I think you're giving too much weight to a small sample size.

I think this points to the parity in the NFL these days more than anything. Look at last year's Super Bowl; with two weeks off between the championship games and the SB, there's not a huge edge for either team. But it would have been unthinkable as recently as 10 years ago for a wildcard team to beat the league powerhouse.

This also happens to be a year where none of the top seeds were really great teams. The Giants had a chance to be great if Plaxico didn't literally shoot himself in the foot. The Panthers were solid, not great (they're perennially overrated, imo), and did anyone really think the Titans had a huge edge on the Ravens?