| |
Super
Bowl Tournament:
A 20th Anniversary Celebration
Featuring the Super Bowl Champions
from the league's first twenty
seasons, coming out of retirement,
taking a magic pill to grant them
the same abilities as they had when
they won it all ... and throwing
them all into a bracket challenge to
see who would become ....
The Greatest Championship
Team |
As the
league was approaching it's 20th season
online, we thought we had reached the
pinnacles of pinnacles. No other league on
the net had even ventured past the five
season mark, considering they were all
coaching leagues, moving at the speed of
one game per week. We were so thrilled to
have lasted a generation, that we decided
we had to determine which team could be
called the Greatest Champion.
It was a
cute gimmick. You'd never see it in the
real world, although back at the change of
the millennium ESPN took a bunch of NFL
Films stock footage and broadcasted the
"Game of the Century", featuring Vince
Lombardi's Green Bay Packers from 1970
versus Bill Walsh's San Francisco 49ers
from 1986. They even married together
footage from Howard Cosell in with ESPN's
regular crew of Mike Patrick, Paul
Maguire, and Joe Theismann. It was done
really well and at times, you couldn't
tell the difference between the eras.
For those
of us in the USA Football League those
days, we had no idea the league would last
past thirty seasons, heck even get close
to fifty seasons. So, as a marketing ploy,
Commissioner Andrew Lewis dreamed up the
20th Anniversary Greatest Championship
Team Tournament. The results were
broadcast live each week on the wildly
popular FBPRO Radio Show, hosted by Jason
Tudor featuring Bill Barnwell. Both of
whom were so impressed with our fledgling
little operation that they came on board
as Assistant GMs and began the process of
learning all about the world of the USAFL.
Listening
in to the FBPRO Radio Show, the USAFL
always stood out head and shoulders above
all the other leagues as we always had so
much content we could funnel to the show.
From highly competitive playoff results,
to free agency acquisitions, to small
features on our yearly champions. And now,
to be able to tell the entire FBPRO
community online that we were holding a
tournament featuring 20 season's worth of
champions, made our league the talk of the
sim community.
It's no
wonder that immediately following the
tournament the league was inundated with
requests to join. From that crop of new
GMs came the likes of Aaron Streepy, Tim
Gilberg, Dave Aiello, Todd Ricotta, Tom
Edwards, Joe Malloy, and Patrick Sicher.
Those seven stuck around through the end
of the original era, into the second era,
with Todd, Tom, Joe, Dave, Aaron, and Joe
signing on for the now famous modern era
(now into it's 66th season).
So who
won this major event?
It did
have a surprising ending ... with the
diehard original GMs owning multiple
championship teams, the eventual winner
was a newcomer into the league ... but I
am ahead of myself. Check out the stats
and scores below. We had some incredible
games ...
The teams
were ranked according to a committee of
veteran GMs. We had four brackets, five
teams in each bracket with the two lowest
teams matched-up in a play-in game. Each
bracket winner came together for a final
four .... until we reached our Greatest
Super Bowl Champion.
Here are
the ROSTERS
of the twenty participating Super Bowl
Champions.
| BRACKET
ONE |
| 1ST
ROUND |
2ND
ROUND |
3RD
ROUND |
FINAL
FOUR |
|
1.
TB 2005 - 24 |
|
|
| 16.
TB 2003 - 39 |
STATS
|
1.
TB 2005 - 13 |
|
|
STATS
|
16.
TB 2003 - 21 |
|
BRACKET
ONE
|
| 20.
ATL 1997 - 6 |
|
STATS
|
1.
TB 2005 |
|
9.
BUF 2013 - 13 |
|
WINNER
|
|
STATS
|
8.
TB 2011 - 9 |
|
|
8.
TB 2011 - 16 |
|
|
| BRACKET
TWO |
| 1ST
ROUND |
2ND
ROUND |
3RD
ROUND |
FINAL
FOUR |
|
4.
DEN 2007 - 25 |
|
|
| 13.
TB 2001 - 23 |
STATS
|
4.
DEN 2007 - 12 |
|
|
STATS
|
13.
TB 2001 - 3 |
|
BRACKET
TWO
|
| 17.
DEN 2004 - 10 |
|
STATS
|
12.
ATL 2010 |
|
12.
ATL 2010 - 23 |
|
WINNER
|
|
STATS
|
12.
ATL 2010 - 26 |
|
|
5.
DEN 2006 - 16 |
|
|
| BRACKET
THREE |
| 1ST
ROUND |
2ND
ROUND |
3RD
ROUND |
FINAL
FOUR |
|
2.
ATL 2015 - 20 |
|
|
| 15.
TB 2002 - 23 |
STATS-
OT!!!
|
15.
TB 2002 - 13 |
|
|
STATS
|
15.
TB 2002 - 22 |
|
BRACKET
THREE
|
| 19.
DEN 1998 - 6 |
|
STATS
|
7.
TB 2008 |
|
10.
CIN 2012 - 5 |
|
WINNER
|
|
STATS
|
7.
TB 2008 - 15 |
|
|
7.
TB 2008 - 10 |
|
|
| BRACKET
FOUR |
| 1ST
ROUND |
2ND
ROUND |
3RD
ROUND |
FINAL
FOUR |
|
3.
DEN 2009 - 3 |
|
|
| 14.
BUF 2014 - 16 |
STATS
|
14.
BUF 2014 - 6 |
|
|
STATS
|
14.
BUF 2014 - 21 |
|
BRACKET
FOUR
|
| 18.
TB 1999 - 12 |
|
STATS
|
6.
CAR 2016 |
|
11.
DEN 2000 - 3 |
|
WINNER
|
|
STATS
|
6.
CAR 2016 - 35 |
|
|
6.
CAR 2016 - 36 |
|
FINAL
FOUR - Greatest Super Bowl
Tournament
|
| BRACKET
ONE |
|
|
| 1.
TB 2005 - 14 |
|
|
|
STATS
|
12.
ATL 2010 - 3 |
|
| BRACKET
TWO |
|
BEST |
| 12.
ATL 2010 - 15 |
|
SUPER
BOWL TEAM
|
|
STATS
|
6.
CAR 2016
|
| BRACKET
THREE |
|
FROM
THE FIRST |
| 7.
TB 2008 - 7 |
|
TWENTY
YEARS |
|
STATS
|
6.
CAR 2016 - 13 |
|
| BRACKET
FOUR |
|
|
| 6.
CAR 2016 - 33 |
|
|
Return
to
the Countdown To A Century Main Page
|