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The Statistorian: The Eagles and the 86 Club



via USA Today

It's hard to believe, but we are halfway through the 2014 NFL season. It's a very happy midpoint for our Birds, of course. They're in first place. The Cowpokes started out hot, but are now jonesing for solutions to their recent troubles (See what I did there? Jonesing? Huh? Huh? Aw, forget it). Washington and the Giants are totally irrelevant at this point. Even better, despite some inconsistent play on both sides on the ball and major injuries, the team have withstood it all extremely well, with their best ball hopefully still to come.

As good as all of this is, I recently learn something that makes the Eagles' current standing look even better. You see, I recently was talking with my dad about how often it seems Super Bowls are won by teams that are very hot going into the playoffs. I pointed out to him that they may be true sometimes, but more often I've noticed that those who do win it all got off to fast starts. I've used some recent examples off the top of my head, like the '09 Saints, who won the Lombardi, despite losing their 3 regular season games, and the '12 Ravens, who lost 4 of their last 5 and went on to win it all.

So, that got me curious: how did the eventual Super Bowl winners all started in their respective seasons? I decided to look only how they did in their first 8 games, and to go only back to the 1978 season, which was the first to have 16 regular season games. I originally also decided not to include the '82 and '87 seasons, since both were strike-shortened, and did not have 16 games. However, as I did this exercise, thanks greatly to the outstanding site, pro-football-reference.com, I discover something very funny, and would also allow me to include those seasons.

In all those seasons, except for 5, every Super Bowl winner started out at least 6-2. For context, that's 31 out of 36 seasons, or 86% of all years since '78. Yes, that includes the strike seasons, as well. By the way, the exceptions were the '10 Packers, '01 Patriots, '00 Ravens, '88 49ers, and '80 Raiders. All those teams except the '01 Pats, started out 5-3, thereby just missing. The '01 Patriots are the only team to start out 4-4 and win it all.

So, odds are very, very good, the team that will be celebrating in Arizona about 3 months from now would have started out 6-2 or better. Who does this apply to this year? Please check out the list of teams who are in I like to call "The 86 Club":

Now, I'm very sure most, if not all of you, made special note of the last team on the list. Yep, our Birds. By the way, it's the first time they're in the 86 Club since 2004. That's right, the year they almost won in Jacksonville. In fact, both times the Eagles have been in the Super Bowl, they were in the 86 Club. Of course, since you know the '80 Raiders were not in the 86 Club, that means we lost to the first team ever to do that. Figures, right? Well, hopefully, that saying about three times and charms applies to us, here. In the meantime, take comfort in that, historically, we most likely have an 1 in 6 chance at finally ridding ourselves of 54 years of agony. Oh, and E-A-G-L-E-S! EAGLES!!!!!!