Happy Wednesday, friends. You’re just one day away from enjoying the warm weather, cold drinks, and plenty of fireworks this Fourth of July, so let that be the motivator to get you through this final stretch of the work week. It’s Tyler Sullivan here to guide you through all the latest happenings in the NFL world before the holiday.
While we’re still a few weeks away from seeing our favorite teams open up training camp, there’s plenty of new to get to, so we’ll get right to it. Before we do, however, we ask you to subscribe to the newsletter right here and make sure to tell your friends to join as well.
1. Ranking the top 25 teams of the NFL’s modern era
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One of the bright spots of the NFL being in its down period is that it does allow some of our writers to do a deep dive into various topics. Staff writer — and essentially our CBS Sports historian — Bryan DeArdo recently went back into the history books, looked back at every team in the NFL’s modern era (the past 58 seasons), and rolled out his rankings of the greatest teams to ever be assembled in that time.
While you may think that this could simply be a list of all the various Super Bowl champions, that’s not the case. DeArdo has a couple of teams that did not hoist the Lombardi Trophy in these rankings, including the 2007 New England Patriots at No. 8 overall.
DeArdo on the ’07 Patriots: You can’t have a non-championship season better than this one. In fact, the only thing the ’07 Patriots didn’t do was hoist the Lombardi Trophy. The only undefeated team during the NFL’s 16-game regular season format, the Patriots’ average margin of victory during the season was a gaudy 19.7 points. Brady set an NFL record for TD passes, while Moss’ single season record for TD receptions remains the all-time mark.
The defense included Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau, two-time All-Pro safety Rodney Harrison, and 2007 Pro Bowlers Vince Wilfork, Mike Vrabel, and Asante Samuel. The unit held 12 of their opponents to under 20 points, including their opponent in Super Bowl XLII: the New York Giants. The Giants’ pressure of Brady, along with a miracle helmet catch, prevented the Patriots from completing the greatest season in league annals.
As for who claimed the top overall spot as…
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