Quote Originally Posted by hoosier View Post
I can't believe they list the '96 offense. And they claim that Holmgren spawned the move away from a single "bell cow" RB. But Walsh had already trademarked that move back in the early 1980s when the SF offense was Montana, Clark, Solomon and a bunch of role players at RB that nobody had ever heard of and who nobody can remember today. I think they put 1996 in there because they felt they had to recognize the rebirth of the Packers and because the renaissance is associated with QB and not defense. The fact that they felt the need to add that the Packers thrived with, and sometimes despite, Favre is symptomatic of this contortion. Maybe they need to add a third list: Best front offices of all time.
I think its because of the Super Bowl and Favre making hay with Rison in the lineup. And Tanier explicitly says when its a run of a team with basically the same characters, he picks one representative sample so they can discuss more teams.

But the 1995 offense, league ranks aside, the better unit. Football Outsiders had them over 20% DVOA that year, in 1996 they were 15.2%

Everyone talks about Favre and Holmgren, but the D reached better performance (though they had a big letdown in '95).