Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. In 13 days they'll be facing off in Super Bowl 49.
And that brings up a topic I don't like. I don't care for the numbering of the Super Bowls. The reason? It makes it sound as if there was no professional football until 49 years ago. There may have been no Super Bowl game until 49 years ago, but there was an NFL, and there was an NFL championship.
I see lists all the time that talk about how many Super Bowls a team has been to and which teams have won the most Super Bowl titles.
I heard this over the weekend: "The New England Patriots are headed to the championship for a record-tying eighth time!"
And that's not true. If you say "Super Bowl", it's true. This will be New England's eighth Super Bowl. But it won't tie a record for most trips to the championship game.
Several of the early NFL teams, including the Giants, Bears and Packers, have been to the final game of the season more times. It just wasn't called the Super Bowl then.
The team with the most championships under their belts? The Green Bay Packers. Between Super Bowls, NFL championship games and the eleven seasons that happened before there was a title game, the Packers have been champions 11 times.
I know that doesn't make up for yesterday's loss to Seattle, Packer fans, but at least it's something nobody can take away. Unless they only talk Super Bowls as if time didn't exist before 1966.
