Even in this, the Year of the Coach in the NFL, quarterbacking is likely to once again take center stage in the playoffs. Half of this year's field will feature a quarterback who has never before started a postseason game. Only three teams -- New England, Green Bay and Tennessee -- have the luxury of Super Bowl experience at the game's most pivotal position.

As the playoffs begin, here's our ranking of the six postseason-tested quarterbacks, followed by the half-dozen newcomers to the party:

Been there, done that

The Patriots are 37-12 with Tom Brady calling signals, including 3-0 in the playoffs. AP

1. Tom Brady, New England -- He's the only quarterback in the postseason who has never lost a playoff game (3-0 in 2001, albeit with a big save in relief by Drew Bledsoe in the AFC title game). He's now 37-12 (.755) as an NFL starter. Wow.

2. Brett Favre, Green Bay -- No. 4 has his mojo back, and a running game that he can rely on all day long. Favre is still very dangerous, even if he has thrown for eight interceptions and seen his team lose 72-24 in their past two playoff games.

3. Steve McNair, Tennessee -- The Titans will only go as far as the hobbled McNair takes them, but Stevie Wonder has to be the most feared quarterback in these playoffs. Why? Because he can beat some teams on one leg.

4. Donovan McNabb, Philadelphia -- Hasn't made enough plays to get his Eagles over the hump in the past two NFC title games, but after being buried early this season, he's playing the best ball of his career at the perfect time.

5. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis -- I don't know if anybody has ever mentioned this, but Manning is 0-3 as a starter in the playoffs. Honest. We looked it up. Some how, that fact has just slipped by everyone. By that we mean everyone on Mars. It's time to shut us all up, Peyton.

6. Jake Plummer, Denver -- Jake the Snake hasn't seen the playoffs in five years, since the Cardinals' feel-good wild-card run in 1998. But he won his last four starts and already knows he can go into Indianapolis and come out with a win.

There's a first time for everything

1. Trent Green, Kansas City -- Has by far the most experience of the first-time playoff starters. Now in his 10th NFL season, Green doesn't rattle and won't go to pieces if the Chiefs have to come from behind at some point in the playoffs. Probably doesn't get enough credit for leading the NFL's most prolific scoring offense (484 points).

2. Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle -- Faces the toughest first-round assignment in the playoffs, winning at Green Bay. But if the Seahawks remember they have nothing to lose -- the pressure was last week at San Francisco -- the Packers might be in for a game. Hasselbeck is at least familiar with Lambeau's Frozen Tundra.

3. Marc Bulger, St. Louis -- Don't let Mike Martz bluff you. Of course he's a little worried about Bulger. Matching 22's in the touchdown and interception columns is not the traditional profile of a Super Bowl quarterback. It's a very good thing the Rams and Bulger are off this week, because they need a little time to recover their swagger.

4. Jake Delhomme, Carolina -- Just when you think he's just a game manager, Delhomme surprises you and wins a game with his arm. Then he'll go brain dead on you and make you remember why the Panthers offense is built around the Stephen Davis-led running game in the first place.

5. Quincy Carter, Dallas -- To repeat, in their 10 wins, Carter has 12 touchdowns and seven interceptions. In the Cowboys' six losses, he has been a turnover machine, with 14 picks and just five touchdowns. It's simple, really. Dallas isn't good enough to win on Carter's bad days.

6. Anthony Wright, Baltimore -- He's the only playoff starter who wasn't his team's No. 1 quarterback by Week 2 on. He needs to make a few plays downfield to ease the burden on the Ravens' No. 1-ranked running game, but by and large he's the ultimate example of the caretaker quarterback.

Packers getting all the breaks these days

The most fortunate team in the playoffs? Well, let's just say Favre is exactly right. There is something going on Green Bay. Think about the mind-boggling chain of events that has broken well for the Packers in the past two weeks.

In its last two games, Green Bay drew the Raiders and Broncos. The defending AFC champions had long since stopped caring and was merely playing out the string, biding their time until head coach Bill Callahan was fired. As for the playoff-bound Broncos, they treated their regular-season finale like it was less important than their preseason opener, holding out seven starters, including their top four offensive stars. The Packers didn't beat the Broncos 31-3. They beat Denver's scout team.

Then, the coup de grace. In order to make the playoffs, Green Bay needed the sad-sack Cardinals to rally from an 11-point deficit with less two minutes remaining at home against Minnesota. The Packers needed Arizona to pull off an onside kick, and they got it. They needed the Cardinals to twice convert for touchdowns on fourth down, and they got it. Could they ask for anything more?

Pats, Eagles believe in spreading the wealth

File this one away for re-examination in a few weeks, but if the top-seeded Patriots and Eagles both make it to Houston, it just might be the most star-deprived Super Bowl in history.

Just consider the two teams' skill position players. OK, I'll give you that Brady and McNabb have name appeal. But combine New England and Philadelphia's corps of running backs and receivers and you don't have a headline name among them.

Both teams get it done with a collection of interchangeable parts at those positions. The Patriots leading rusher is Antowain Smith, whose 642 yards ranks a whopping 30th in the NFL. But right behind him is Kevin Faulk, with 638 yards. The Eagles ground game is even more diversified, with Brian Westbrook (617), Correll Buchhalter (542), Duce Staley (463) and McNabb (355) sharing the load.

At receiver, New England's Deion Branch is the yardage leader among the two teams, with 803. That's good for 32nd place in the league in reception yardage. Then the Patriots have David Givens (510), Troy Brown (472), Faulk (440) and tight end Daniel Graham (409). The Eagles can even more tightly bunched in receiving yardage with Todd Pinkston leading the way with 575, followed by James Thrash (558) and Freddie Mitchell (498).

The teams are virtual mirror images on both offense and defense, and the similarities hold right down to their rock-solid, stay-the-course head coaches, Are you experienced? Bill Belichick and Andy Reid. Let's face it, if the Eagles and Patriots square off, it's going to be difficult to hype up these lineups. But you just know we'll find a way.

The AFC is Anybody's Football Conference

We all know that a fifth or sixth seed has never reached the Super Bowl since the NFL expanded the playoff format to 12 teams in 1990. Only twice in that span has a team seeded as low as fifth even reached a conference title game: Indianapolis lost the AFC title game at Pittsburgh in 1995, and Jacksonville lost the AFC title game at New England in 1996. A sixth seed has never won its way past the divisional round.

But has a conference ever seemed more wide-open than this year's AFC bracket, with four of the six teams winning at least 12 games, and everyone having won at least 10?

Top-seeded New England and No. 2 Kansas City have tremendous homefield advantages with their unbeaten home records this season. But if Indianapolis, Tennessee, Baltimore or Denver wound up in Houston, would it be all that shocking?

The Colts have proven they can win anywhere this season, and the Titans are a playoff-tested team that knows how to tough out victories in January. The Ravens have in place their running game and defense blueprint that worked so well in the 2000 playoffs, and the Broncos might be the most dangerous sixth seed in quite some time. Just ask the Colts, who were throttled at home by Denver two weeks ago.

Oakland has never been afraid of being first

Raiders owner Al Davis' penchant for hiring first-time head coaches is well known, and the assumption has always been that he goes that way in order to exert his will over his grateful subjects. And there's undoubtedly some truth to that theory.

But let's not short-change Davis his due as a shrewd evaluator of coaching talent, either. Not discounting his obvious misses with the Mike White (1995) and Joe Bugel (1997) hires, Davis has tapped the likes of John Madden (1969), Tom Flores (1979), Mike Shanahan (1988), Art Shell (1989), Jon Gruden (1998) and Bill Callahan (2002) as first-time NFL head coaches. Madden, Flores and Callahan took the Raiders to at least one Super Bowl in their tenures. Shell and Gruden got their teams to the AFC title game, and Shanahan went on to win two Super Bowls with division rival Denver, proof that Davis gave up on his career too quickly. That's a pretty impressive track record, so if Davis should choose to go the first-timer route once more, let's reserve judgment for the time being.

Callahan was a shooting star rather than a consistent winner, but Davis still might not back off his proven approach of going young and green. Sources say he'll get strong recommendations from Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells regarding Dallas offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon and quarterbacks coach Sean Payton, and we know Davis always listens when Big Bill talks.

On the flip side, the Raiders have made contact with Dennis Green, and Jim Fassel is also said to be on their radar screen. So maybe experience will be the buzzword after the Callahan implosion.

Callahan was far from the Raiders' only problem

There's no question that Callahan lost control of his locker room this season and faced a major credibility problem with many of his players had he been invited back for 2004. That said, if ever there was an example of the inmates running the asylum, it was the Raiders this season.

The move against Callahan this season was for essentially a players' coup pulled off by the most vocal of his detractors, with cornerback Charles Woodson leading the way. Beware all free-agent bidders, Woodson showed his true colors from a character standpoint this season. After ripping Callahan unmercifully in a highly publicized midseason TV interview, Woodson had the gall this week to charge that it was Callahan who made things "personal" between the two this year. Pot, meet kettle.

At this time last year, Callahan was entering a month in which he would be hailed for the superb job he did in taking over the team he inherited from Jon Gruden and leading it to the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance in 19 years. But boy did he get stupid in a year's time.

Not that there's not a silver lining in all this for Callahan. After all, if you don't have to coach the likes of Woodson and Tim Brown and all the rest of the me-first club in Oakland's locker room, why would you want to?

Around the league

• I voted for Brady for MVP, and I would do it again if another ballot was required. But it's hard for me to understand how Manning and McNair can tie for the league's top honor when Manning beat McNair twice this head-to-head this season. Isn't head-to-head always the first tiebreaker?

• Manning has his cross to bear every time he makes the postseason, but it's not like Colts head coach Tony Dungy isn't right there with him. In every way. Dungy has lost his last four playoff games, with his teams being held without a touchdown each time. The Bucs and Colts were outscored 104-18 in those games, with six field goals representing the offensive output. The streak dates to Tampa Bay's 11-6 loss to St. Louis in the 1999 NFC title game. All four games were on the road.

• I try and try to see what they see in LaVar Arrington, but I never can. If you want an example of how the Redskins seemed doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over, look no further than their signing of Arrington to an eight-year, $68 million contract extension last week.

The Redskins treat Arrington like the second coming of Lawrence Taylor, and other than their first names both start with an L, they have little in common. Taylor was a dominating, game-changing playmaker who made everyone on the field better. Arrington is an undisciplined, inconsistent talent who is known as much for his free-lancing ways as he is his play-making. Far too often he fails to show up when the game is really on the line and Washington's defense is crying for an impact play.

Arrington drove former Redskins defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis crazy in 2002 with his inability to execute his assignments, and I saw little indication that anything changed this year under 2003 defensive coordinator George Edwards. Arrington's a three-time Pro Bowl pick, but the only berth he genuinely deserved was in 2001, when he stepped up made big plays that helped Washington finish 8-8 after an 0-5 start.

• Here's what one Redskins observer said this week about the team's latest coaching search: "The guy [owner Daniel] Snyder should hire is Ray Rhodes. Ray could deal with the [V.P. of football operations] Vinny Cerrato situation. He'd know how to finesse him, make him feel good and let him do his job. The key is they have to find a way to not put Snyder in the middle of every decision. The coach and Vinny have to work together and get most of the decisions made without going to Dan to break the tie. That just doesn't work, and that's what happened all the time with [Steve] Spurrier there."

• It's a tricky business to represent more than one NFL head coach at a time. Just ask agent Danny More, who has both Mike Tice and Dave McGinnis as clients. Last Sunday, Tice's Vikings needed to beat McGinnis' Cardinals to make the playoffs. But as you know, that didn't happen.

Instead, McGinnis, who was going to be fired on Monday win or lose in Week 17, saw his Cardinals upset Minnesota on a miraculous final-play touchdown pass, a devastating turn of events for the Vikings and Tice. For the next two days, speculation swirled that Minnesota owner Red McCombs might fire Tice.

On Tuesday, McCombs finally spoke up and said Tice's job was safe. Until then, it looked like More's clients might go 0-for-2 in the worst possible way.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.