Denver Broncos

I'm going to be watching the Patriots play the Broncos this Saturday evening.

For those of you not in the know: the Patriots won their division, the East, in the American Football Conference, and earned a "bye," -- that is, they could take a break during the first weekend of playoffs, the weekend of January 7-8.

Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos had a very mixed season.  Despote Tebow's talents (and highly publicized prayers) they didn't do better than a W-L record of 8-8. Fortunately, they were playing in a terrible division, the AFC west, where a .500 record was sufficient to end up the winner. It wasn't sufficient to earn a bye, though. They had to play the Pittsburgh Steelers, a wild card team, this past Sunday.

Indeed, the Steelers, who ended the season 12 and 4, were prohibitive favorites to win that game as they flew into Denver. They had a heck of a surprise waiting for them.  The Broncos were all over the Steelers in the first half. Steelers had to stage a rousing comeback to end the regulation time at a tie, forcing the first play-off game overtime since new rules came into play for such events.

The new rules say that the first team to have possession in an OT period in a play-off game cannot win by a field goal. If they get a field goal in that possession, the other team has the right to an OT possession of its own. Teams are getting too good in getting 3-pointers from mid-field. It wasn't sporting to have the game ride on a coin toss that way.

That didn't matter, though, because in a very exciting finish, the Broncos scored a touchdown on their first play from scrimmage of their first possession, ending the game in classic sudden death style.

I'll be cheering on the Patriots, anyway, this weekend. But it was good to see Denver pull that off, and congrats to my Colorado relatives.

Life is full of coincidence

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, so it is my once-a-year opportunity to remark on the notorious statistical correlation between Super Bowl results and US stock market performance.

Sadly, it doesn't appear likely that 2008 will weaken that correlation at all.

In general, in years when a pre-merger NFL team wins the big showdown, the stock market valuations rise. In years when the championship rings go to either a pre-merger AFL team or to an expansion club, stock markets decline.

This year, the favorite to win the Super Bowl is the AFC (and former AFL) team, the New England Patriots. Known in the old pre-Foxboro days as the Boston Patriots. Also this year, the consensus among economists calls for a recession, which will strengthen the over-all correlation.

So let's root for the Giants, not because cause and effect could possibly be involved here but ... just in case cause and effect is somehow involved here.

Why don't those of us who discuss this correlation every year talk about "AFC" versus "NFC"? The two competing Conferences? Why is the coincidence always defined in terms of the old NFL? Ah, there lies the key to how this statistical finangling works.

In 1970, when the AFL and the NFL merged, most of the old NFL became the NFC, a conference within the larger new NFL. The old AFL became the new AFC. Except....

Three teams from the old NFL were moved into the AFC to even out the numbers. Those teams were: the Baltimore Colts (now the Indianapolis Colts), the Cleveland Browns (now the Baltimore Ravens), and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

For purposes of Super Bowl statistics, by far the most important of those three teams is the Steelers. They've been in the Super Bowl six times, and have won it five times. Each of those five years was one in which stock market prices rose. So by speaking of the "pre-merger NFL" we can ignore the inconvenient fact that they played those games as AFC champs, and we can create the correlation we're after.

But let me not to the marriage of impressive numbers admit impediment.

Go Giants!