 |  |
 |   |
|
Three and out History was on Tennessee's side -- again -- vs. Jaguars
Posted: Sunday January 23, 2000 05:00 PM
By Ryan Hunt, CNNSI.com The Jacksonville Jaguars have seen about enough of the Tennessee Titans. Tennessee became the eighth team that completed a three-game sweep over an opponent. And the Titans became the third to do it in a league title game: The '82 Miami Dolphins against the New York Jets and the '86 New York Giants against Washington. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl (39-20 over Denver in Super Bowl XXI), but the Dolphins lost (27-17 to Washington in Super Bowl XVII). The Titans-Jaguars showdown was the 39th time since 1970 that teams have met three times in a season. In most cases, division rivals meeting in the playoffs split in the regular season (26 times).
Jacksonville, however, failed to become the sixth team to avenge a regular-season sweep with a postseason victory. The last time it happened was last year, when Arizona beat Dallas. However, the only time a team earned its revenge in a conference championship game was when the then-Los Angeles Raiders beat Seattle 30-14 in the 1983 AFC title game. The Raiders went on to beat Washington 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII.
Still, the Jaguars-Titans tilt wasn't that uncommon in NFL postseason history. Division rivals have met 14 previous times in conference championship games since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. Plus, it was the third all-AFC Central title game (the Steelers and Oilers played in both '78 and '79).
Of the divisions, the NFC East and AFC East have each had four divisional showdowns in title games, the most of any division. It has only happened once in the '90s, though. In a battle AFC East rivals, of Buffalo beat Miami in 1992 to advance to Super Bowl XVIII. The Bills and Dolphins split in the regular season. Regardless, the home-field advantage has been exactly that -- an advantage. The team playing at home has won 62 percent of the time in the playoffs (24 of 39). Of the seven teams to sweep three from an opponent in a season, Tennessee became the first to win the postseason maeeting on the road. But there were two teams that were swept in the regular season, then went on to beat that team in the playoffs at home -- the '83 Super Bowl champion Raiders (vs. Seattle) and the '92 San Diego Chargers (vs. Kansas City).
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
