The 1990 Chicago Bears came into the season looking to show they were still the same team who had dominated the old NFC Central from 1984-88. The 1989 season had been marked by calamitous collapse, where a 4-0 start turned into a stunning 6-10 finish. Mike Ditka handed the reins to a new quarterback and […]
Joe Gibbs only missed the postseason in consecutive years one time in his storied coaching career. Those years were 1988 and 1989. The 1990 Washington Redskins got Gibbs and the franchise off the schneid, as they returned to the playoffs, won a game and set the stage for future greatness.
The 1990 Pittsburgh Steelers were coming off a season where they caught everyone by surprise and made a run to the playoffs with a young team and then won a game when they got there. In ’90, they matched the previous year’s 9-7 record, but the tiebreakers fell against them and they missed the postseason after a hard-to-swallow loss in the season finale.
Defense was the real calling card though, and Belichick orchestrated a unit built around one of the best linebacking groups ever to play the game. Lawrence Taylor was still the league’s most feared blitzing linebacker after ten years in the league and his counterpart on the outside, Carl Banks, was one of the most underrated. On the inside was veteran Pro Bowler Pepper Johnson.