‘The Biggest Loser’, Super Bowl Style

Added on Jan 03, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

The NFL playoff seedings are set and among the more unusual things about this year’s field is the presence of the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks defeated the St. Louis Rams on Sunday night to win the NFC West with a 7-9 record. They become the first team to win a divisional title with a sub .500 record. Due to the strange intricacies of the league’s playoff format the Seahawks also grab home field advantage for their opening playoff game–they’ll host defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans on Saturday. The fact that the Saints have to go on the road to play Seattle despite their 11-5 record have renewed calls for changes in the NFL playoff format, but that won’t change the fact that New Orleans and Seattle will be playing football in the ‘Jet City’ next Saturday.

Obviously, no one expects that Seattle will make it to the Super Bowl–they’re +22500 in the future odds to claim the NFL title–but the fact that a team with a losing record is even in the hunt is unprecedented. Until this year, no team with a losing regular season W/L record has played in the postseason. Since the NFL moved to a 16 game schedule there have been 9 teams that finished 8-8 and made the playoffs, the most recent being the 2008 San Diego Chargers. In 2004 the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings both finished 8-8, and there were two 8-8 teams in the 1999 postseason (Dallas and Detroit).

Not surprisingly, teams with .500 records don’t fare particularly well in the postseason and none have made it to the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl participants with the worst regular season W/L record are the 1979 Los Angeles Rams and the 2008 Arizona Cardinals who each made the big game with 9-7 records. The worst record of a Super Bowl winner during the 16 game schedule era is shared by the San Francisco 49ers (Super Bowl XXIII) and the New York Giants (Super Bowl XLII) with a 10-6 regular season record. In the early days of the Super Bowl, the 1967 Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl II with a 9-7 record.

The Seahawks are a +10′ point home underdog to the Saints this Sunday so barring a monumental upset their playoff road will end as will any chance that the previous records for ‘biggest loser’ in the Super Bowl will be broken in this year’s game. Should Indianapolis or Kansas City win the Super Bowl they’ll tie the all time worst record for a winner at 10-6 but every other team in the field is 11-5 or better.