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Quality Standings say Colts win Super Bowl
Cold, Hard Football Facts for January 3, 2009
If one of the most interesting trends in football holds true, Peyton Manning will cap what was a quiet 2008 season at one point with a second Super Bowl title to go with his third NFL MVP award.
After all, our Quality Standings list Manning's Colts as the most impressive team playing here in the 2008 postseason.
In 2004 and 2006, the teams with the better record against Quality Opponents went an amazing 10-1 in the playoffs. Additionally, the 2004 Patriots and 2006 Colts were the best teams in the league against Quality Opponents and each won the Super Bowl.
That's a sporty 20-2 (.909) record over the course of those two postseasons when taking into account NO other factors ... not weather, not location, not trends. If you simply looked at record vs. Quality Opponnets, you would have picked the winner in 10 of 11 games each year. As we noted last year, not even Vegas favorites or home teams perform close to that level in the playoffs.
The indicator might have delivered shocking results in 2005 and 2007, as well. But the Steelers and Giants pulled off two of the most remarkable postseason runs in history, as each won three straight road games before winning the Super Bowl. Nobody could have predicted those outcomes, not even our Quality Standings. And other than those two teams upsetting everybody, our Quality Standings accurately predicted the winner in almost every single playoff games.
So here's how the 12 playoff teams stack up this year. In the case of teams with similar records (Indy and Tennessee, for example), we've used point differential as the tie-breaker, and it's typically delivered the expected results.
|
Team |
W |
L |
Pct. |
DIFF |
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Indianapolis |
5 |
2 |
0.714 |
+5.0 |
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Tennessee |
5 |
2 |
0.714 |
+0.9 |
|
NY Giants |
6 |
3 |
0.633 |
+5.3 |
|
Atlanta |
4 |
3 |
0.571 |
-2.0 |
|
Philly |
5 |
4 |
0.556 |
+5.8 |
|
Pittsburgh |
4 |
4 |
0.500 |
0.0 |
|
Carolina |
4 |
4 |
0.500 |
-2.5 |
|
Minnesota |
4 |
5 |
0.444 |
+1.8 |
|
San Diego |
3 |
5 |
0.375 |
+4.6 |
|
Baltimore |
3 |
5 |
0.375 |
-0.8 |
|
Miami |
2 |
4 |
0.333 |
-4.8 |
|
Arizona |
2 |
6 |
0.250 |
-11.9 |
Atlanta over Arizona
Indy over San Diego
Baltimore over Miami
Philly over Minnesota
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