Super Bowl Fun Facts: Let the Games Begin

By David “Large” Larzelere
1. By my count, Super Bowl XLII will be the 17th time that the New York Giants have played for an NFL Championship, by far the most in league history. The next team on the list depends on how you regard the briefly lived AAFC of the late 40’s. If you give the Browns credit for their four AAFC championships, then they’re in second place for all-time championship appearances with 13. If not, the Pack is in second with 12, with the Bears and Skins tied for third at 11 apiece.
[img=http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6311/bradybelichickzu6.jpg]
2. Obviously, the Jints and the Pats are not two teams with a lot of significant history between them. In the last 20 years, they’ve played six times in the regular season. Bizarrely, however, three of those games have been week 17 nailbiters in seasons where at least one of the two teams advanced to the Super Bowl. In the final week of the 1990 season, the soon-to-be Super Bowl champion Giants beat the lowly Pats 13-10. And in week 17 of the Pats’ Super Bowl campaign of 1996, New England prevailed over Big Blue 23-22 in a game that gave them an 11-5 record and, ultimately, home-field advantage over the 10-6 Steelers in the divisional playoff.
Then, of course, there was this year’s week 17 donnybrook, which, should it turn out to be an accurate preview of the big one, bodes well for us all indeed.
3. Finally, a little Championship weekend redux. While doing some research this weekend for a piece on the Giants’ and Packers’ uniforms, I stumbled upon a discovery as to just how unique Championship Sunday was. As you may know, the Pats (then the Boston Patriots) and the Bolts played for the 1963 AFL Championship while the Packers and the Giants had met five times previously for the NFL Championship, the last in 1962.
This means that this past Sunday’s games marked only the third time in history that both championship games have been rematches of prior championship games. In the ’76 season, the Vikings beat the L.A. Rams in the NFC Championship, a retread of their 1974 title game, and the Raiders beat the Steelers in the third consecutive AFC Championship between the two teams.
Then in the ’93 season, the Cowboys beat the Niners in their fifth NFC Championship meeting, while the Bills beat the Chiefs in a rematch of the 1966 AFL Championship game, the game that sent the Chiefs on to Super Bowl I.
Why is this interesting? I’m not sure. I may be spending too much time with the record books.↵