I am not the best person to speak to if you want an unbiased opinion on whether or not NFL super teams can succeed in the NFL. After all, you're talking to a diehard Eagles fan who had to sit through the mediocrity of our so-called "Dream Team" in 2011. While there are certainly some organizations out there who are currently dreaming of an 8-8 season, that wasn't the case for the 10-6 2010 Eagles, who somehow got worse in that 2011 campaign.
So forgive me if I'm not all too high on the concept of rapidly putting together a super team, but there's some historical context that makes it appropriate to act that way. And apparently, Troy Aikman feels the same.
Joining Sports Illustrated's Jimmy Traina on his podcast, embedded above, Aikman defended recent comments that he made about his concerns regarding the Rams and their hasty attempt to bolster their already-impressive roster into a fearsome title contender, saying that he's "never seen it work in the NFL."
A couple of weeks later, he hasn't changed his tune.
"I didn't know there was pushback to those comments, I don't really keep up with whatever the reaction is to what I may or may not say during the course of a ball game," Aikman told Traina. "But I just think back to when I was playing, I know Washington tried that back in the late '90s. They put together a team with Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith and a number of players and I don't even think they made the playoffs that year, and so my experience when I've seen teams really try to load the wagon for one run, it hasn't worked."
Many fans may argue that you don't have to look all that far to find a "super team" that was rather successful, pointing to last year's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While you can't counter the fact that they were a massive success, taking home a Super Bowl ring, Aikman doesn't view them as a super team in the same vein as the aforementioned 2000 Washington roster or that 2011 Eagles Dream Team. After all, he says that outside of Brady and Gronkowski, most of the other core pieces were either already there or might not have caused a major stir as huge pickups.
The Rams? That's a different story, with two blue-chip talents coming over in the middle of the season in a clear push to surge atop the NFC.
"...For the Rams, I understand, I mean you try to do everything you can to put together a team to go and win it all. I just thought that when they made the trade for Von Miller, that was the first time that it really kind of felt like, wow. They are really just all in, in every way possible, for this one year," Aikman explained. "Von Miller's a great player and I love the guy and everything he's been able to do, but he's been in the league a long time. I don't know how many, I guess the Rams will still have some picks in the draft, but I just haven't seen that really work out. And the Rams have been unabashed in saying, yeah, we're all in on trying to win and it's not just this year. They've tried doing it like that in other years too. And so, you know, we'll see.
"It works sometimes in basketball, I just haven't — if you exclude Tampa, I guess there's those who would argue Tampa is one of those teams — and if you consider Tampa one of those teams, then yeah, they did it a year ago. I happen to not. And I just haven't seen that in football."
A strong win over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 14 gave the Rams a much-needed boost, as they now sit just one game behind Arizona for the lead in the NFC West. They appear to pretty much be a lock for the playoffs at this point, so long as they can win one or two more games over the next four weeks.
But once the playoffs come around, will the Rams play like the top-to-bottom talented organization that they are? Or was it all put together a little too quickly, and will their postseason run end without the success that such major acquisitions would suggest?
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