Draw A Line [AFC Playoff Seed Musings]

[HPF Bob]

Super Bowl matchups of the past 10 years:

2011 -- No. 3 Giants over No. 1 Patriots

2010 — No. 6 Packers over No. 2 Steelers

2009 — No. 1 Saints over No. 1 Colts

2008 — No. 2 Steelers over No. 4 Cardinals

2007 -– No. 5 Giants over No. 1 Patriots

2006 — No. 3 Colts over No. 1 Bears

2005 — No. 6 Steelers over No. 1 Seahawks

2004 — No. 2 Patriots over No. 1 Eagles

2003 — No. 1 Patriots over No. 3 Panthers

2002 — No. 2 Buccaneers over No. 1 Raiders

You can see that #1 seeds in the playoffs don't prosper as well as most of us think, although I also think this misleads a bit. Home field advantage is still huge but the SB winner often seems to be the team that "gets hot" at the right time. This often bodes well for the healthier teams, of which I'd say we're probably about 80% on the health scale right now.