10-6, wild card, defeated Patriots 21-17

The Giants were outscored 400-394 on the season, not only making them the first Super Bowl champs to have a negative point differential but also the first team to reach the Super Bowl with such a margin. (Oddest of all is that New York barely had a point-skewing loss on their record. Lose 41-0 one week and 38-7 the next and that affects the season stats. The Giants' biggest loss was by 25 points to the Saints. All six others were by 14 points or less. Being outscored over the season was deserved.)

The team did win two virtual playoff games to get into the postseason though, including a de facto NFC East championship over the Cowboys in Week 17. Then again, the only reason the Giants needed to win that game is because they were swept by the 5-11 Redskins, in games that weren't particularly close.

They're the only Super Bowl champion to be swept by a 5-11 (or worse) team. In fact, there have been only three other times in the era of the 16-game schedule in which a Super Bowl winner was swept by a division rival. It happened to the 2002 Bucs (via the 9-7 Saints) and the 2007 Giants (with a much more understandable 13-3 Cowboys on the other side). The only other time a team was swept by a sub-.500 opponent? In 1995, when the Cowboys lost two to the - you guessed it -- Redskins. They were 6-10 that year.

As it is, No. 11 may be too kind.