Don't mean a thing if they ain't got that ring

Adam Markowitz
Monday August 24, 2015

Arizona Rattlers fans, turn your heads. You'll always hold the mark as the most impressive dynasty since the return of the AFL in 2010, and you'll always have a gripe that Reggie Gray's ball never reached the goal line before it came out. But this day belongs to the San Jose SaberCats.

For all that Arizona did well over the course of the last five seasons -- all 85-19 of it -- if the SaberCats win ArenaBowl XXVIII, they will go down as the best team the Arena Football League has ever had.

Of course, history isn't really on the side of the SaberCats as we have come to know it. Last season, the then 19-1 Cleveland Gladiators were crushed in ArenaBowl XXVII by – gee, who would have ever guessed this – Arizona. But that wasn't the only time the hopes of dreams of what seemed like it was the best team in the AFL were dashed on the doorstep of history.

Best Regular Season Records in AFL History

If you're keeping track at home, teams which have had an .888 or better regular season winning percentage in AFL history are now just 1-for-9 in terms of winning the ArenaBowl, which really leaves a solid debate for who the best team is in league history at the moment. Certainly the 2002 SaberCats have a great argument to be held to that standard, as they finished with a composite winning percentage of .941, better by a comfortable margin from the next best all-time winning percentage, the .905 of last year's Gladiators, who were beaten by 40 points on their home field in the biggest game of the season.

Those SaberCats had some of the truly all-time greats on their roster. Mark Grieb didn't even play in that ArenaBowl in 2002 due to injury, and San Jose's backup quarterback, John Dutton went on to write his name in the history books, leading one of the biggest romps in AFL history, a 52-14 whitewashing of rival Arizona.

So far, there are five members of the 2002 SaberCats to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Sam Hernandez was one of the best two-way linemen this league ever saw. Barry Wagner was the greatest ironman there ever was or ever will be. Bob McMillen was so good he was eventually put on the cover of one of the AFL's video games. Clevan Thomas was voted into the Hall of Fame and will eventually be put back there when he decides he's really ready to retire for good. Omarr Smith was one of the greatest champions this league ever had. And that doesn't even include Grieb, who for my money, was the best quarterback in AFL history or Dutton, who could very well get there one day, too. By the time this game kicks off, I fully expect that Grieb joins the Hall of Fame elite as well. Oh by the way, Darren Arbet, who was coaching the 'Cats back then as well, is also a Hall of Famer.

That 2002 team was nasty, and it would have run the table if not for a loss in the desert the second to last week of the regular season. The SaberCats averaged 61.0 points per game, scoring at least 52 points all 17 times they took the field (and they scored 66 and 68 in their two preseason games, for what it's worth). They beat their foes up by an average of 16.2 points per game including the playoffs, and each successive victory in the second season was more and more emphatic. Three wins by at least 28 points. Eleven by double-digits.

Grieb had one of the best years by a quarterback in league history, throwing for 70 TDs against just five INTs, numbers which were astronomical at the time. Four players had at least seven rushing touchdowns. Three more had at least 13 receiving TDS, including James Hundon, who had 98 catches, 1,464 yards and 35 trips to the end zone.

The SaberCats were unstoppable. They never turned the ball over. They were ball hawks in the second. And they put the biggest exclamation point on a season for a team with such a good resume in league history.

But with all due respect to those SaberCats, even they aren't these SaberCats.

When the book is finally finished being written on this team, there should easily be more Hall of Famers than San Jose had back in 2002. Odie Armstrong is one of the best fullbacks in AFL history. Reggie Gray is only 31 years old and ranks in the Top 25 in league history in receptions (24th), receiving yards (19th) and receiving TDs (12th). Ben Nelson is also in the Top 25 in all three categories. Maurice Purify is trying to become the first man in AFL history to win four straight ArenaBowl championships and has the greatest ArenaBowl game any player has ever had to his resume when he had nine catches for 143 yards and seven TDs in Arizona's first of three straight championships. Francis Maka? Maybe the best mack linebacker the AFL has ever seen. Jason Stewart? A dominant nose tackle who clearly has done enough in my eyes to reach the Hall of Fame. The same might be said one day for Rich Rangelin and Erik Meyer, too. Thomas is no less a Hall of Famer now than he was 13 years ago, and neither is Arbet. Smith is still hanging around on this coaching staff, too.

That's 11 Hall of Famers, and we're not even sure that's all of them. Even the most dominant teams in AFL history didn't have 11 Hall of Famers out there at one time like this one probably does.

This San Jose team mutilated the record, not just in the AFL, but in all of professional football to the best of our knowledge, for the biggest point differential for a team in a single season. The SaberCats sat at +399 points (22.2 PPG) in the regular season, and they're up to +429 now entering the ArenaBowl (21.5 PPG).

These SaberCats led the AFL both in scoring and points allowed. That's only happened four times before (Dallas in 2006, Tampa Bay in 1998, Detroit in 1991 and 1990). You'll notice, as an aside, that only one of those four teams actually won the ArenaBowl (Detroit in 1990).

I'll continue to list off the accolades this crew has accomplished.

#1 in scoring offense (58.9 PPG)
#1 in scoring defense (36.8 PPG)
#1 in rushing defense (12.3 YPG)
#1 in team QB rating (123.8)
#1 in QB rating allowed (76.4)
#1 in interceptions (33)
#1 in turnovers forced (45)
#1 in turnovers (19)
#1 in turnover margin (+26)
#1 in opposing first downs (321)
#1 in 3rd down conversion percentage (58.7%)
#1 in opposing 3rd down conversion percentage (29.9%)
#1 in opposing 4th down conversion percentage (28.2%)
#1 in sacks (44)
#1 in red zone defense (67.1%)
#1 in red zone touchdown percentage allowed (65.7%)

The margins by which San Jose was the best in many of those categories was absurd as well. The SaberCats, just as one example, had fewer points allowed in 18 games than any team in AFL history ever had in 16 games in the regular season.

Their defense was absolutely as insane as it gets. SaberCats opponents faced 137 third downs this year. Of those 137 third downs, 96, an average of 5.3 times per game, were forced into fourth down decisions (or drives ended on third down in turnovers). The SaberCats not only averaged 2.5 turnovers forced per game, but they were good for 3.1 stops per game on downs, too. The average AFL game only has 10 or 11 possessions, and San Jose averaged stopping teams on over half of those drives.

In this day and age of arena football, where success and failure isn't measured by how many points you score, but by how many times you are stopped, being able to average over five stops per game is legitimately epic.

The offense? Stellar. Eighteen games now with at least 54 points put on the board, including eight in a row and 16 out of 17. Meyer had Grieb-esque numbers with 93 TDs against six INTs, and if you include Nathan Stanley's 20/0 TD/INT ratio, the SaberCats as a team had 113 TD passes against just six INTs.

Gray had a mere 2,930 all-purpose yards to go with 47 total touchdowns.

The efficient SaberCats were stopped just 46 times all season long, scoring touchdowns on a league-best 76.6 percent of all drives.

It's all truly as impressive as it gets, but to paraphrase the great Duke Ellington, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ring.

With apologies to last year's Gladiators, had they won the ArenaBowl and finished at 20-1, many would have argued that they were the most fortunate team in AFL history, not the best.

Here, there is no argument. The SaberCats are on the verge of that elusive 20th win as well, and they have an opportunity to do something truly special in ArenaBowl XXVIII. No matter what anyone says about how they got here, they'll have the accolades to be called the best ever. They just have to go get that ring.