The 2017 Crows were a nothing team, who had an okay run one season and one half decent quarter in a grand final, before disappearing into the abyss. That list had 4 very good players and then a bunch of nobodies. Teams without a lot of finals experience often falter on the big stage, as they did in 2017.Yet Crows 2017 had a percentage of 137% and beat 2 x top 4 teams in finals by 6 goals +. they couldn't have been too bad, in 2017, because there are not that many teams that actually achieve that much. Your arguments around the teams Richmond vanquished in finals revolve around the extemely spurious notion that the whole competition suddenly just got a lot weaker. Because for your theory to hold water, the teams the Crows beat had to be very weak, and the teams those teams beat had to be even weaker and so on.
One finals result can easily be a false reading. Two finals results, especially against top 4 teams and by big margins, not so much.
10 career AA selections from that list during their time at Adelaide (before/after). 3 to Betts, 2 to Laird, 2 to Talia, 1 to Sloane, 1 to Walker, 1 to Crouch.
They were your average 15 H&A team side who played a couple of decent finals.
Geelong is the only side you can really argue as strong that Richmond dealt with, given how poor GWS were on the road until 2023. Those Cats sides were pretty good, but basically had great top 8-10 players, after which there were flaws all through the sides. There is no possible way to argue that the 2017-2020 era was strong and the 2022-204 period was measurably weaker. The closest you could get is saying they are about the same quality for contending teams.