If you follow sports at all, you probably have an idea as to what constitutes a dynasty, some of us think we know one when we see one like the Islanders and Oilers of the last century. Unless you are talking college sports pre-NIL, dynasties are more obvious and impressive because the cast of characters were always in the state of flux.

Dynasties are about accomplishment, and I think everyone would concede that the team had to have one at least one championship to be considered. The sports media has recently introduced the term championship window and is more about potential to win that first championship in a (potential) dynasty. I was listening to a national radio host that fixates on this very subject and while he won’t admit it, it’s more about the participation trophy although he’s quick to bristle at that.

During their amazing run during the 1990’s, nobody talked about the Braves being in a championship window. We talked about consistency, greatness and falling short, not windows.

Unfortunately, this particular host focuses too much of his energy on the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott and maybe he’s right in thinking the rest of us care that much about them. All I know is they haven’t won it all in forever. I grew up a fan of the Rayfield Wright, Cliff Harris, Leroy Jordan, Roger Staubach, Drew Pearson, Landry Cowboys, but haven’t rooted for them since Landry’s departure and don’t recall ever thinking champi onship window.

Every fan of a particular sport has some blueprint for a championship season. The individual plans change along with rule changes, player abilities and such. For example, most NBA fans and writers believe a team needs to have 3 superstars (that can coexist and not in the way of the annoying bumper stickers). Most football fans believe that it starts with a great quarterback, but skeptics like me think too many people think too many quarterbacks are SB quality. Baseball is completely different as it’s been ruled by the numbers wonks for a couple decades. However, there’s disagreement as to which numbers are most important.

Arguing for a moment that among baseball fans everyone would agree that you need a core group of players to succeed. Everyone seems to have a different idea as to which players are better core players is the problem. At used to be considering the mix of veterans and younger players, pitching and defense v. slug, but now it seems $ is the defining factor or aspect.

With football it’s more obvious and the QB is key to the equation. Nobody in Chicago really knows how good rookie QB, Caleb Williams will perform this season and beyond, but everything is being defined by his rookie contract. Everything has to sync up with the other skill players on the team and their contracts (affordability).

Sticking with the Chicago theme, Theo and Jed talked about the WS team being in some sort of championship window. Everyone agrees that they won a year early, and that the window would remain open for a number of years. I don’t think anyone believed that they’d be forced to move everyone during that window, but they did because they couldn’t afford to keep anyone. That the core 5 hasn’t had much individual success after leaving only proves that the physical proficiency is only a small part of the equation.

Being anti-hype, I’m less excited than most people when I hear about a team’s championship window because all but one team fails. That’s not to say we shouldn’t hold out hope and look realistically at a team’s overall future success in longer terms than the upcoming season, but as the window starts to close, we shouldn’t be afraid to call a failure a failure. I know some people are afraid to hurt some millionaire’s feelings for saying he’s not a winner but be honest.

The White Sox are trying to figure out when they might finally be in the position for a championship window. That’s why they have to figure if it’s in their best interest to extend Garrett Crochet and hope the rest of the team can catch up with him.

Sometimes the terms don’t matter no matter how much they help lazy editors and writers. People have had differing opinions on how to describe the success Bruce Bochy and the Giants had in winning the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, but missing the postseason in the odd years. There was never a mention of a window because the rosters changed as much as a college hoops team during that run. Who cares what they called the particular run? All I know is that they won and when Bochy and the Rangers won it all in 2023, it wasn’t really a surprise.