From the professional ranks to the collegiate battles throughout all the divisions and sports—looking at you, lacrosse and swimming—some teams just had a better decade than others. They may not have won it all, all the time. However, these schools and professional franchises either stood in the way of glory more often than not or totally reigned from atop Championship Mountain as a perennial 2010s juggernaut.
A quick note: We’re looking for the best here, and that means wins and titles! So if your baseball team crushed the regular season each year but bombed in the Divisional Series, it’s probably not making the cut—and no, I don’t hate your football team.
Here we go!
New England Patriots
Whether you like to admit it or not, the New England Patriots were the NFL’s 2010s. The full hot order. Count ’em out? That’s what coach Bill Belichick and Tom Brady loved for the general masses outside of the Boston area to do. And then, they’d pull it together and outthink, out-scheme—out videotape?—your team on their way to Super Bowl Sunday. Half of the decade featured the Patriots in the Grand Finale, with the team winning three times.