Answering The Unanswerable Question

Is it emotional or logical? Do you go with your gut or by the numbers? Ah, those are the things that try a man's soul.

Being able to avow which NFL team is your favorite is as objective as which is the best team of all time. It is something that is completely subjective to the writer and reader.

My favorite team? Geez. How about the 1960 Houston Oilers? Was it because they won the first AFL championship? Was it because George Blanda was quarterback? Was it because they grabbed LSU Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon from the NFL? Was it because they played in a high school stadium?

Nah. Probably because as a 3-year-old I sat in the stands and watched my father catch a touchdown pass in the title game against Sid Gillman's Los Angeles Chargers. See, what I mean? The answer is completely subjective.

However, for any lover of the game, favorites will come and go, come around again and be gone in a flash. Yet, while seemingly subjective, determining the best team of all time is much, much simpler.

First, you must understand that history—even that of the NFL—cannot be viewed by today's standards. No one can argue it is a different game today than it was 80 years ago, 50 years ago, 30 years ago, shoot, even 10 to 15 years ago.

Today's players are no match for the stalwarts of the NFL's first half-century. Roosevelt Grier was a genuine freak in the 1950s and 1960s. A good player who weighed a phenomenal 300 pounds. Now, no offensive or defensive line has a chance without a majority of 300-plus pounders.

Players today are bigger, stronger, quicker, and faster as a whole than they have ever been. That alone makes head-to-head comparisons with history invalid. Face it, even at 0-16, the 2008 Detroit Lions would have no problem routing the 1920 NFL champion Decatur Staleys.

Then again, in determining an all-time best team, do you look at one season, five, 10 or franchise history? Valid arguments abound in support of any number of teams being the best of all-time.

Take the Green Bay Packers. The only team in league history to win three-straight championships. While many know of the powerhouse Lombardi teams that turned the trick in 1965-67, few can recall it was the second time they did it. The Packers also won three consecutive crowns between 1929-31—before the advent of an NFL championship game.

What about the Chicago Bears? They have won an all-time best nine crowns, but only one in the past 40 years. Still, you have to doff the chapeau and give an all-time best team nod to the 1940 squad that debuted the T-formation in the championship game against the Washington Redskins. With Sid Luckman at the controls, the Bears eked out a 73-0 victory.

Then there's the Cleveland Browns. Absorbed into the NFL from the dying All American Football Conference along with the Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers in 1950, the Browns won the NFL title in their first year in the league. Only the Staleys can make that claim, and that's because it was the first year for the league.

Speaking of the Colts, what about the 1958 squad? The televised, overtime title game with the Giants brought the NFL into everyone's home. Things haven't been the same since. Plus, look at the future Hall of Famers on that team.

What about any of several 49er teams from the 1980s? Or the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won four Super Bowls in six years between 1974-79? Or the 1992-95 Dallas Cowboys—winners of three-of-four Super Bowls? Then there's the New England Patriots of the first decade of the 21st century.

Which of these can rightfully be deemed the best team of all time? Arguments, bar fights, and divorces have hinged on determining that.

Yet, if you clear away emotion, blood relation, and the fact that Troy Aikman was cute to the dame who would not sit down in front of me at the 1995 Super Bowl, there is one team that can legitimately be deemed the best of all time.

The determination is nothing complicated and doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out. It doesn't involve Xs and Os, yards gained, total points scored, or number of Hall of Famers on the roster (although there have ultimately been more than a few).

Nope, it comes to down to the simple fact that is the element of the game—any game for that matter. Based on what the game is all about, picking the all-time best team turns out to be a veritable no-brainer.

Which NFL team is the best of all time? The 1972 Miami Dolphins. They didn't lose. Kinda hard to argue with that ... But, of course, many will.

And that's what makes sports what it is.