Some of the analytical avalanche will be valid: Teams that get an early lead in postseason games will have a huge advantage.

Some will be less so: The Super Bowl champion isn't always the team playing best at season's end. The 2007 Giants, for example, lost two of their last three games, the 2006 Colts three of their final five.

Some will be interesting but ultimately meaningless: The last 11 Super Bowl winners, and 18 of the last 19, won the sixth game of their seasons.

Some Super Bowl champs have had peaceful locker rooms and controversy-free seasons (Joe Gibbs' Redskins), while others have fought, squabbled, and been constantly in the headlines (Barry Switzer's Cowboys).

For the 2008 playoff teams, the regular season was a collection of ups and downs. All but four teams lost at least two games in a row, and all 12 won at least three in a row. Streaks always seem to characterize the regular season.

All those statistics and insights aside, if there is a secret formula for postseason glory, it's probably the same simple one that works during the regular season: consistency.

The team that plays the closest to its potential for the next month figures to be one celebrating when the confetti starts falling from the night sky over Tampa on Feb. 1.

"Consistency is a key," said coach Tony Dungy, whose Colts won Super Bowl XLI. "Week after week, you've got to be able to focus, be able to get excited about the game and excited about your achievements but not dwell on them.

"Players have to come to practice after each week's game and hear the same things, run the same plays, do the same drills, and try to do them all as if they were fresh and new."

As tough as they had to be on the field, the 12 teams in these playoffs also had to be mentally tough, able to endure the winning and losing streaks, the kudos and controversies, the great games and the slumps.

"You're talking about seven or eight months that are packed with a lot of tension and drama," said John Madden, the one-time Super Bowl-winning coach of the Oakland Raiders and now an NFL broadcaster for NBC.

"There are teams that can go with the flow, no matter what happens on or off the field. And then there are teams that fall apart when things go badly. I think the ones left standing are usually in that first bunch."

But not always.

Think of the arrests, the lurid headlines and the locker-room squabbles that were the typical weekly existence of those great Dallas Cowboys teams in the mid-'90s. Or think of where the 2008 Eagles and Chargers were after 11 games - and where they are now.

Like 2007, when the Patriots went unbeaten for 18 games only to lose in the spotlit 19th, 2008 showed that there's no right way to get to the playoffs.

There were fast starters who became slow finishers: The Titans began 10-0 and lost two of their last three games. The Giants were 11-1 before losing three of their final four.

There were slow starters who finished fast: Miami was 2-4 before winning nine of 10 games. Dungy's Colts were 3-4 before going on a nine-game win streak at season's end. And, astoundingly, San Diego was 3-8 until taking its last five and the AFC West title.

There were teams that faltered at midseason: The Eagles sandwiched that devastating 10th-game tie in Cincinnati with two losses.

Three teams - Atlanta, Carolina and Pittsburgh - never lost two in a row.

And yet here they all are at what, essentially, is the only time that really matters.

"Momentum is very fleeting," Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner said. "You can have momentum in one second of the game, and it can be gone the next. I think it's the same from game to game. . . . Hopefully, guys have a short memory and only remember the last week."

Curiously, the defending champion Giants, despite their season-ending stumbles, might have their opponents right were they want them. New York has a history of playing its best in the postseason after playing its worst at season's end.

In their final three regular-season games a year ago, they were beaten soundly by Washington, eked out a win at Buffalo, and lost to New England.

"You just can't tell," said Madden. "It's a week-to-week kind of deal."

Contact staff writer Frank Fitzpatrick at 215-854-5068 or ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com.