I don't believe it! There she goes again! She's tidied up, and I can't find anything! All my tubes and wires and careful notes, and antiquated notions…

Guh. Thank god that's over. What a crappy month of football. The good news is that now the real fun begins. Oh, I'm not talking about the Saints' run to the Super Bowl. That's still what might as well be an eternity away. No, I'm talking about the two-week parade of anecdotal factoids which prove… PROVE!… that one outcome is more likely than another. I just can't get enough of those. Say, did you know that the last time an NFC West team other than Seattle lost the Superbowl (the 2001 Rams) an NFC South team won the Super Bowl the following year? And who lost the Super Bowl last year? That's right, an NFC West team other than Seattle. And who's the only NFC South team in the playoffs this year? Science! I defy you to refute such sound reasoning!

Furthermore, did you know that in the last 10 years, no team in the Saints' division (whichever division that might have been at the time) has ever gone exactly 13-3 in the regular season and failed to win the Super Bowl? Say, you know who's in the Saints' division? The Saints! And they're 13-3! Science.

Back in 2006, the Colts lost 3 of their last 5 games. And they were hemorrhaging rushing yards on defense. Sound familiar? But they got a key defensive back healthy in time for the playoffs. Anybody remember how that worked out for them? Science.

Oh sure, those jerks in the national media who hate the Saints and, more importantly, hate YOU, never tire of sticking it in your face that no team has ever gone into the playoffs riding a 3-game losing streak and gone on to win the Super Bowl. Personally, I think Skip Bayless just made that stat up to support his continued blatant disrespeck™ of our heroes. Colin Cowherd has probably been email-blasting it as if it were a call to action to prevent those heathens in DC from removing "In God We Trust" from US currency or something.

Fortunately for us, we're all well aware how meaningless that particular stat is. Unlike the ones we've laid out above. See, the aforementioned jerks just don't pay close enough attention. They conveniently disregard all the injuries the Saints have been playing through, and that by the time the Saints play again in 11 days, everybody's gonna be as fresh as the mom in a Massengill ad.

They like to focus on the 3, but what of the 13? What of the thirteen?!?!?

This is why stats ought to come with a warning label. Too many people don't have the slightest clue how to distinguish between a legitimate indicator and an insignificant curiosity. And it happens all the time.

In the weeks leading up to the draft: "The Bears went BPA and got Walter Payton. The Falcons went for need and got Aundray Bruce. Therefore…"

In the preseason: "Some team in 1986 went 4-0 in the preseason and ended up 1-15. But the 2001 Patriots went 0-4 in the preseason and won the Super Bowl. Therefore…"

And of course, in the last couple weeks of the regular season: "The Colts rest their starters and lose in the playoffs. Except that time they won the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the Patriots play til the end and win the Super Bowl. Except the times when they lose."

Pop quiz, hot shot: What's the truest sports cliche of them all?

Answer: "That's why they play the games."

The dirty little secret is that none of it means jack shit. What the Bills did in 1976 has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what the Saints might do in the early part of 2010. The fact that no team has gone into the playoffs riding a 3-game losing streak and won the Super Bowl is equally irrelevant.

And, I hate to break it to ya, but the fact that the Saints won their first 13 games in 2009 is only barely more relevant than that. 13-0 doesn't tell you how good the Saints are. It tells you how good they were.

Oh sure, to be fair, it also tells you how good they can be. And that's great. It's nice to be able to reference a relatively recent 48-22 win over a potential playoff opponent and a 38-17 win over another playoff team who just happen to be the league's most recent "dynasty." It's nice that the Saints earned the #1 seed in the playoffs by virtue of having the best regular season in the NFC. And sure, the most recent of the Saints' three consecutive losses basically amounted to an intentional walk. It's meaningless.

Just as meaningless as a week 1 win over Detroit or a week 3 win over Buffalo. The moment the Saints clinched the #1 seed in the NFC, those games became completely irrelevant going forward. All 13-0 means is that the Saints kicked a whole lot of ass back in September, October and November.

Message Board Guy likes to use the phrase "small sample size" when a larger sample size will produce results more to his liking. It also packs quite a "my stats are better because I've looked deeper" punch when he's trying to win a pissing contest in which his usual "all stats are meaningless because you can make them say whatever you want them to say… watch the games and draw your own subjective conclusions!" position is off-limits for whatever reason. (And usually his opponent in said pissing contest is a national media type who has no idea that Message Board Guy even exists. Or, reads all his posts and plagiarizes them a week or two later, depending on your perspective. )

But sometimes the smaller sample is the correct sample. "What have you done for me lately?" isn't just a Janet Jackson smash-hit 80s pop single. (You've gotta shave.) Inertia is a bitch.

Which isn't to say that the Saints are incapable of overcoming the aforementioned inertia. But no amount of hearkening back to September dominance, or even November dominance, makes it any more likely that they actually will. No more than any "0-3 heading into the playoffs" anecdote makes it any more likely that they won't.

And while it's nice that by all accounts, the Saints will be as close to full-strength as they've been in a long long time when the time comes to strap 'em up again (minus Charles Grant, but admit it, you really don't give a shit about whether or not Grant plays do ya?) that doesn't automatically mean that the Saints are going to go right back into juggernaut mode. Nor does the three weeks of rest for most of the starters.

Not that those aren't good things. Very good things. Assuming they pan out, that is. I mean, Sean Payton just told us all that Pierre's MRI came back negative. So… you know… grain of salt and all.

The truth is, nobody has any fucking clue how any of this is gonna play out. Except me.

Meantime, all I'm saying is don't confuse homeriffic anecdotes about what other teams in other years amidst different circumstances did or didn't do as scientific evidence that the Saints are about to "flip the switch" and skullfuck all comers for the next 3 games.

Oh, don't get me wrong. That's precisely what they're about to do.

It just won't have anything to do with the Colts' strategy in 2006, or the fact that Sean Payton wears a visor, just like Jon Gruden did in 2002.

It'll be because I said so. Science.