FootballOutsiders All-Time Dynasty Rankings (Rams appear 3 times)

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No. 50: 1999-2003 St. Louis Rams

Peak Dynasty Points: 11
Average DVOA: 13.2%.
Top-Five DVOA: 13.2%
Championships: 1.
Record: 56-24 (.700)
Head Coaches: Dick Vermeil, Mike Martz
Key Players: QB Kurt Warner, RB Marshall Faulk, WR Isaac Bruce, WR Torry Holt, T Orlando Pace, CB Aeneas Williams
Z-Score: -6.04

The Greatest Show on Turf came out of nowhere. The first years of the St. Louis Rams were horrible. They ranked 20th or worse in DVOA from 1995 to 1998, never topping a -9.9% mark, and their offense topped out at 25th in the league. The franchise had not had a winning season since 1989, and the return of Dick Vermeil from the announcing booth wasn't helping much. The Rams were just 9-23 in Vermeil's first two seasons on the sidelines. To add injury to insult, the 1999 preseason saw newly acquired quarterback Trent Green blow out his ACL. Sure, they had traded for Marshall Faulk, but all they had at quarterback was Kurt Warner -- and not the good Curt Warner, the 1980s Seahawks running back, but some former stockboy; an Arena League and NFL Europe vet. They were going to be the worst team in the league, bar none.

Yeah, about that.

The 1999 Rams did not lead the league in offensive DVOA thanks to a soft schedule -- they played the easiest schedule of opposing defenses we've ever recorded -- and adjustments for playing indoors. Still, they scored over 500 points and led the league in basically every counting stat you can think of. And it wasn't a fluke, either -- they became the first team to ever score 500-plus points in three consecutive seasons. Warner picked up two MVPs, with Faulk getting the other one, and they finished one-two in the voting in each season, which is unprecedented. They led the league in overall DVOA in 1999 at 34.0% (41.0% before opponent adjustments -- again, a super-soft schedule), and held off a feisty Tennessee Titans team to win Super Bowl XXXIV. Vermiel retired, but that just left the keys in the hands of the designer of the offense, Mike Martz. An injury to Warner held the Rams to a wild-card berth in 2000, but the 2001 team was, if anything, more potent than the 1999 version, and they reached the Super Bowl once again, only to be shockingly upset by those loveable underdog Patriots.

Those three seasons match up with any other three seasons in the history of the league; the two Super Bowl years are both over 25.0% DVOA and 2000 isn't that far behind. Warner's 1999 and 2001 campaigns have the first- and second-most DYAR in Rams history. Faulk's 1999-2001 seasons rank first, second, and third among Rams running backs, (and first, third, and fifth among all running backs) as he became the second player ever to break the 1,000-yard rushing/1,000-yard receiving barrier. The top six receiving years in franchise history all belong to Isaac Bruce or Torry Holt, albeit with one Bruce season outside this run. While the offense gets the headlines, the defense ranked in the top five in both 1999 and 2001, too. If we were looking at great three-year stretches, the Rams would be much higher.

But we're not just looking at that, and we have to bring the next couple of seasons into the mix. The Rams flopped in 2002, with Warner getting hurt and struggling even when healthy; Marc Bulger was far and away the better quarterback that season, and ended up taking over the starting job for good in 2003. The Rams did have one more double-digit-win season and an NFC West title behind Bulger, but the writing was on the wall by that point. Even that successful 2002 team still had a negative offensive DVOA, and Martz's mad-scientist ways never produced a positive offensive DVOA ever again, either as a head coach or a coordinator. It's almost like finding a Hall of Fame quarterback in the dumpster pile is fantastic for your resume. As for the Rams, they would have just one positive offensive DVOA season between 2002 and Sean McVay's arrival in 2017.

No. 23: 1973-1980 Los Angeles Rams

Peak Dynasty Points: 18
Average DVOA: 19.7%.
Top-Five DVOA: 25.6%
Championships: 0.
Record: 86-31-1 (.733)
Head Coaches: Chuck Knox, Ray Malavasi
Key Players: RB Lawrence McCutcheon, WR Harold Jackson, G Tom Mack, C Rich Saul, DE Jack Youngblood, DT Larry Brooks, LB Isiah Robertson, LB Jack Reynolds
Z-Score: 0.01

Our first team to hit a positive combined Z-Score may not be one you were expecting to see this high. Ten teams without a championship to their name made the 10-point dynasty cutoff, but most of them appeared way down the list. By our numbers, the 1970s Rams are better than the 1990s Bills or the 1980s Broncos or the Killer Bs Dolphins, with Chuck Knox's boys standing tall as the cream of the NFC West of the era.

The Rams won seven straight division titles from 1973 to 1979. They've only won 20 divisional crowns period, so seven in a row is fairly notable. Admittedly, this was not a strong period for the NFC West; the Rams' divisional rivals managed six seasons with positive estimated DVOA in 22 tries. Still, titles are titles.

And it's not like the Rams were excuse-me shrugging their way into the playoffs in a weak division, either. They were in the middle of a run of 15 straight years with positive estimated DVOA, easily the franchise record. And they went 6-8 in the postseason during this run, with their only losses (Dallas four times, Minnesota three times, and Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XIV) coming against other teams in the midst of their own, superior dynastic runs. And they did beat Landry's Cowboys in 1976 and 1979, and they did beat the Purple People Eaters in 1978; this was a very good team that had the misfortune to play when giants roamed the league -- give them a win in one of three straight NFC Championship Games from 1974 to 1976, and history probably regards these Rams much differently.

Growing up, I had sort of assumed that the 1979 Rams Super Bowl appearance was an aberration -- a mediocre team that had gotten lucky. And that's not entirely inaccurate; they had an estimated DVOA of just 0.7%, were terrible on offense, and had just a +14 point differential on the season, third-worst in Super Bowl history. Backup Vince Ferragamo did just enough to keep the Rams afloat through a series of improbable upsets. That's the image of these Rams that history has saved, but that was easily the worst Rams team of this decade. The 1973 and 1976 Rams each had estimated DVOAs over 30.0%, and the rest of their off years were mostly above 15.0%. This was a good team that just had its worst possible representative on the national stage.

Knox was known as "Ground Chuck" by his detractors for his emphasis on running the ball and sitting on close leads, and you know how conservative you have to be to get that reputation in the 1970s. I think that renown comes more from the parade of quarterbacks he was forced to trot out -- three primary starters in five years in John Hadl, Pat Haden, and James Harris, plus cameos from a baby Ron Jaworski and the decaying knees of Joe Namath. You'd lean on Lawrence McCutcheon plenty too if you were that uncertain about your quarterback situation. Anyway, this was a defensive team first and foremost, ranking in the top 10 in estimated DVOA (and usually in the top five) in all but one of these seasons. Very solid drafting brought in Jack Youngblood, Isiah Robertson, and Hacksaw Reynolds to anchor the team, with a plethora of useful players like Larry Brooks and Dave Elmendorf to pad out the roster. The Rams allowed fewer than 11 points a game in both 1975 and 1977.

Those playoff losses to better teams (plus arguments with owner Carroll Rosembloom, including but not limited to bringing in the crumbling Namath over Harris and Jaworski) led to Knox being fired after the 1977 season. L.A. brought back George Allen to get the team over the hump, but fired him during the preseason, leaving Ray Malavasi to guide the Rams through the rest of this run. Malavasi may have gotten the Rams to the Super Bowl, but it was Knox's teams that were, by a wide margin, the better squads.

No. 20: 1949-1952 Los Angeles Rams

Peak Dynasty Points: 12
Average DVOA: 28.8%.
Top-Five DVOA: 23.0%
Championships: 1.
Record: 34-12-2 (.729)
Head Coach: Clark Shaughnessy, Joe Stydahar, Hampton Pool
Key Players: QB Bob Waterfield, QB Norm Van Brocklin, FB Tank Younger, E Elroy Hirsch, E Tom Fears, DE Larry Brink, MG Stan West
Z-Score: 0.68

The list of NFL passing and receiving records is dominated by modern players, as today's teams throw the ball more than ever before, brushing up to 35 attempts per game in recent years. But in and among the Mannings, Breeses, and Bradys of the world, you'll find a couple of standouts from the 1950s who stick out like a sore thumb.

The most points per game in NFL history? The 1950 Rams, with 466 points in 12 games. The most yards gained in a single game? The 1951 Rams, with 722. The most passing yards in a single game? Norm Van Brocklin in that same 1951 game, with 554.

Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch is the only player still in the top 50 in single season receiving yards who played before 1960, and his 17 touchdowns (in 12 games!) in 1951 stood as the record until 1984. Heck, his 124.6 yards per game that season is still the third best of all time. Tom Fears had 18 receptions in a single game for the Rams in 1950, a record which would stand until 2000. Flipping through the record book, it becomes stranger and stranger that a bunch of records from the 1950s could still be standing. They shine like a neon light; how the heck could that happen?

The answer lies with Clark Shaughnessy, the man more responsible for how offensive football looks than possibly anyone else in history. In the 1940s, Shaughnessy had dusted off the T-formation and basically made passing a regular part of the offense. But this was a decade later, first serving as a technical advisor and then as head coach for the Rams, and he had a problem: he had way too much offensive talent to actually use.

He had an existing All-Pro quarterback in Bob Waterfield and had just drafted a future Pro Bowl quarterback in Norm Van Brocklin. He had Crazy Legs Hirsch, who needed to switch from halfback to end to protect his head and give him room in open space to move. He had Tom Fears, another future Hall of Famer, at split end. He had an excellent tight end in Bob Shaw. He had college 100-yard dash champion Bob Boyd. He had a flotilla of halfbacks who could catch, from Glenn Davis to Vitamin Smith to Tommy Kalmanir. He just had to get this talent on the field.

And so the three-end formation was born, with the Rams regularly using three (and sometimes even four or five) wide receivers. This was an era when the standard defensive front was a 5-2 or even a 5-3, so you can imagine the shock when all of a sudden all these tiny speedy guys were running all around the field. There's a reason the 1950 Rams were the first team to have all their games televised; people have always loved crazy offense, and no offense was crazier than the big plays that Crazy Legs could provide. The Rams' offense was so prolific that in 1951, Van Brocklin finished fourth in the league in passing yards, and Waterfield finished fifth. Those 1951 Rams have an estimated offensive DVOA of 35.0%, sixth-highest since 1950. Dudes could throw the ball.

Shaughnessy didn't actually last to coach the 1950s version of these Rams; he was a better innovator than coach, and bringing in new textbooks full of plays every week wasn't something that exactly endeared him to his players. But it was his system and his ideas that led the Rams to three straight NFL title games, finally winning one in 1951. Had they pulled off a three-peat, or at least kept some of their success going throughout the mid-1950s, they'd be challenging the top 10 on this list.