The Philadelphia Eagles won the 2023 NFC Championship and are headed to Super Bowl LVII.
En route to the Super Bowl, the Eagles blew out the New York Giants 38-7 in the Divisional Round and the San Francisco 49ers 31-7 in the NFC Championship game.
That gives the Eagles win margins of 31 and 24 points in back-to-back playoff games. That has only been done twice before in NFL history, once by the 1985 Chicago Bears and once by the '88 49ers.
Both the Bears and the 49ers won the Super Bowl that year, a good omen for the Eagles.
To scale it back, there have only been four teams before the Eagles to win the Divisional Round and Conference Championship by 21-point margins in each. Add the 1989 40ers and 1978 Steelers to the list, and both went on to win their respective Super Bowls.
Some will discount the Eagles' win over the 49ers because quarterback Brock Purdy was injured early and Josh Johnson came in to play before being injured himself.
Certainly some bad luck for the 49ers, though our counterparts in Philly don't think it was a factor.
NFL
But let's just take a minute to gloat about the best football team in history, the 1985 Bears.
They were once again voted the best defense to ever be assembled in NFL history over the weekend.
Rick Gosselin polled 225 former players, coaches, officials, writers and broadcasters to pick the greatest defense of all time and the '85 Bears won 126 votes. The 2000 Baltimore Ravens were second with 38 votes. That's a significant margin.
In three playoff games the Bears only gave up 10 points en route to winning Super Bowl XX. The New England Patriots scored those 10 points in the Super Bowl. The Bears shut out the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams in the Divisional Round and NFC Championship game respectively.