Sunday's Super Bowl match-up of the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Green Bay Packers pits two franchises going at each other man-to-man: Both teams are named after human occupations, rather than historic designations like patriots or cowboys, or animal mascots like lions or eagles.

Half of the NFL teams, in fact, are named after humans, the other half after nonhumans. (Most bear the names, so to speak, of animals, except the Jets and maybe the Chargers).

And the data shows that humans reign supreme: After Sunday, they'll have 35 victories to a mere 10 for the nonhumans (or inhumans, if you prefer). That's an overwhelming margin. By contrast, the NFC leads the AFC by a mere 23-21 margin when you break it down by conference.

In head-to-head confrontations, humans still lead inhumans 18-7.

Counting Sunday's XLV, humans have won nine of the last 10 Super Bowls and had two 11-game winning streaks, from XXI to XXXI and, before that, from IX to XIX. (Also, when is the NFL going to lose this Roman numeral thing, anyway? Super Bowl L is going to sound ridiculous to say.)

It's not an NFC vs. AFC thing, either: Human and inhuman team names are evenly divided between the two conferences.

Sunday's will be the 20th Super Bowl without inhuman teams even participating. That's because they're often eliminated in the conference championship games, as happened this year with the Packers grinding the Bears and the Steelers grounding the Jets.

Time to Realign —————

There's a solution to this lopsided history. Why not put all the people teams in one conference and all the animal teams in the other?

The two conference names could actually mean something, unlike the current conference names, which mean nothing. All the teams in the NFC are American. And all the teams in the AFC are national. Not one comes from any nation but the United States.

It's not like the two conferences use different rules or anything, the way baseball's National and American leagues do. The distinction between the homogenized AFC and NFC carries no real meaning four decades after the NFL and now-defunct AFL merged.

Teams switched leagues back then, and teams have switched divisions since. Hell, the Seattle Seahawks moved from the AFC to the NFC in 2002 – conveniently putting them, we might add, in the same conference as the other two raptor-esque teams, the Falcons and Eagles.

And divisions don't mean diddly. Who cares about the discontinued Central Division of either conference? How about the Capitol Division, the Century Division, and the Coastal Division? Ever heard of them? All of them got thrown into the dustbin of NFL history.

Time to institute easy-to-remember conferences and divisions that reflect the actual names the teams give themselves. Our revamped lineup makes a lot more sense.

Let's start with the new People (or Human) Conference: 16 teams, half from the current NFC, half from the AFC. Four divisions, just like now, but they make more sense.

The Occupational Division comprises the Steelers, Packers, Buccaneers and Raiders. The History & Geography Division is made up of the Patriots, Vikings, Texans and 49ers. Some people may argue that being a Texan is a full-time occupation, but that's neither here nor there – making it a backward form of geography.

The Wild West Division (a.k.a. "Cowboys & Indians") counts the Bills, Chiefs, Cowboys and Redskins. Yes, we know the Bills use a buffalo emblem, but that's based on their hometown, not their name. They're called the Buffalo Bills, not the Bill Buffaloes. And yes, the 49ers might have fit here, but they're neither cowboys nor Indians, and besides, this division is already full. Similar to Dallas playing in the current NFC East, because the NFC South already had four teams. (Dallas is in the east? What, East Texas?)

The Heroes & Legends Division takes in the Saints, Giants, Titans and Browns. You could argue that Giants and Titans shouldn't be counted as people, but they're still much more like people than like animals. (This placement causes less warping than Indianapolis playing in the current AFC South, when it's actually farther north than Cincinnati and even Baltimore, both in the AFC North.) And the Browns take their inspiration from a man – team founder Paul Brown – not from a color, like the Toledo Maroons of old.

Now for the Animal (or Inhuman) Conference. Same deal: four divisions, four teams each. The Big Cat Division comprises the Jaguars, Bengals, Panthers and Lions. The Big Bird Division (if the NFL can cut a licensing deal with Sesame Street) takes in the Eagles, Falcons, Seahawks and Ravens. (More of a flock than a division, really.) The Zoo Division resembles a hodgepodge, like many zoos: Rams, Cardinals (not big enough for the Big Birds), Bears and Dolphins.

Now we have a problem: You ride Colts and Broncos; they're horses. You ride Jets, but they're not animals. The Chargers logo once included a horse, but it ran away. So, what are they now? Credit cards? No, the team uniform, helmet and nickname tell us they're lightning bolts. Because electricity travels at the speed of light, let's put all four of these teams in the Fast Rides Division.

2010 Season Standings ———————

PEOPLE CONFERENCE

Occupational Division

Pittsburgh Steelers 12-4

Green Bay Packers 10-6

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 10-6

Oakland Raiders 8-8

History & Geography Division

New England Patriots 14-2

Minnesota Vikings 6-10

Houston Texans 6-10

San Francisco 49ers 6-10

Wild West Division

Kansas City Chiefs 10-6

Dallas Cowboys 6-10

Washington Redskins 6-10

Buffalo Bills 4-12

Heroes & Legends Division

New Orleans Saints 11-5

New York Giants 10-6

Tennessee Titans 6-10

Cleveland Browns 5-11

ANIMAL CONFERENCE

Big Cat Division

Jacksonville Jaguars 8-8

Detroit Lions 6-10

Cincinnati Bengals 4-12

Carolina Panthers 2-14

Big Bird Division

Atlanta Falcons 13-3

Baltimore Ravens 12-4

Philadelphia Eagles 10-6

Seattle Seahawks 7-9

Zoo Division

Chicago Bears 11-5

St. Louis Rams 7-9

Miami Dolphins 7-9

Arizona Cardinals 5-11

Fast Rides Division

New York Jets 11-5

Indianapolis Colts 10-6

San Diego Chargers 9-7

Denver Broncos 4-12

Human win/loss record for 2010 is 130-126, while the inhumans are 126-130, so the new conferences would start off pretty evenly matched.

Of course, these standings assume the teams would've played the same schedule as this season, which they certainly wouldn't have. The new NFL schedules would rely on these sensible new divisions and conferences, with maybe an occasional nod to traditional rivalries.

Geography and proximity will count for nothing. Cross-country air fares often come cheaper than flying to another town in your own state, so BFD. We're paying you millions, gentlemen. Get on that plane and fly.

Randy Alfred is a Wired.com copy editor and editor of its This Day in Tech blog. He once predicted that Major League Baseball would realign into Orthodox, Conservative and Reform leagues.

Image: Flickr/timomcd, CC