NFL Playoff Blog

We’re Number One! So what?

I used to think being a number one
seed mattered in the NFL. Maybe it still does. Heck, Atlanta needed
all the dome noise it could get last week in beating Seattle. But it
did Denver no good, playing in the frigid cold at home at Mile High.
And it really hasn’t done a lot of teams good since the Buffalo Bills
were relevant with Jim Kelly.

You see, only once since 1993 – yes,
that’s right, only once in the last 19 seasons – have both number
one seeds actually faced off in the Super Bowl. That’s rather
remarkable, given that all that team has to do is win two home games
after dominating the regular season. Yet, it hasn’t unfolded that
way.

Some of the victims to go down have
gone down in stunning fashion. The one that always springs to mind
first is the 1998 Vikings. Dennis Green’s high-flying team went 15-1
and set a then-NFL-record by scoring 556 points, but were upended by
the Atlanta Falcons at home en route to Super Bowl XXXIII.

Last season, the Packers went 15-1 and
scored 560 points, and didn’t even get to enjoy one playoff victory
because the Giants denied them any postseason success en route to
their second Lombardi trophy in five years.

Other notables in that span are the
2010 Patriots (14-2, 518 points, lost in the divisional round), the
2004 Steelers (15-1, lost AFC title game), and the 1996 Broncos
(13-3, 396 points, lost in the divisional round to the second-year
Jaguars).

There is no rhyme or reason why those
teams all choked when given such an enviable position. Perhaps it was
the weight of the expectations, or perhaps it was the fact that the
regular season allowed them to mask deficiencies that the postseason didn’t. Whatever it is, it gives underdogs like those aforementioned
Jaguars and the 2010 Seahawks (the first-ever playoff team with a
losing record) hope that anything is possible in the playoffs.

Still, as we harp on the fact that
both top dogs have almost always failed to both reach the big game,
one almost always does. In that same 19-year span, 16 Super Bowls
have featured at least one number one seed, with the exceptions being
1997, 2008, and 2010. The 1997 season was the last time both road
teams won on championship Sunday, with the Broncos and Packers
turning the trick.

No Parity in the AFC, Plenty in the NFC

The fact that the Patriots are on the
doorstep of another Super Bowl appearance is no surprise. The AFC,
since 2001, has been nothing short of overly predictable, with the
same three teams hogging the Lamar Hunt trophy with the exception of
one brief interlude by the Oakland Raiders in 2002.

Those teams would be the Patriots,
Pittsburgh Steelers, and Indianapolis Colts, armed of course with Tom
Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, and Peyton Manning during their
championship runs. No other franchise since 2003 has reached the big
game.

So what gives? Is it that the AFC just
hasn’t produced any other top-notch quarterbacks capable of leading a
team to the Super Bowl? Others have tried in vain to slay the mighty
dragons. Joe Flacco arguably outplayed Brady last year but got no
help when it counted from Lee Evans, while Philip Rivers valiantly
but unsuccessfully played on a torn ACL as he tried to take down the
unbeaten Patriots in 2007.

On four occasions, the Patriots have
squared off against either the Colts or Steelers in the AFC title
game. In the last nine seasons, the 18 AFC championship game spots
have been occupied by just seven franchises, with the Broncos,
Ravens, Chargers and Jets rounding out the bunch. (Lest we forget
that Jake Plummer and Mark Sanchez once led their teams to AFC
championship games as well.)

But for all the sameness that we’ve
grown accustomed to in the AFC, the NFC has been anyone’s guess since
the turn of the century. No matter who wins Sunday’s showdown between
San Francisco and Atlanta, this year will mark the 11^th
different team to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl in the last 12
seasons, with the Giants being the only repeat offender.

Amazingly, the NFC has done this while
having won three consecutive Super Bowls and four of the last five,
leading one to believe a dynasty would be budding, but none has
emerged. Green Bay appeared poised to break down that barrier, but
has now fallen short the past two years in the divisional round.

Admittedly, the quarterback play has
been less stellar in the NFC than the AFC. Some of the quarterbacks
to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl are hardly Canton-worthy: Matt
Hasselbeck, Jake Delhomme, Brad Johnson, and of course, Rex Grossman.
This year will produce either Matt Ryan or Colin Kaepernick, not
exactly the cream of the NFL crop.

I have always been a huge fan of
parity in the NFL; it’s one of the things that first drew me to the
sport. The NFC has been wonderful to watch cycle through different
teams the past decade, but the AFC has grown rather tiresome with the
same trio of teams. But it doesn’t look like that will change in the
next few years, as long as No. 12 is guiding New England and No. 7 is
leading Pittsburgh.

Even Indianapolis, now Peyton
Manning-less, is poised to return to the top with Andrew Luck
emerging as a star. Manning himself puts Denver in the mix, but as we
saw last week, the rest of the team is not quite at a championship
level.

For what it’s worth, I would love to
see the loser of Sunday’s title game, Detroit, Washington, Minnesota,
and Dallas all be in the mix next year. The NFC has enjoyed an almost
unprecedented run of parity, compensating for the same old, same old
in the AFC.