all of the players for the team’s success.

The Colts lost a head coach that was considered too soft to be real coach in Tampa and who had the greatest quarterback of the decade throwing to some of the best wide receivers of the decade. Caldwell has been with the Colts since 2002 working as an assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. He’s not exactly “new” to the team. He, like Dungy, was able to tap into Manning for victories- and when Manning wasn’t there, the team lost.

So yeah, as long as Belichick is with the Patriots, there appears to be stability at the top of the hierarchy. But when the support legs of the franchise leave every other year to take jobs with other teams, and the Patriots still succeed?

“Rather, NFL franchise success is attained by financial success off the field” Check. The Patriots brand is one of the wealthiest in the world.

“with an engaged top-down leadership” Check. If Belichick wasn’t engaged in every facet of the organization, I don’t know what engaged is.

“a consistent approach to player (and coaching) acquisition, evaluation and retention " Check. Even though the personnel changes every year, the approach is the same. Because Belichick teaches his staff? Yeah. But that’s what great franchises do. They groom personnel for the future. Sure, the team doesn’t “retain” their personnel- that’s not a knock on the Patriots. That’s a sign of how well developed the staff of the franchise is.

“and some form of innovation or adaptation that helps that franchise exceed any of its specific limitation” Check. Kraft innovated by making the stadium into a shopping area when football isn’t on. Belichick adapted when the 6th round pick who fell into his lap (hint: player’s never fall into teams laps.) was knocked out for a season. He used a 7th round pick who probably fell into his lap too and led the team to 11-5.

Saying that the Patriots haven’t had to go through any changes is just not true. If anything, the Colts have gone through minimal changes over the years. Marvin Harrison to Reggie Wayne. Tony Dungy to Jim Caldwell. Am I missing anything?

As long as the Colts have Manning, the franchise will succeed. He’s all the team needs. The Patriots have shown that they can win with anybody coaching, anybody scouting and anybody on the team. That’s a sign of a damn good franchise.

is a heap of crap. The only reason it was posted here was because it had the Irsay as second best. Cowboys at number one?? Doesn’t make any sense at all. Here is a comment from Boland himself

This is not about success on the field. The Super Bowl Champions are #20. It is about organizational success and Dallas has been one of the leading franchises in the league since 1967. This past year Jerry Jones made the biggest bet in NFL history on the most expensive stadium in human history and while he has no naming rights and Forbes list him as only barely profitable he covered that huge, ballsy bet. So while Green Bay has a great history of success and other teams can denigrade Dallas’ poor playoff record, Jerry Jones again demonstrated to every other owner what it is to be a gambler and win. So he’s #1. But the key is really about what tier you are in because anyone can make a credible argument to move these teams and organizations around within a given tier and still be right.

What is organizational success if not on-field success? One could perhaps argue that an owner putting a great team and front office out there to only have historic levels of injuries or just a string of terrible luck (90s Buffalo comes to mind) could still merit being considered the top owner without any rings. I agree that the rankings shouldn’t be a direct reflection of rings (that would be a pretty useless exercise), but they damn well ought to be correlated.

Also, success back in 1967 is entirely irrelevant, and how the hell does a ‘betting’ on a stadium, that is much about Jerry’s own ego than anything else, make him clearly the best owner? Maybe only if Irsay has bet harder on Lucas Oil, then we’d be ranked number one on some list prepared by an idiot!