[tracy hackler]

Beckett’s Super Bowl XLII Coverage

Super Sunday Profit Potential

Super Showdown: The Running Backs

Franchise vs. Franchise: Part II

Super Showdown: The Wide Receivers

Super Showdown: The Quarterbacks

Wes Welker: An Appreciation

A Postcard from Gillette

Monday Morning Collector: Conference Championships

One of the myriad splendid things about Super Bowl Week (any Super Bowl Week) is the ad nauseam analysis from every corner of the globe.

Let’s face it: Big-game expertise is as close as your nearest television or computer this week, what with all the breaking down and dissecting of matchups and common opponents and playoff experience and third-down efficiencies and turnover ratios and coaching tendencies and intangibles and red-zone opportunities and . . .

It’s enough to make most football fans want to take the entire week off just to soak it all in prior to Sunday’s epic tilt between the New England Patriots and New York Giants.
But with such a ridiculous preponderance of pigskin dope being disseminated this week, just once we’d like to see Rich Eisen or Chris Mortensen or Troy Aikman or somebody break the game down in terms of football cards. (As football-loving card collectors we can dream, right?)

But since we know that’s probably never going to happen (and because that’s what you need us for in the first place), we decided to take that chore on ourselves.

What follows, then, is, without question, the most extensive, expert, all-encompassing football card analysis of Super Bowl XLII that you’ll find anywhere (Did we mention it's also the only such analysis you'll find anywhere?).

We tasked (and taxed) the data-housing Hercules known as the Beckett Database with breaking down Pats vs. Giants in every card category imaginable (24 total), from total number of cards to total number of cards valued at less than $5.

Some of the results surprised us. For instance, based on their new-millennium dynasty, we figured the Patriots would have appeared on more cards since 2000 than the Giants. Not true. We also figured that the Giants, seeing as how they’ve been around for 35 years longer than the Pats, would have appeared on more cards prior to 2000 than New England. Again, not true.

The rest of the numbers are just as telling. Enjoy them. With all the other numbers being force-fed to you this week, these should come as a welcome diversion.

-- Database research compiled by Tim Trout. Check back tomorrow for additional analysis.