Yes; if some nerd from a website spitting on the ground isn’t enough to motivate those guys to go out there and win a playoff game for the first time in 14 years, nothing will.
Don’t be so sure about that. Your record gets artificially inflated when you play both Houston and Jacksonville twice a year. Of course you could point to the AFC South’s sterling record in the playoffs over the last ten years…
… but that would be stupid because no AFC South team has even a winning playoff record over the last ten years. And the AFC South’s best team (Indy) doesn’t even have as good a playoff record as two teams in the NFC East (Philly and NYG). And the AFC South has a team which has never even made the playoffs. They don’t have more Super Bowls over the last decade… and… well, that’s it, really. The case is closed at this point.
Since the AFC South hasn’t existed for 10 years, looking at its 10-year playoff record is a bit of an odd choice. Indeed, one of its franchises hasn’t existed for 10 years.
Playing Jacksonville artificially inflates your record? Jacksonville have gone 12-4, 8-8, 11-5, 5-11 and 7-9 over the last five seasons… or 54-37.
Even the lowly Texans have been 2-14, 6-10, 8-8, 8-8 and 9-7, or 33-47.
I’d rather play the average Redskins team than either of those teams.
They don’t have more Super Bowls over the last decade, true - they have exactly the same number.
It’s comical how you cling to this idea like you’ve scored points. See how you ended this comment, with the “too”? Meaning “in addition to.” So you actually just said that the best team of the South is better than the best team of the East in addition to the worst team in the South being better than the worst team in the East. And you said this with all sincerity despite the fact that I just demolished that idea in the previous post.
One way the Colts get to feast on scrubs is by virtue of the fact that the worst team in the South is worse than the worst team in the East. Bag on the Redskins all you want but they’ve won a playoff game recently. The Texans achieved their very first winning season in history six days ago. Yeah, no cupcake soft schedule against the hapless expansion team for the Colts and Titans. No sirree.
Other data points for the last five years:
Three of the four teams in the East have won the division. All four East teams have made the playoffs multiple times: Giants made it four times, the Eagles and Cowboys both made it three times, and the Redskins have made it twice.
Only two teams have won the South, with the Colts winning in every year but one. The Colts have made the playoffs all five years, but the Titans and Jags have only made it twice each, equal to the worst team in the East. The worst team in the South has never made the playoffs.
The East has at least one playoff victory every year, with eight total playoff wins. The South has managed only five playoff wins, and has gone winless in the postseason twice.
Which couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the AFC itself is much tougher.
What is that in response to?
EDIT: Sorry, misread your post sticking a “South” in there.
If the AFC is tougher than the NFC it’s pretty clear that it’s not the AFC South’s doing based on those playoff records. The South itself is like the Colts: regular season studs who fold like a cheap suit in the playoffs. Hard to give them the best division in football moniker when they aren’t even the best division in their conference based on playoff performance.
In other words, if they’re the best division in their conference, it shouldn’t matter how good the conference itself is. They should be getting playoff wins every year, right? They are the best, aren’t they?
That’s… an interesting argument. I’ll have to think about that.
Just ran the final division rankings for this season, and the AFC laid a beatdown on the NFC. It’s been four years (at least) since the margin between the conferences was bigger than a game or two. Not this year.
#1 AFC South 26-14 (65%)
#2 NFC East 22-18 (55%)
#3 NFC South 21-19 (53%)
#3 AFC North 21-19 (53%)
#5 AFC East 20-20 (50%)
#5 NFC North 20-20 (50%)
#7 AFC West 18-22 (45%)
#8 NFC West 12-28 (30%)
#1 AFC 37-27 (58%)
#2 NFC 27-37 (42%)
Punks step up to get a beat down. Oofa.
Exactly how bad is the NFC West? They finish every single year #8, and this year they may have set an all-time record (since realignment) for ineptitude. No doubt it didn’t help matters that they ran into the buzzsaw that is the AFC South, but OTOH maybe the AFC South got some freebie wins out of that matchup.
While 20 minutes are left, I feel pretty certain that the curse is finally over. Other than one Vick throw, the Eagles offense can’t match up with Dallas’s defense.
And the drought finally ends!! happy dance
On to Minnesota, where I hope the Boys play as well as they did tonight (only with FEWER PENALTIES, PLEASE!!!)!
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Well, I’m happy to see the Iggles eliminated. However, I’m unhappy to see the Cowgirls advance. No way I was coming out of this game satisfied with the outcome, unless they were deadlocked and still playing.
If the NFL had NCAA OT rules, that GB-Arizona game might still be going…
Or a meteor. A meteor would have been awesome.
Maybe a power outage?
I’m not sure, but I may have been the first to mention that a meteor strike is the only acceptable outcome to a Iggles / Cowgirls game. I know it long predates the current season. It’s possible I picked it up from Hal, or he got it from me.
I’ll also accept earthquakes, volcanoes, swarms of man-eating locusts, or any other type of extraordinarily unlikely natural disaster.
Well I am not happy about it, but congrats. Another game where I hope both teams lose. But will root more for Cowboys to do so.
Well, the Cowboys and Eagles managed to generate the only three players on the AP All-Pro team from the NFC East. Leonard Weaver on the offensive side, Dallas’s Demarcus Ware and Jay Ratliff on the defensive side.
The Vikings had more than our whole division. 
Philly had three runners-up (Trent Cole, DeSean Jackson, and David Akers), which was second in the league to Baltimore (four runners-up). Dallas had one (Gurode).
Gearing up for Dal @ Min kickoff. Go Boys!
Cowboy failures make my heart sing.