POP GOES THE AFC--AGAIN

The AFC beat the NFC nine out of 10 times the last two weeks.

The AFC has a 25-15 edge against the NFC in 1996.

AFC teams have scored 399 more points than the NFC.

Every AFC team has at least one victory over an NFC team.

AFC quarterbacks have 20 300-yard passing performances.

NFC quarterbacks have 10 300-yard passing performances.

Four AFC teams have scored 30 or more touchdowns.

Two NFC teams have scored 30 or more touchdowns.

Bottom line: The NFC wins the Super Bowl again.

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The name, social security and checking account numbers, please, of anyone who subscribes to the popular misconception that this is the AFC’s year to win the Super Bowl.

For 12 years in a row the AFC has been a loser in the only game that really counts, but now San Diego throws a Hail Mary to beat Detroit, and it’s the NFC that no longer has a prayer.

“Twelve Super Bowl wins

in a row, geez, really?” said Dr. Duane Steffey, professor of statistics at San Diego State. “A run like that would be one in two-to-the-12th.”

In English, please.

“One in 4,000,” Dr. Steffey said.

So obviously it’s about time the AFC wins. The odds say so. They are due.

“Keep in mind if I flip a coin 12 times in a row and get 12 heads in a row,” Dr. Steffey says, “the next time I flip the coin the probability of tails is still 50-50.”

So the AFC could fall on their tails in another 12 Super Bowls in a row?

“You want my honest assessment?” Dr. Steffey said. “To hell with probability and the law of averages.”

But still, the statistics overwhelmingly favor an AFC uprising this year. That 25-15 edge on the NFC is the most lopsided advantage at this time in the season since 1980, when the Pittsburgh Steelers were ending their dynasty.

Every NFC team with the exception of San Francisco has already lost to an AFC team this season, while Baltimore, Buffalo, Denver, Kansas City and the Steelers remain undefeated against the NFC.

Domination, baby. The AFC defeated the NFC in nine out of 10 games the last two weeks--the only NFC team to win was Tampa Bay, because it was fortunate enough to play the Oakland Raiders.

The Raiders, of course, won the last Super Bowl for the AFC back in a prehistoric time when Al Davis was considered smart. Long, long time ago. Those were the golden days when a commitment to excellence was more important than a personal seat license: Jim Plunkett to Cliff Branch, just the way Coach Tom Flores suggested it after being ordered by Davis from the press box to call the play.

Since then it has been a joke. A year ago the Dallas Cowboys were coached by a so-called clown, Barry Switzer, and yet they were listed as 13 1/2-point favorites to defeat the Steelers.

Today Jack Franzi, oddsmaker at the Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas, is predicting a Super Bowl XXXI rematch for the Cowboys and Steelers, and how about that AFC domination this year, Jack?

“Dallas by seven,” he says.

Thirteen years in a row? Won’t the public figure the AFC is bound to win one?

“The public’s first tendency is to like the favorite,” he says. “The NFC will be the favorite and you can take Green Bay, Dallas and San Francisco and the three rate practically the same. You put up an AFC team and push the number of points to 10, and then you’ll get lots of business on the AFC.”

So the public will jump on the AFC if it gets 10 points? How many points to take trained Super Bowl losers like Buffalo or Denver?

The Bills, the NFC’s punching bag in four of the last six Super Bowls, have absolutely clobbered the NFC during the regular season. This year they went 4-0 against the NFC East to run their record in the ‘90s to 22-6 over the NFC. Go figure.

Denver went 7-4-1 against the NFC in the three years it advanced to the big game with John Elway at quarterback, then was outscored by an average of 32 points a Super Bowl.

Stage fright?

No, says Bobby Beathard, Charger general manager and an expert on winning and losing Super Bowls: “Too much San Francisco and Dallas in recent years.”

Since 1983, the 49ers have the best winning percentage in all sports with a record of 161-55-1 (the Lakers are second). The 49ers have the best record in the ‘90s in the NFL (79-27), and Dallas (73-33) and Buffalo (73-33) are next.

The Cowboys and 49ers are each seeking their fifth consecutive division title; they have combined to walk off with seven of the last 12 Lombardi trophies. They have had three of the best quarterbacks in the game in Joe Montana, Steve Young and Troy Aikman.

“I never thought there was that much difference between the NFC and the AFC,” Beathard says. “There were just two teams better than anybody else in San Francisco and Dallas. Take those teams out of the mix and it would have been probably even in every Super Bowl.”

Beathard has made seven trips to the Super Bowl--the most in NFL history for a talent evaluator and general manager. His Redskins won Super Bowls in 1983 and 1988 and he was in charge of the last team to lose the Super Bowl to the AFC in 1984 (some personnel genius). In 1995 he took the Chargers to the Super Bowl and the 49ers pounded his team.

“When you look at those two teams now under this new system [free agency and salary cap], they might be coming back to the rest of the pack,” says Beathard, the voice of optimism for the AFC. “Of course, that hasn’t been proven yet.”

It’s looking good, though, for the AFC. Young has been knocked out of the 49ers’ starting lineup and the Cowboys are scratching to make the playoffs as a wild-card entry. Green Bay has no receivers to catch the ball, Philadelphia has Tiny Ty Detmer playing quarterback and Washington has about as much chance of making an impact as Ross Perot.

In newspapers across the country, football analysts are suggesting this is the year the AFC can win the Super Bowl. One newspaper expert predicted Buffalo would win the Super Bowl before the season began, and he says now he will stick with that selection, although he has moved Denver to the top of his ratings--just in case.

“The biggest movement we have had in Las Vegas is on New England,” Franzi says.

Denver has the NFL’s best record at 9-1, and so far the Broncos and their AFC mates have manhandled the NFC. The AFC has scored 49 more touchdowns than the NFC. AFC teams are averaging 21.9 points a game, NFC teams 19.2. Baltimore has been unable to win an AFC East game, but the Ravens are 2-0 against the NFC.

“I hate to say it, because I’m in the AFC,” Beathard says, “but I like the era where teams can build to get on the top and stay there. That’s neat.”

Neat? Weren’t leisure suits in the last time the AFC won a Super Bowl? Neat-o-keen, who wants to watch Jerry Jones getting bathed in champagne again?

“I think now you’re not likely to see that, although the teams with more cash have the advantage--like a Jerry Jones,” Beathard says. “That’s the one thing that makes this new system not even--the cash to pay large signing bonuses.

“But I don’t think you will be able to put together a group anymore like Dallas or San Francisco to win every year. Now you have key players who are more interested in what’s going to happen to them after the season [in free agency] than thinking football.

“It’s harder to keep players focused like they used to be, and it’s a younger league too, with more inexperienced players, and that makes things unpredictable. There are just a lot of things that figure into this system that weren’t there before, so it’s more wide open now.

“I liked it when the Yankees were a dynasty; I envied them, that’s something you shoot for. If this is supposed to make it more interesting for fans, I don’t know. But for someone in football, I think it’s more fun the other way.”

With Dallas and San Francisco fading as the dominant teams of the ‘90s, Beathard says, maybe the NFC and AFC are about even.

“But we have to prove it in that big game,” Beathard says. “No matter who makes it from the AFC, it will probably be, ‘Oh gosh, here we go again with a replay of an old Super Bowl and the NFC winning again.’ From that standpoint, it will be really exciting when the AFC wins.”

And by then, man will have walked on Mars, a woman will have thrown out the first pitch as Madame President and Los Angeles will have a pro football team again.

OK, so man will have walked on Mars and a woman will have thrown out the first pitch as Madame President, and the AFC will have won 12 consecutive Super Bowls, and by then Los Angeles might have a pro football team.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

AFC vs. NFC

THROUGH 11 WEEKS

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Super Bowl Season AFC NFC Winner 1996 25 15 1995 18 18 NFC 1994 14 16 NFC 1993 15 12 NFC 1992 13 17 NFC 1991 13 19 NFC 1990 13 17 NFC 1989 20 16 NFC 1988 20 16 NFC 1987 19 15 NFC 1986 16 18 NFC 1985 17 17 NFC 1984 17 17 NFC

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REGULAR SEASON *--*

Season 1984 26-26 1985 27-25 1986 26-26 1987 23-22-1 1988 30-22 1989 24-28 1990 26-26 1991 19-33 1992 22-30 1993 27-25 1994 25-27 1995 27-33 1996 25-15 Total 327-338-1

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Note--AFC leads the all-time series (1970-96), 629-605-8