Roads to Glory: Hardest Path to the Superbowl (recently)

It was an impressive performance by the entire Giants team, taking out the 18-0 Patriots. The Giants playoff run was incredible.

Complete records of the teams the Giants beat (all road games except Superbowl):
9-7 @Tampa Bay
13-3 @Dallas
14-3 @Green Bay
18-0 Patriots

That's a combined record of 54-13 (.806). I did a little bit of research of recent years and found out that the 2005 Steelers played teams (all on the road too) with the combined record of 54-13 also. The Steelers were a slightly better team in the regular season, going 11-5 compared to the Giants 10-6. So what the Giants did wasn't unprecedented, but still very hard. Also, I give the Giants a slight edge in level of difficulty for defeating the 18-0 Patriots because the Steelers were actually 4 point favorites in their Superbowl against the 15-3 Seahawks.

Record of playoff competition in en route to winning Superbowl:
2007 Giants: 54-13 (.806)
2006 Colts: 51-17 (.750)
2005 Steelers: 54-13 (.806)
2004 Patriots: 44-8 (.846)
2003 Patriots: 41-13 (.759)
2002 Buccaneers: 37-15 (.712)
2001: Patriots: 41-11 (.788)

After that point, I stopped researching. However, it is worth noting that the 2004 Patriots faced the competition with the best record, though they only played 3 games, one at home, one away, and the Superbowl.
Competition faced by the Patriots, who were a 14-2 team in the regular season:
13-4 Colts
16-1 @Steelers
15-3 Eagles

To compare the 2007 Giants with the 2004 Patriots, we'll throw out NY's wildcard road game against Tampa Bay so that they have three games a piece: the division playoff, league championship, and Superbowl. Then the record of NY's competition is 45-6 (.882), with two of those games on the road. Since NY had to play four playoff games instead of 3 like the Patriots, it becomes abundantly clear that NY faced a much more difficult path to winning the Superbowl than any team in recent years.

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