The New York Giants are one of the most storied franchises in the history of the NFL. They are the only team to have won a Super Bowl in four consecutive decades with championship victories coming in 1986, 1990, 2007, and 2011.
Their first two Super Bowl victories in 1986 and 1990 were led by an elite defense and a fierce rushing attack that featured RB Ottis Anderson. “OJ” Anderson was named the Super Bowl MVP in that second championship victory. The two-time champion and Pro Bowl running back recently reflected on his Super Bowl-winning campaigns and compared those historic teams to other prominent Giants rosters.
Ottis Anders thinks the Giants’ 1986 championship squad would “dominate” their later Super Bowl-winning teams
Anderson discussed the two Super Bowl-winning rosters he was a part of and made a bold claim regarding the quality of Big Blue’s first championship team:
“We argue this all the time when we talk but, I believe that the team in ’86 would have dominated any of the [other] Giants teams that won Super Bowls.”
– Ottis Anderson at Fanatics Fest
That 1986 Giants team was a mean one. It featured Hall of Famers like LBs Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson on the defensive side of the ball and other Pro Bowl and All-Pro talents throughout the lineup, such as QB Phil Simms, TE Mark Bavaro, LB Carl Banks, and other legends of the franchise.
Anderson himself is not in the Hall of Fame, but that seems to be an egregious error. The two-time Super Bowl champion rushed for 10,273 yards and 81 touchdowns across his 15-year NFL career and was named the Offensive Rookie of the Year and a first-team All-Pro 1979, a second-team All-Pro in 1980, and made the Pro Bowl in both seasons. He could wind up in the Hall soon enough.
Whether or not the 1986 roster could beat the 1990, 2011, and 2007 championship teams is up for debate. However, none of the other panelists (such as Eli Manning, Michael Strahan, Plaxico Burress, Jesse Palmer, and Justin Tuck) seemed to have an extreme objection to Anderson’s claim.
Anderson described a “mentally tough” Giants roster that won Super Bowl XXI
When reflecting on that stacked Super Bowl XXI winning roster, Anderson named off a few of the Giants legends who were instrumental in bringing home the franchise’s first Lombardi trophy:
“We were just mentally tough,” Anderson began. “We stepped on the field and knew that we could outwork our opponents. When you think about the players who played at that time, you talk about Harry Carson, George Martin, Lawrence Taylor, we had Kenny Hill… I mean, we had a team that was by far probably the best players in Giants history.”
That Giants team went on to beat the John Elway-led Denver Broncos in a 39–20 beat-down that featured one of the game’s most impressive performances from QB Phil Simms. He finished the matchup with a passer rating of 150.92, the highest for one game in Super Bowl history.
The modern championship teams that the Giants built were great in their own right. However, Anderson might be right — that 1986-87 team was one legendary roster.
All quotes in this article were captured by Empire Sports Media’s own Anthony Rivardo at Fanatics Fest.
