As the paid pundits continue the process of prognosticating their postseason predictions, the NFL has shared a reminder that the process of picking playoff teams is far more difficult than it looks.
In every year since 1996, at least five of the teams that made the playoffs the prior year ended up on the outside looking in.
For 2010, another five franchises found themselves frozen out: Bengals, Cardinals, Chargers, Cowboys, and Vikings.
The average for the past 15 years remains at six new playoff teams per season -- a full 50-percent turnover rate.
The challenge for those of us picking playoff teams is to figure out which five-to-seven (or, in 2003, eight) of the 12 teams will be bounced, and then to figure who’ll replace them.
Based on last year’s playoff field, the most vulnerable teams are the Steelers (given their inability to get back to the playoffs the season after their last three Super Bowl berths), Colts (if Peyton Manning is operating at less than 100 percent for most of the year), the Chiefs, the Bears, and the Seahawks. Teams that could crash the playoff party include the Lions, Cowboys, Bills, Chargers, Cardinals, and maybe even the Browns.
All we know for now is that, if eight or more of the playoff teams from last year are back in the playoffs, it will reverse a long trend of at least five teams not repeating their feat from the prior season.