Yesterday Nate Silver turned away from Congressional majorities and presidential primaries and took a look at the 2010 Seattle Seahawks in a post titled "Worst. Playoff. Team. Ever?" Nate put a question mark at the end of that header to be polite, it would appear, because the suspense sure doesn't last for long:

By defeating the St. Louis Rams Sunday night, the Seattle Seahawks qualified for the N.F.L. playoffs in spite of having lost nine games and won only seven. They are not, technically speaking, the first N.F.L. team to have reached the playoffs with a losing record: in its strike-shortened 1982 season, the league temporarily expanded its post-season to include 16 teams, and the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns each advanced with 4-5 records. But they are almost certainly the worst. The Seahawks are not any garden-variety 7-9 team: they are an incredibly bad 7-9 team.

RTWT.