[Sylvanfan]

Generally if a team spikes from one year to the next they are in tough to maintain their win total from the spike season let alone improve it. A " Spike" season is defined as a team winning 4 or more games above the previous seasons win total. The "Spike" teams this year were

AFC
Jacksonville
Los Angeles Chargers
NFC
Philadelphia
Minnesota
New Orleans
Carolina
Los Angeles Rams
San Francisco

So as you can see the NFC had a lot of these "Spike" teams. 5 of the teams in the playoffs are spike teams. So it's still going to be a pretty good feat for San Francisco to win 8 games next year. Titan fans should really be quite pleased that their team did win 9 games and make the playoffs this year because they bucked the Spike trend. Other Spike teams from last year like Miami, Oakland, Dallas, New York Giants, all regressed this season. So of 5 teams...only one matched the previous win total and none improved.

Sort of shows how unusual this season was where none of the Packers, Red Skins, Giants, 49'ers, or Cowboys made the playoffs. I think I saw something saying this was the first time since 1963 that this happened. Yet teams like Buffalo, Tennessee, Jacksonville, and the Rams ended long droughts.

New England Pittsburgh, and Kansas City are the only teams to make the post season in 3 straight seasons with the Packers and Seahawks streaks ending.