Squinting through our beer-bottle monocle
Cold, Hard Football Facts for February 3, 2005

Pat Robertson believes in God. Scooby-Doo believes in ghosts. R. Kelly believes he can fly.

We believe in the quality wins quotient. You should, too.

By now the efficacy of the quality wins quotient is well documented. Teams with the better regular-season record are 6-4 in the playoffs this year. Teams with the better record against quality opponents are 9-0. (Atlanta and Philly entered the NFC title game with identical 2-1 records against quality opponents; the quality wins quotient indicated an Atlanta victory by virtue of a better scoring margin. Therefore, the quotient is 9-1 overall in the postseason.) The Cold, Hard Football Facts define a quality win as any victory against a team with a winning record. The term "quality opponent" simply refers to a team with a winning record.

The ruthless efficiency of the quality wins quotient (QWQ) has caught the attention of the sports media. Bob Neumeier and Dale Arnold of sports radio WEEI in Boston, for example, promoted the Cold, Hard Football Facts quality wins quotient throughout the playoffs. "Neumy" has since developed his own version of the concept. Kevin Mannix of The Boston Herald wrote about the subject on Sunday.

Needless to say, the QWQ is an idea that has taken root and flourished like the mold spores in our cardboard box. It also indicates that New England is an overwhelming favorite in Super Bowl XXXIX.

But we wanted a bigger historical sample before handing down our ruling on this year's NFL championship game. So we squinted through our beer-bottle monocle and looked at every Super Bowl participant since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to see how they fared overall and against quality opponents. (The entire list of records can be found in the chart below.)

Here's what we found:

• Teams with the better record against quality opponents are 23-9 in the Super Bowl (two Super Bowls paired teams who had the same record against quality opponents)
• Six Super Bowls featured opponents who posted the same overall record in the regular season. The team with the better record against quality opponents won five of those games 
• Only once have two teams posted the same regular season record and the same record against quality opponents. It turned out to be the closest game in Super Bowl history. In 1990, the Giants and Bills were each 13-3 overall and 6-3 against quality opponents. The Giants beat the Bills, 20-19, in Super Bowl XXV, as Buffalo's Scott Norwood missed a field goal in the game's final seconds
• No team in history entered a Super Bowl with more than nine quality wins
• New England enters Super Bowl XXXIX with a 14-2 record in the regular season and a 9-1 record against quality opponents (including playoffs)
• Philly enters Super Bowl XXXIX with a 13-3 record and a 3-1 record against quality opponents (including playoffs)
• No team in Super Bowl history had a better record against quality opponents than the 2003 Patriots (9-0)
• Three teams entered the Super Bowl with 9-1 records against quality opponents: the 2004 Patriots, the 1983 Redskins and the 1997 Packers. The Redskins lost to the Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII. The Packers lost to the Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII
• Only one team, the 1979 Rams, entered the Super Bowl with a losing record against quality opponents. L.A. lost to Pittsburgh, 31-19, in Super Bowl XIV. The Rams also had the worst regular-season record (9-7) of any Super Bowl participant
• The 1979 Steelers played more quality opponents (12) in a single season than any Super Bowl participant. They were 9-3 against quality opponents heading into Super Bowl XIV
• Only four teams entered a Super Bowl with an inferior regular-season record and an inferior record against quality opponents and went on to win the game: the 1980 Raiders, 1983 Raiders, 1997 Broncos and 2001 Patriots
• The 1980 Raiders had the worst record against quality opponents (5-4) of any Super Bowl champion. The Raiders beat Philadelphia (5-3) in Super Bowl XV
• The 2001 Patriots had the second-worst record against quality opponents (4-3) of any Super Bowl champion. They beat St. Louis (8-1) in Super Bowl XXXVI, in one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history
• The 2004 Patriots are the first team to enter a Super Bowl with six more quality wins than its opponent. The Patriots have nine quality wins. The Eagles have three
• Only one team in history entered the Super Bowl after playing fewer quality opponents than the 2004 Eagles. The 1999 Rams were 0-1 against quality opponents in the regular season before beating two quality teams in the postseason. The Rams beat Tennessee, 23-16, in Super Bowl XXXIV.

This is the NFL and past performance is no guarantee of future results. The Eagles, meanwhile, have won 15 of 18 games this season and are clearly a dangerous team. But if they win Super Bowl XXXIX, the quality wins quotient says it will be one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history.

Here are the performances of every Super Bowl participant since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. (We began with the merger because there was no interleague play before then, except in the first four Super Bowls.) The record against quality opponents includes the playoffs, and the higher winning percentage is highlighted in red.