A year ago, the Detroit Lions were mowing down their National Football League competition like they were scheduled against Pop Warner teams. Entering the twelfth week of action in 2024, Dan Campbell’s squad had outscored their opponents by 159 points. Only one other team in the NFL had put up a triple-digit advantage over their combined opponents, the Buffalo Bills had 106-point edge after 11 games last season.
Let’s see, the Lions and Bills were both leading the league in wins and point differential. How did that Super Bowl appearance go for those two teams?
Oh yeah, neither survived their conference playoffs in a Super Bowl that featured the Philadelphia Eagles against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Was it an upset that the dominant Lions regular season didn’t spill into the playoffs and land them in the game with the winner taking home the Vince Lombardi Trophy?
Nope. Textbook.
In our office we call it the Peyton Rule. Named after the Indianapolis Colts best quarterback ever, Peyton Manning, who routinely led his Colts squads to big winning margins and first place finishes in the AFC South Division only to trip up in the playoffs. From 1999 to 2010 Manning led the Colts to double-digit wins 11times and was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player five times. Yet in his 14 seasons with the Colts, he only twice advanced to the Super Bowl, winning one and losing one.