Reacting To The All-Decade Team

From Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

It’s a dreary, rainy day in south Florida, so the trip to the beach was cancelled and now there’s more time to provide dispatches from Super Bowl Land.

The announcement of the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2000s got lost in the silliness of the Pro Bowl and the hype of Super Bowl week. Or was it the hype of the Pro Bowl and silliness of Super Bowl week? Either way, the best players from the last ten seasons haven’t gotten their just due. My suggestion in the future for the league is to release this information about the middle of the off-week before the Super Bowl. As a story, it would have far more traction at that point on the calendar.

It was amazing that the Chiefs placed four players on the team. Even if someone wants to argue that Willie Roaf’s (above) career was divided between Kansas City and New Orleans, the fact is this: he played more than twice as many games in the 2000s wearing the Chiefs red and gold (58) than he did with the fleur de lis of the Saints (23).

Four players out of 53 spots on the roster for a team that did not win a single game in the playoffs over the decade – that’s rather remarkable. It speaks to the fact that a player stuck in fly-over country will get notice and accolades if they are good enough.

It also speaks to the fact that the Chiefs of the 2000s may have been the most under-achieving franchise in the league. To have talent like Roaf, Will Shields, Tony Gonzalez and Dante Hall available, along with some other guys like Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson, Eddie Kennison, Trent Green and Brian Waters, and go 0-2 in the post-season? That’s ugly.

Some other thoughts on the All-Decade team:

• On my selections I missed on 13 choices, with the biggest disagreements coming at running back, wide receiver and linebacker.
• Even with those disagreements, I have a hard time arguing about the makeup of the team. There isn’t a player on the list that doesn’t deserve the honor.
• If I had to argue for one player who was excluded it would be DE John Abraham of the New York Jets and Atlanta. He played all 10 seasons and finished the decade with 89.5 sacks and forced 30 fumbles. That’s a lot of turnovers.
• Part of the team released by the league was the head coaches of the decade, with New England’s Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy of the Colts. I’m glad that Dungy got the nod, not only because of his Super Bowl victory with Indianapolis, but the fact that Tampa Bay won a Super Bowl with a team that Dungy built.
• One guy who deserved recognition was Philadelphia coach Andy Reid. The Eagles were in the last decade, but only reached the Super Bowl once and did not win that one. Reid led Philly to 103 regular-season victories and eight trips to the playoffs. Only the Patriots and Colts had more victories and only the Colts had more post-season appearances.