2 Colts teams make the “What if” tourney

2005 I can see, but I’m not sure why the 2009 team fits in there. I think teams that made the Super Bowl should be excluded.  If you lost in the SB, your season isn’t so much of a “What if?”.  You know what if.  What if Garcon catches the ball?  What if Baskett fields the kick, ect.  The Colts win, that’s what if!  The what ifs are more for teams that lost earlier.  Just my two cents.

Okay, so I looked at all the great comments and decided that I couldn’t decide between teams. 20 at-large entries was not enough. On the other hand, I have to draw the line somewhere. So I expanded it to 80, so there will now be 36 at-large (non-Super Bowl) entries along with every Super Bowl losing team. Of course, this still means everyone will be disappointed by something. I settled on the 36 entries by some general combination of the following:

1. Find the teams with the best records not to make it (so, everyone that went 14-2 in a non-strike year should be in);
2. Then find the teams with the best SRS performance not to make the Super Bowl (so teams like 1970 Minnesota get in even though they were also just in the year before);
3. Then find teams that were really good for a three year stretch but never made the Super Bowl during that time (think Rams of the late 60’s and 70’s, or the 13-3 Chiefs from the mid-90’s). I chose a representative year for these teams; and finally . . .
4. The last 9 entries were entirely based on commenter votes and adding teams from franchises not represented. I decided that the Texans would not get in (when your best team is 9-7, sorry), but the city of Houston is represented by the run-n-shoot and luv ya blue Oilers. The only other franchise not in is New Orleans. I could have gone with the 2006 Saints but decided that Saints fans can just bask in the glow and ignore this silly exercise. So, commenters pushed in teams like the aforementioned Oilers, the 1977 Raiders, and the 1976 New England Patriots (a very solid choice by all the numbers plus the way they lost, by the way).