The Patriots Almost Dynasty

Football Perspective is a wonderful site that breaks down some of the advanced notions of football, and then goes even further. Andrew Healy went through the past four decades of seasons to determine, using probability, the likelihood that each team would win the Super Bowl. He crowned the team with the highest probability of Super Bowl victories as the "True Team of the Decade."

The Steelers are the team of the 70s, with an expected 1.637 Super Bowl titles.

The 49ers won the 80s and 90s (beating out the Cowboys), with an expected 1.637 and 1.639 Super Bowl titles, accordingly.

The Patriots won the 00s, with an expected 1.38 Super Bowl titles. He gave the Patriots a mere 17% chance to not win any titles. In fact, the team was so dominant, their expectation for 2+ titles (41.4%) is greater than any other team's chance to win just one Super Bowl (Colts were second with a 40.2% chance of winning one title).

Healy closes with the following remarks:

Finally, a couple of thoughts about this decade. While we’re only four years in, this decade could wind up resembling the 1990s. The Patriots right now are playing the role of the ’90s Niners, while the Seahawks may be the best candidate to be the Cowboys. So far, the Patriots have been (perhaps surprisingly) dominant. There’s only about a 27% chance that New England would have no titles in the 2010s and there was even a 28.5% chance that the Patriots would have already won multiple titles; that likelihood is more than four times more as any other team. Despite having none on the field through four seasons, the ’10s Patriots are on pace through four years to have the most expected SB wins for any decade. They already have 1.07 expected wins, more than double their nearest competitor.

Note that he's a Patriots fan, but it lends hope that the Patriots still have an open window. I highly recommend heading over to the site to read his interesting article.