As I was watching the Colts blow their divisional playoff game to the Chargers yesterday, it struck me just how lucky that team was to have won the Super Bowl last year.  Not that they won the Super Bowl by being lucky, but can you imagine how history would have viewed the Peyton Manning era had they not picked up a Lombardi Trophy?

Let's just say that they didn't get themselves a Super Bowl win.  Aren't they the Buffalo Bills of the 2000's?  People are going to think of the Colts teams of recent years as being better than the Bills of the late 80's-early 90's, but in reality there's not a ton of difference between the two, other than that trophy.

Over the past six years (we'll start there so as to exclude the 2001 "Playoffs?" season), the Colts are 73-23 in the regular season.  The Bills from 1988-1993 were 70-26.  The Colts are 7-5 in the playoffs; the Bills 10-6.  The Colts went to two AFC Championship games in a difficult conference, while the Bills went to five, albeit in a time where the AFC wasn't nearly as strong as the NFC.

The Bills had a dynamic squad, but had the unfortunate luck of making the Super Bowl in 1991 against the Redskins, who might be the most underrated team in league history, and then against the Cowboys in their early Big Three stages (I'm sure the Bills would love to thank the Vikings for handing the Cowboys all those draft picks to build that powerhouse).  They were one of two franchises in NFL history to make four consecutive Super Bowls - granted they were also the only one to lose four straight as well.  But they were clearly the best AFC squad over that timespan. 

The Colts, on the other hand, had to deal with the Patriots twice during the years when they went on to win the Super Bowl.  But they also wasted home field advantage two of the past three years, losing to Pittsburgh two years ago (which was a team that, I think we can agree, would have been sitting at home had Carson Palmer not torn his ACL early in that first-round game) and to the Chargers yesterday (to Billy Freaking Volek!).  They were also lucky enough to get to play against Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl, a luxury the Bills never had.

Had Scott Norwood made his game ending field goal in Super Bowl XXV, this isn't even a debate, clearly the Bills are better.  If Peyton Manning doesn't lead that game winning drive against the Patriots, they're thought of as a bunch of choke artists and everyone wonders why Manning can't win the big one.  But this is the NFL, where you play to win the game, and probably the Colts are going to be remembered as a greater team than the Bills because of that trophy, no matter how many Super Bowls the Bills made.

Fair?  Unfair?  Am I crazy for even thinking about this?