So, You're Telling Me There's A Chance : The Whys And Why Nots Behind Who Made The NFL Playoffs Each Year Since the AFL-NFL Merger (Full Volume)

When it comes down to the last week of every NFL season, do you ever get confused about what possibilities that your favorite team has in order to make the playoffs? For example, let’s say we’re talking about the 1989 Pittsburgh Steelers, which is the motivating factor for me in writing this series of books. Pittsburgh had a horrible beginning to the 1989 season as they started 0-2 and were defeated by a combined score of 92-10. After improving gradually throughout the season, the Steelers found themselves “mathematically” alive for a playoff berth coming into their Week 16 game at Tampa Bay. Defeating the Buccaneers would not be enough by itself to get Pittsburgh into the playoffs. The odds of the Steelers earning a berth were slim because four out of five different games had to turn out in Pittsburgh’s favor to get them in the post-season. The first of those five games took place the night before in the Houston Astrodome. Pittsburgh needed Houston to defeat Cleveland. Instead, the Browns won, 24-20. That meant that four other games had to go in Pittsburgh’s favor, aside from the Steelers beating Tampa Bay, to earn a playoff berth. In all, the New York Giants had to beat the Los Angeles Raiders, New Orleans had to beat Indianapolis, Kansas City had to beat Miami, and Minnesota had to beat Cincinnati the next evening on Monday Night Football. Remarkably, the Steelers, Giants, Saints, and Chiefs all won in the early games of Christmas Eve Sunday, 1989. It all came down to the Monday Night Football game between the Bengals and Vikings in Minnesota’s Metrodome. That final game of the 1989 season not only had the fate of the Steelers and Bengals in its hands, Minnesota and Green Bay had their seasons on the line, as well. If Cincinnati defeated Minnesota, the Bengals would earn the second AFC wild card berth, while Green Bay would win the NFC Central division. If Minnesota won, the Vikings would win the NFC Central, while also sending Pittsburgh to the playoffs as the second AFC wild card. The ABC network not only covered the game as it unfolded, but they also had cameras in the homes of a Steeler player and a Packer player to get their reactions as the game went along. As it turns out, Minnesota defeated Cincinnati, 29-21, giving the Vikings and Steelers a post-season berth. In the movie, “Dumb and Dumber,” Jim Carrey asks his love interest, played by Lauren Holly, about what the chances were of the two of them becoming a couple. Mary, Holly’s character in the movie, responded with “Not good….like one out of a million.” Lloyd, the lovably clueless character played by Carrey cheerfully replied, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance!” Every year, NFL teams reach the final week of the regular season with hopes of reaching the playoffs. Some teams qualify before the final week, some teams get eliminated before the season finale, while others have to figure out what scenarios must take place in order to reach the post-season. There are often scenarios in which a team only has to win their final game in order to qualify, while there are those teams that may need NASA engineers to decipher all of the possible sequences of events that need to possibly take place so that their season can continue. Regardless of the odds, as long as a team is still mathematically “alive” for the playoffs heading into the last game of the season, they may also cheerfully say, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance!” This book is named as such because we will delve into all of the playoff scenarios that could have and did take place in the season finale of each season since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970. This book has been split into five volumes, one per decade since the merger. Putting it all into one book would have made a very heavy text, indeed. Read more