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This guy's 1982 Chargers sure come up a lot when we do lists like these.

This guy's 1982 Chargers sure come up a lot when we do lists like these.

More than a decade ago (on a side note: how is that possible?), Doug wrote a series of player comments highlighting specific topics as they related to the upcoming fantasy football season. I recommend that you read all of them, if for no other reason than the fact you should make it a policy to read everything Doug Drinen ever wrote about football, but today we’re going to focus on the Isaac Bruce comment, which asked/answered the question:

Is this Ram team the biggest fantasy juggernaut of all time?

“This Ram team,” of course, being the 1999, 2000, & 2001 Greatest Show on Turf St. Louis Rams. At the time, Doug determined that those Rams were not, in fact, the best real-life fantasy team ever assembled, by adding up the collective VBD for the entire roster. They ranked tenth since 1970; the top 10 were:

1. 1. 1975 Buffalo Bills – 550 Simpson (281) Ferguson (98) Braxton (83) Chandler (44) Hill (42)

2. 1982 San Diego Chargers – 542 Chandler (190) Fouts (126) Winslow (121) Muncie (92) Brooks (10) Joiner (1)

3. 1994 San Francisco 49ers – 514 Young (208) Rice (140) Watters (98) Jones (67)

4. 1995 Detroit Lions – 478 Mitchell (136) Moore (132) Sanders (121) Perriman (87)

5. 1984 Miami Dolphins – 470 Marino (243) Clayton (145) Duper (76) Nathan (6)

6. 1998 San Francisco 49ers – 467 Young (200) Hearst (137) Owens (81) Rice (46) Stokes (1)

7. 1986 Miami Dolphins – 456 Marino (210) Duper (94) Clayton (76) Hampton (61) Hardy (13)

8. 2000 Minnesota Vikings – 452 Culpepper (170) Moss (123) Smith (87) Carter (70)

9. 1991 Buffalo Bills – 449 Thomas (157) Kelly (143) Reed (80) Lofton (51) McKeller (17)

10. 1999 St. Louis Rams – 435 Faulk (184) Warner (179) Bruce (71)

As an extension of Chase’s recent post on the The Best Skill Position Groups Ever, we thought it might be useful to update Doug’s study in a weekend data-dump post. I modified the methodology a bit — instead of adding up VBD for the entire roster, for each team-season I isolated the team’s leading QB and top 5 non-QBs by fantasy points (using the same point system I employed when ranking the Biggest Fluke Fantasy Seasons Ever). I then added up the total VBD of just those players, to better treat each roster like it was a “real” fantasy team.

Anyway, here are the results. Remember as well that VBD is scaled up to a 16-game season, so as not to short-change dominant fantasy groups from strike-shortened seasons (:cough:1982 Chargers:cough:).

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