Arizona's Ken Whisenhunt is 8-1 in the playoffs as both a coordinator and head coach – 1-1 as OC with Pittsburgh in 2004; 4-0 with Pittsburgh in 2005; and 3-0 with Arizona this year. He's won seven straight playoff games since the Steelers lost to the Patriots in the 2004 AFC title game.
Teams with the higher average per pass attempt are 36-6 in Super Bowl play – reinforcing the Cold, Hard Football Facts that passing well is the key to victory in the NFL.
Teams that run the ball more often are 36-4 in Super Bowl play (two games featured an equal number of attempts for both teams) – however, if running the ball often equaled victory so regularly then teams would never pass. This figure probably has more to do with the fact that teams that are winning tend to run more.
Teams win Super Bowls when their quarterbacks play well. Four of the six best postseasons by passers in Steelers history resulted in Super Bowl championships, topped by Terry Bradshaw's performance in the 1978 playoffs and Ben Roethlisberger's performance in the 2005 playoffs.
Kurt Warner's 97.3 postseason passer rating is the second highest in history, behind only the 104.8 of Packers Hall of Famer Bart Starr
Americans will eat 8 million pounds of guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday – the Cold, Hard Football Facts crew will be singularly responsible for 1 million of those pounds.
Dick LeBeau has served as defensive coordinator in Pittsburgh for 10 seasons. The Steelers have ranked in the top 10 in scoring defense in nine of those 10 years and in the top 10 in total defense in nine of those 10 years.
Balance means everything for the Cardinals: they averaged 35 passes and 27 rushes in their nine victories this year, but 46 passes and 14 rushes in their seven losses. Here in the playoffs, they actually average more runs (33) than passes (31) and, not so coincidentally, are 3-0.
During his days as a cornerback with the Lions, three of LeBeau's teammates in Detroit's secondary went on to the Hall of Fame: Yale Lary, Night Train Lane and Lem Barney.
Wondering what the odds are of hitting on those Super Bowl squares you grabbed at the office? One blogger
has figured it all out: the best combo to have, no surprise, is 7-0, which hits 8 percent of the time. The worst combo is 2-2, which has hit just 0.01 percent of the time.
See his complete chart here.
Looking for a good prop play on Super Bowl Sunday? Cold, Hard Football Facts contributor and "King of Props" John Dudley says take the over on Ben Roehthlisberger's number of carries in the game (1½).
Pittsburgh is 7-7 in conference title games, the most in AFC history. (The Raiders played in 14 if you include their AFL days.)
Arizona receiver Larry Fitzgerald's 419 yards in the playoffs this year are the most in a single postseason; he needs one TD catch in the Super Bowl to tie Jerry Rice's record for six TD receptions in a single postseason (1988).
The 2008 Steelers surrendered just 3.29 YPA on the ground this year – among the Steel Curtain defenses of the 1970s, only the ferocious 1976 Steelers were better (3.22 YPA). The 2008 Steelers also surrendered a mere 237.2 total YPG – from the 1970s, only the 1974 Steelers were better (219.6 YPG).
SIXTEEN – Offensive explosion
The Cardinals are the first team in history to reach the Super Bowl after scoring 30+ points in three straight playoff games.
Eleven of Arizona's 13 out-of-division games this year have come against Quality Opponents. Pittsburgh will be Arizona's 12th Quality Opponent of the year – only the 1979 Steelers faced more Quality Opponents in a single season (13).
The Steelers, as all CHFF readers know by now, were No. 1 in our all-important Defensive Hog Index this year; the Cardinals were a humble 17th. Teams better in the Defensive Hog Index are 19-2 over the past two postseasons.
The Cardinals are one of two original NFL teams from 1920 (the other is the Bears) and the oldest franchise in professional football, founded as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898.
Nobody was better in the postseason than CHFF favorite Bart Starr, who continues to impress in his later years of life with his off-the-field endeavors.
