Packers and their 13th championships

Agreed.
Football is football, and the championships that were won at the time were championships.
Period.
As much as it pains me to admit the Clowns won championships, they did.
At least it gave me a good reply to them when they would accuse ME of living in the past before we won our last two Lombardi`s, they were living even FARTHER in the past when they brought up their "championships"!!!
And I have always respected "The Pack", even when they beat us in the bowl.
They are a good team, with very blue collar roots and tradition, and in case ya didn`t notice, the Trophy we all play for, was named after their coach.

 

i shouldn't have said that they (a half-dozen titles prior to 1939) aren't a part of nfl history, but they just simply aren't relevant any more. they just aren't. it's not about how old they are, it's about what they did to 'earn' them (which was very little). in essence, they won their first five 'titles' competing in a league with only two other established franchises. in addition to that, they didn't even have to win a championship game of any sort. the 'champion' was merely the team that posted the best W-L record in their schedule.

the league pretty much HAS eliminated the pre-super bowl era. not officially from its 'books', per se, but nobody really counts 'em. think browns fans are thrilled with their old AAFL titles? ha! they don't dare mention them. and, for all of the packers apologists, jerry kramer himself said, "nobody cares about those old titles. people only talk about super bowls." it is what it is. welcome to the modern era (which began in 1970).

regarding your comment about fans wanting to "dismiss any records or stats that don't benefit their team . . . " i kind of take pride in the history of the steelers franchise. i love that the chief's biggest goal in the formative years was merely to "make payroll." that he succeeded, during many challenging times (steagles, pitt-card, etc) to keep the franchise afloat while so many other franchises (do a little research, dozens of teams in the formative years and only a few survived) folded or relocated. that the steelers were the original 'likeable losers' like the cubbies that had to endure decades of losing prior to creating a dynasty.

i dated a girl whose grandfather played in the late forties and his stories were fascinating. especially in regards to the browns. he said he never hated the browns. he and his teammates felt that they didn't really have a chance because paul brown ran out and bought all the best players. he was the steinbrenner of that era. he said the browns were so good, nobody could really even compete with 'em. he told me about one time they almost beat the browns, but didn't, and he just laughed and kind of shrugged his shoulders and reiterated how good they were. times have certainly changed.

 

When the talk about the the greatest game ever, which game do they mention? Giants vs Bal 1958 NFL Championship.
ESPN rebroadcast it in '08 on it's 50th Anniversary.

This was a game that occurred before time began, before the AFL and yet it's still remembered. Does that championship count?

Real reason the majority here don't want to count pre 1970 or pre-SB titles? : The Steelers didn't win any.

 

Exactly.

 

It's not always called that. When the media gets into talking about these moments, they always do so with an air of nostalgia...and there is a lot of nostalgia surrounding that game. It was played in Yankee Stadium for crying out loud. With the beloved Giants and Johnny Unitas. Notice that Game 6 of the 1975 World Series is still and will ALWAYS be known as the greatest baseball game of all time, even though many will admit that there have been better games since. It's known as such because it was fenway and because of the period and yadda yadda yadda.

 

Where are the banners for 1901 and 1902?????????

 

Really? Here are some of the comments from this thread.

Give me a break..I certainly don't count those.

Yep I don't count them either.....who cares about back then anyway.

The packers '13 championships' are a joke.

Whatever took place before that is all good and fine, but almost half the league's teams entered in 1970 with that merger. Any discussion of titles begins there.

Do they really mean anything? No.

 

Well said. Even the Clown fans harp on Championships they won in the 50's.THEY WERE NOT SUPER BOWLS.entirly different league. Merger happened in 1970-Anything AFTER that counts. GO STEELERS!!

 

Threads like this are as silly as the True Steelers Fan threads that I unsuccessfully tried to parody the other day.

The Packers have a great history reflected by their string of championships and super bowls. The Steelers sucked forever, then started and welcomed the steroid era with four kick the snot out of them super bowls.

Can we have a mathematics major determine an algorithm for comparing one win to another? A super bowl with Arians as offensive coordinator has to be considered to be one of the all time great sports accomplishments. See you next preseason, my head hurts, fondly, Concussion.

 

it was the 'greatest game' merely because of its timing in the history of football. not because it was such a great game (although it WAS fortuitous that it WAS a great game and went into sudden death ot). it was nationally televised (except for in nyc of all places) - i believe it may have been the first nationally televised primetime football game(?) which really marked the ARRIVAL of professional football on the national landscape. because of it being nationally televised and the large televsion audience that tuned in, lamar hunt, being a businessman seeing an opportunity to get involved with a business that was JUST BEGINNING to take off, founded the AFL. everything leading up to that 1958 game was beakers and erlenmeyer flasks. an experimental league (leagues, actually), trying to establish itself. that is why the old titles from a fledgling league go without recognition (except for in the cities that dominated that era).

why do packers fans pound their chests about their old titles when ny giants fans couldn't give a **** about their old titles? think lions fans care about their FOUR titles?!?! they could . . . care . . . less!! for some reasons, it's only the packers fans that pump their fists and claim their antiquated titles. 'titles' won eighty years ago in a league with only three established teams playing a game that is so completely different from the game played today . . . there's no question as to why people don't pay attention to the old titles . . . including packers players from the sixties.

 

They're championships, they count. This would be like saying any college championship prior to the BCS isn't really a championship. Ridiculous argument.

 

it's really not even an 'argument', kid. it is what it is. nobody is talking about the lions' 4 'titles' or the browns 8 titles from the aafc and nfl. for an 'argument' to take place, an opposing viewpoint would need to be presented. people are only talking about super bowls so you can hold onto your weak analogies. college football has been operating with a consistent format a hell of a lot longer than the nfl has. hell, the big ten was created in the 19th century. the nfl didn't even adopt a playoff system until 1933. the packers had already 'won' 3 titles by then (simply by having a better record than a handful of struggling franchises that didn't even exist by the time 1933 rolled around). only one more than the canton bulldogs. where are all the bulldogs fans?

 

It's a perfect analogy, you're just missing the point: Just because there's a change in structure or format doesn't mean previous accomplishments are lesser.

 

A championship is a championship. There are no asterisks or fine print.

For the record, the obvious argument here is that Super Bowls are greater than pre-merger NFL championships. So, kid, I suggest you go try to be smart somewhere else, where someone might actually buy it.

The BCS, well actually the "Bowl Coalition" has been around since 1992. Before that, there was no actual championship game played. So, if we use similar logic (a format change raises the value of a championship), then we must conclude that the championships awarded prior to the BCS era are, in fact, lesser accomplishments and are not to be held with equal status.

 

Vince Lombardi won five NFL Championships with the Green Bay Packers in the pre Super Bowl era and those wins are definitely as important as Super Bowl wins.

 

You don't hear much about them because they happened so long ago. You have to be in your mid 50's to even have a shot at remembering a pre-merger NFL championship game, but people still consider them championships.

People will say that the Lions haven't won a championship since the 40's, or whenever it was. People still consider the championships won by the Browns and Jim Brown to be legitimate championships as well. That just happened so long ago that no one talks about them.

People call this sort of mentality elitism. This is "Super Bowl-era Elitism". Our accomplishments are greater than your's because we have a Super Bowl trophy and you only have an NFL trophy, or whatever. The title doesn't change it's value. The size of the league doesn't, either.

The NFL they played in was not a "lesser" league. It was the top professional football league in existence. That's it. If you start getting into popularity, league size, player talent, and other things like that, then we could easily say the Super Bowls won in the 60's aren't as good as Super Bowls won in the 80's, or whenever. Or because the players weren't as big and fast as they are today, the championships of the 70s aren't equal to a modern championship. Hell, how about the only championship that is really a championship is the most recent one? That makes sense, right? After all, the league changes so much year-to-year that even last year's win doesn't compare.

 

"Super Bowl-era" is just used to distinguish pre-merger championships and post-mer championships. It doesn't define different values for each. Fans like yourself and journalists just misconstrued it as being a measuring stick.

It's all subject to the conditions that were in place at the time. A Super Bowl victory would be equal to a World Bowl championship. They both represent the best professional football team in that season.

 

Because before it was called the NFL-AFL Championship Game and before that there were several championships awarded in different leagues throughout the years.