Okay, so check it out, I was messing around trying to figure out the San Francisco 49ers’ playoff history the other day. It started with a bet, actually. My buddy swore they hadn’t done squat since the 90s, and I knew that was BS.
First thing I did, of course, was hit up Google. Just typed in “san francisco 49ers playoff history”. Tons of stuff popped up, Wikipedia, team websites, sports news archives, the whole nine yards.
I started clicking around, mostly focusing on getting a timeline. I wanted to see year by year when they made it, who they played, and what the score was. Found a decent table on a sports stats site, copied it into a spreadsheet.
Then, it got messy. This table wasn’t complete. It had missing years, especially from way back in the day. So I had to dig deeper. Went to the official 49ers website, which, surprise surprise, had a more detailed history, but it was all in paragraph form. Ugh.
So I started manually entering data from the website into my spreadsheet. Year, opponent, result, score. It was a slog, I’m not gonna lie. Took me like an hour just to get through the early years.
Once I had all the data in the spreadsheet, I started playing around with it. I wanted to see their overall playoff record, their record against specific teams, how many Super Bowl appearances they had, stuff like that.
Spreadsheet software came in clutch here. Used some simple formulas to count wins, losses, and calculate percentages. Created a few charts to visualize the data – number of playoff appearances per decade, win/loss ratio over time, you know, the usual stuff.
Key Findings (that shut my buddy up):
- They’ve been to the playoffs WAY more than my buddy thought.
- They have a pretty solid overall playoff record.
- They’ve had multiple runs of consistent playoff appearances.
After that, I wanted to see if there were any interesting trends. Like, did they perform better at home or away? Did they usually win when they were the higher seed?
Turns out, home-field advantage definitely plays a role, but it’s not a guarantee. And seedings? They matter, but upsets happen all the time, as you’d expect.
Finally, I wanted to make it look pretty. I took all the data from the spreadsheet and put it into a presentation. Added some pictures, some team logos, and some short descriptions of key games. Made it look all fancy and professional, just to rub it in my buddy’s face.
Lessons Learned
Digging through sports stats can be a real rabbit hole. Be prepared to spend some time online. Spreadsheets are your best friend. And don’t underestimate the power of a well-presented argument to win a bet. In the end, my buddy owed me a beer. Worth it.
