It's been 7 years since a team made the Super Bowl without a 1st Round bye. And it gets worse.

mccombmike said

I'm a big stats believer, but stats can lie.

According to the stats, 25% of teams with a #3 seed will make the Super Bowl. This sounds bad, but remember that most years the playoffs are full of 9-7 teams that just slipped in.

This year the NFC is stronger than the AFC, and there are four teams -- Saints, Seahawks, Niners, and the Packers -- that could each easily be #1 seeds in a normal year. This is one of those outlier years where the strength of the 3-4 seeds is so good that I wouldn't rule out a run by one of them.

You have to look at the depth of the teams that will make it.

Give me the Saints this year and a number 3 and I like the odds much better than the average 3 in an average year.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY! Baltimore already has #1 seed locked up at 13-2, so they could finish as the #1 seed at 13-3 in AFC this year. Slide over to the NFC and there's a very real probability that a 13-3 team will be a #5 seed wild card this year.

OP graph says over 75% of SB teams come from top 2 seeds. By correlation, those top 2 seeds represent the 4 best teams in the league in any given year. So over 75% of SB teams were one of the 4 best teams in the league that year? I'd take that bet EVERY year.

It just happens that there will likely be 5 13-3 teams this year (1 AFC & 4 NFC). Factor in the #2 AFC seed is likely to be 12-4, and there's probably 7 teams with 12-4 records or better this year; when 12-4 usually guarantees a #1 or #2 seed. So if there's a year when the OP graph means less, this is that year!