2009 NFL Playoffs: 5 Things You Need To Know

The NFL Playoffs are about to kick off. Before they do there are a few things you should know besides the San Diego Chargers are hot, the New Orleans Saints are struggling, and the Denver Broncos are hoping to sell playoff tickets and not choke away another season.

Below, is a look at what Super Bowl winning teams have and haven't done in the regular season. Please note that our stats are from this decade (2000-2009). Also, we always refer to the year in which the regular season began and not the year in which the Super Bowl was played. For instance, the 18-0 New England Patriots lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII which was played Feb. 3, 2008. That Super Bowl was the climax of the 2007 season. Therefore those teams are referred to as the 2007 Patriots and the 2007 Giants.

The 2009 season culminates with Super Bowl XLIV, scheduled for Feb. 7, 2010 in Miami, Florida. If our observations hold true, you should have a pretty good idea who will and who won't be competing for the Lombardi Trophy.

• #1 Seeds Don't Win Super Bowls - It looks good on paper to be a number one seed. Not only do you get a bye but the road to the Super Bowl goes through your home turf. However, in the 2000's only one top seed has won the Big Game (the 2003 Patriots). Combined, top seeds have gone 21-17 in the postseason including seven losses in the Super Bowl. Six times this decade a number one seed has failed to even win a playoff game. What seed do you want to be? The average seed of Super Bowl winners is three. That's bad news for this year's top seeds, the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.

• MVP's r SOL n SB - Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have won Super Bowls and they've won MVP awards but they haven't done so in the same year. No team in the 2000's has won the Lombardi Trophy and fielded an MVP. The last time it was accomplished was by the 1999 St. Louis Rams and their MVP quarterback Kurt Warner. Three times the league MVP has reached the Super Bowl and lost: Brady and the Patriots (2007); Shaun Alexander and the Seattle Seahawks (2005); and Warner and the Rams (2001). If this trend holds true it means more bad news for the Colts because Manning looks like he's headed for his fourth MVP award.

• The Magic Number is 12 - You need to win a lot of games to win a Super Bowl but you don't want to win too many. In the 2000's, only one team has won the Super Bowl with 13 or more wins. That team is the Patriots and they did it twice, 2003 and 2004. If you exclude the Pats and those two seasons, there have been 17 occasions this decade when a team has won 13 or more games. None have won the Super Bowl. How many wins do you want to have entering the playoffs? The answer is 12. Right now the San Diego Chargers have 12 victories. The playoff bound Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings, who also have their ticket stamped for the postseason, both have 11 victories with one game to play. Once again this is bad news for the Colts and Saints who have 14 and 13 wins respectively.

• Avoid Having The Best Offense/Defense - The caveat for this stat is the definition of number one offense and defense. The NFL rates offense and defense by yards not by points. So it can be a little deceiving since it doesn't indicate effectiveness (that's addressed in our next bullet point). In the 2000's, no team with the top offense has won the Super Bowl. Top defensive teams have fared a little better. Twice the number one defense has won the Lombardi Trophy, the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers. For 2009, the top offensive team is the Saints and the top defensive team is the New York Jets.

• 258 and 375 Points - In our previous bullet point we addressed yards. Now let's address points. Four times this decade the defense that allowed the fewest points in the regular season went on to win the Super Bowl: Ravens (2000), Bucs (2002), Pats (2003), and Steelers (2008). The team that scored the most points in the regular season has won nary a Super Bowl. In fact, only two teams, the 2004 Pats (437 points) and the 2006 Colts (427 points), have won the Super Bowl while amassing over 400 points in the regular season. Conversely, only two teams have won the Big Game after allowing more than 350 points in the regular season: the 2006 Colts (360 points) and the 2007 Giants (351). Super Bowl winners from this decade are averaging 258 points allowed and 375 points scored in the regular season.

Former Riverdance musical director David Downes envisioned an Irish, all-female ensemble that would tap the well that was America's love of Celtic music. From that vision, Celtic Woman was born in 2004 with original vocalists Chloë Agnew, Órla Fallon, Lisa Kelly and Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, along with violinist Máiréad Nesbitt.



Four albums and sales of over 50 million units worldwide later, some of the names have changed, but the concept is holding strong and steady. The group even performed at the recent National Tree Lighting at the White House alongside Sheryl Crow, Ray LaMontagne, and Common. A fifth CD, Songs from the Heart, is slated for a January 26, 2010 street date.

Their debut release, the eponymous-titled Celtic Woman, topped Billboard's World Music chart and stayed there for a record-breaking 81 weeks. Appearances on PBS spurned early sales and contributed to the longevity of success. The group's sophomore effort, A Celtic Christmas, succeeded in finally bumping the debut from the top chart position to a paltry #2 seat. With their third outing, A New Journey, the women managed a triple-header by holding the top three spots on the World Music chart. The release also landed at #4 on Billboard's Top 200.

The group's latest line-up includes founding members Agnew, Kelly, and Nesbitt, along with Lynn Hilary and Alex Sharpe. To support the upcoming offering, Celtic Woman will be touring the U.S. starting in February with three shows in Roanoke, Virg. The schedule continues through the spring, coming to a close in Salt Lake City on May 22.

American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert continues to make the media rounds in the afterglow of his controversial American Music Awards performance. Even for those who are not fans of Lambert and have never watched the show, the juggernaut that is AI is intriguing and to watch the futures of the winners and losers unfold is fascinating.

Going back to season one, winner Kelly Clarkson's star has certainly ascended nicely with four successful CD releases already on her resume. Second-place finisher Justin Guarini hasn't had as much musical midas, although he's not digging ditches, either.

Season two saw Ruben Studdard top Clay Aiken in the finale, though the voting results were questionable due to a phone bank system overload. Everyone who shops at a grocery store knows what Aiken is up to these days, but whatever happened to Studdard?

The third round of competition ended with Fantasia Barrino knocking out Diana DeGarmo, although it was the cameo appearances in this season that really shone through. It was here that the world first heard of William Hung and Jennifer Hudson, who was surprisingly cut. Hudson has since gone on to such ridiculous levels of success that judge Simon Cowell had to eventually admit he was wrong.

Country singer Carrie Underwood reigned supreme in year four, delegating rocker Bo Bice to secondary status. Underwood has, so far, sold well over 10 million records in the U.S. with her debut selling 7 million on its own. She also followed Clarkson's lead and swept all three major music awards in the 2006-07 season. Underwood continues her dominance and will soon embark on a tour to support her latest release.

Silver fox Taylor Hicks managed to stave off the likes of bald rocker Chris Daughtry who came in fourth, but who has enjoyed more success than any other competitors from season five. Jordin Sparks earned a record number of votes to beat Blake Lewis in year six, although Sanjaya Malakar was the name most talked about due to campaigns by Vote for the Worst and Howard Stern to keep the teen's hope alive.

The next year came down to a battle of two Davids: Archuleta versus Cook, who ultimately prevailed. Their subsequent CD offerings saw Cook hit platinum and Archuleta strike gold, further solidifying the AI voting results.

The 2009 competition, as we know, introduced Lambert's flamboyance to the world. But what of underdog winner Kris Allen? His post-Idol release has done okay, but not great compared to the likes of Clarkson, Underwood, and Cook. The moral of the story being, it doesn't seem to matter so much whether you win or lose – it's what you do with the exposure that counts.