This is probably my final post concerning the 2006 NFL Season. Needless to say it has been quite an interesting season with what I feel will end in an AFC Champion. Here's why:
An AFC team has won the Superbowl 7 out of the last 9 contests and AFC Teams won 62.5% (42-20) of their games against NFC opponents this season.
The average record for a playoff team in the NFC is 9.83-6.16 (rounded up to 10-6). The AFC's average you might ask? 11.66-4.33 (rounded up to 12-4).
And its not because the AFC was a cake-walk conference. If you look back two weeks before the playoffs and studied the records and teams still in playoff contention that subsequently did not make the playoffs you would have seen:
In the NFC: Green Bay (finished 8-8), Minnesota (6-10), Carolina (8-8), Atlanta (7-9), St. Louis (8-8) and San Francisco (7-9), one of which played in the postseason in 2005 (Carolina).
In the AFC: Buffalo (finished 7-9), Cinncinnati (8-8), Pittsburgh (8-8), Tennessee (8-8), Jacksonville (8-8), Denver (9-7), four of which played in January last year (Pittsburgh, Cinncinnati, Jacksonville, and Denver)
So with two weeks to go, AFC teams were fighting much harder for playoff spots against more teams that had asserted themselves as contenders. The teams that made the AFC playoffs are therefore, based upon my arguments, more suited to win a Super Bowl Title.
But this is the NFL and anything can happen. Enjoy the Playoffs.... Go Steelers in 2007!