In mid-November, we wrote about this subject, and six weeks later, the dream still is intact—very much so. The Cleveland Browns are 11-5 and probably locked into the No. 5 seed for the AFC playoffs as the best wild-card team, while the Detroit Lions are 11-4 and guaranteed no worse than the No. 3 seed in the NFC playoffs as the NFC North Division champions—their first division title since 1993! The chess pieces are moving …

What are the mathematical probabilities? Well, they’re not so rosy, according to The New York Times. The esteemed publication’s projections give the Browns just a 3-percent chance to win the Super Bowl, while the Lions are granted the same improbable chance. Cue the famous line from a very bad movie: “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance.” That’s all we ask, in truth, considering how rarely the possibility has existed.

How many seasons during the SB era (1966-present) have both these teams made the playoffs? 1994 was the last time, for example. Overall? 1982. That’s it. Just twice, and the 1982 season was the strike-shortened season where 8 teams from each conference qualified for the postseason after just a 9-game regular-season schedule. That makes it kind of an anomaly, so this is just the second “normal” time ever in the modern era.

That’s pretty incredible, although maybe not so much when you consider these two teams are the oldest-existing teams to have never played in the Super Bowl. It’s even more stunning when we remember that the two franchises combined for six NFL titles in the 1950s—and then seemingly disappeared once the Super Bowl became a thing. That’s bad timing, for sure, but maybe it’s cyclical, too. Things have a habit of rotating.

Both Cleveland (No. 7 in the SRS) and Detroit (No. 8) have solid teams this year, too, and some bad teams have won the Super Bowl in recent years (even if we think the fix was in for at least one of them): both the Browns and the Lions have a legit chance. We just wish the NFL had better agendas than the ones we previously have discussed revolving around Southern-state quarterbacks of origin. Why not this agenda?!

Why not, indeed. After all, someone’s gotta win it all, right?