Statistics

Could you imagine being a sports writer, commentator, or newscaster and having to fill two full weeks of time with creative effort hyping the Super Bowl? Dead air is not a good thing in that business so those people have to come up with something.

Often the time is filled with something like this: "Historically, when the third string offensive right tackle of the AFC representative in the Super Bowl has a mother who is celebrating her fiftieth birthday that same year while in jail accused of prostitution and voted for the Democrat candidate for President in all elections since she could vote, the AFC representative wins 72.3% of the time."

Boy, Howdy, I'm glad that they could finally play the game. The preceding two weeks were continual Guantanamo/Abu Ghraib waterboarding.

However, this year I reckoned that if I couldn't beat 'em, I should join 'em. I took every conceivable statistic from the NFL and plugged them into my basement lab's super computer... (I didn't realize that the Packers starting offensive line averages a 3.2 inch vertical!)... and let it do its calculations.

And voila! The computer spat out only one predictive statistic worth printing. Since the Packers won world championships in 1961 & 1962, the Chicago Bears won in 1963, the Packers won in 1965, 1966, & 1967 (the last two were Super Bowls I & II), the Bears won Super Bowl XX, the Packers won Super Bowl XXXI, but lost Super Bowl XXXII, the Bears lost Super Bowl XLI...

The lab computer predicts that the Packers will soon play in two, perhaps three, successive Super Bowls, winning two under either circumstance.

Where was that on ESPN Sportscenter during the two weeks prior to Sunday's Super Bowl?

I'm making reservations now for Glendale, Arizona, for February, 2008, Tampa, Florida, February, 2009, and maybe even Miami, in February, 2010.

Then Favre can retire.