The headline has nothing to do with the current crappy weather. (Cold weather should be illegal.)

January means the greatest spectacle in sports — the NFL playoffs.

The NFL playoffs combine the every-week-counts feel of the regular season with the finality of a lose-and-go-home postseason. That’s something college football and basketball have, but Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association do not.

(What’s that? The National Hockey League doesn’t have one-and-done either? You mean there’s professional hockey in the U.S.? Shouldn’t they be playing now?)

Consider the 2003 season, when in consecutive weeks the Packers won the NFC North title because Minnesota blew a two-touchdown lead and lost at Arizona …

… and the Packers then beat Seattle in overtime in the first week of the playoffs …

… only to go from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat one week later:

I’ve been going back and forth all week about Saturday night’s Vikings–Packers game, played six days after the Vikings beat the Packers Sunday to secure a playoff spot.

History indicates a Packer win:

1967: The Los Angeles Rams defeat Green Bay 27–24 in the next to last week of the regular season …

… but two weeks later (in the only playoff game played at Milwaukee County Stadium) the Packers win 28–7:

1993: Detroit beats Green Bay to win the NFC Central title and force the Packers to return to Detroit one week later. The Packers win the important game, though, because of …

2004: Many churches’ Christmas Eve services are augmented by listening to the Packers beat the Vikings 34–31 to win the NFC North. Two weeks later in Green Bay, though, the Vikings beat the Packers 31–17, the last playoff game GM/coach Mike Sherman would coach. (Sherman lost his GM title after the game, and lost his coaching job one season later.)

2009: The Packers beat Arizona 33–7, but when they return one week later for the wild card game, the Cardinals win 51–45 in overtime because the officials don’t know the definition of roughing the passer.

This pattern doesn’t just fit the Packers. Cleveland beat Houston 28–23 at the end of the 1988 season, but six days later back in Cleveland, the Oilers beat the Browns 24–23 in the first round of the AFC playoffs.

So why is that? Some of those games counted more than others. Both the Packers’ and Cardinals’ playoff positions were set, so each team knew they’d be right back at each other a week later. That’s the only possible explanation for how Arizona could score seven points one week and 51 the next. Conversely, the Lions’ and Vikings’ games were for division titles (and thus home playoff games), and Sunday the Vikings had to win for a playoff berth.

It seems counterintuitive to suggest that a team can completely change an unsuccessful approach on one side of the ball to turn one week’s failure into the next week’s success against the same team. But either that is what happened, or the playoff winners played much better once the win-or-go-home games came up.

More recent history suggests a Packer loss Saturday night. The last time the Packers entered the postseason after a loss was in 2002, when the Packers followed a 42–17 loss to the New York Jets with their first home playoff loss in team history, 27–7 to Atlanta. (Which was also a Saturday night game.) Besides the aforementioned 1993, the only other times the Packers won even one playoff game following a season-ending loss was 1982 (after losing to Detroit at the end of the strike season, they beat Atlanta but lost to Dallas in the playoffs) and 1967 (they lost their last two before the aforementioned Rams win, the Ice Bowl and Super Bowl II).

I now wonder if winning the division and getting a home playoff game (or possibly two if you get one of the top two seeds) is really worthwhile. The Packers have won their last three road playoff games (the entire 2010-season postseason, which ended in Super Bowl XLV), but have lost their last two home playoff games, both to the New York Giants (2007 and 2011 seasons). Over the past decade, the Packers are 2–4 at home in the playoffs. And this is a franchise that went 80 years without losing a home playoff game, and had a three-season-long home winning streak.

A few seasons ago, after a Packers home loss, Packer radio announcer Larry McCarren suggested the Packers didn’t have that much home field advantage because Packer fans don’t engage in “mindless noise” during opponent disruption opportunities. The other reasons for the home field advantage fade could be improvements in travel — charter jets, hotels and road food — and stadium facilities for visiting teams. (The NFL frowns upon visiting locker rooms with, say, no hot water in the showers. Or, in the alleged case of the Al Davis-era Oakland Raiders, listening devices.)

To that end, Fox 11 in Green Bay reports:

Heading into wild card weekend, quarterback Aaron Rodgers is looking to control the tempo of the game and is asking fans to get rowdy.

“Two parts, starting fast. We spotted them 13 points, had three real poor drives to start the game. Then getting our crowd into it. We’re calling on our fans this week to be that 12th man and to be real loud from the get-go. It’s going to be a cold night game. But you win your division so you can get a home playoff game, so we need our fans to be real loud on Saturday and give us that advantage,” said Rodgers.

(Saturday forecast: Mostly cloudy, low 16. Sadly, no snow.)

Again, it’s not just the Packers. NFC number one seed Atlanta lost its last home game. (And as you know, the Falcons’ last home playoff game didn’t go so well from the perspective of Falcons fans.) NFC number two seed San Francisco lost one and tied one home game. (And the 49ers’ last home playoff game also was a loss to the aforementioned Giants. That history won’t be repeated, since the Giants went from Super Bowl XLVI champion to out of the playoffs.) NFC number four seed Washington lost three home games. AFC number one seed Denver lost one home game, and number two seed New England, number three seed Houston and number four seed Baltimore lost two home games each.

What Packers fans learned in the past two seasons is that the regular season and the postseason are separate. I imagine as many people thought the NFC’s sixth seed, which had to win its last two regular-season games just to get into the playoffs, was as likely to win Super Bowl XLV as the NFC’s number one seed, at 15–1, was likely to lose its first postseason game at home.

It seems obvious that defense is more important in the postseason than the regular season. That was proven one season ago, when the team with the best defense among the playoff teams won the Super Bowl. (And, again, missed the playoffs entirely this season.)

It seems obvious that generating turnovers and avoiding your own is more important in the postseason. But to prove that every rule has an exception, there are the 1981 San Francisco 49ers …

… which advanced to their first Super Bowl despite having no running game to speak of and committing six turnovers in the NFC Championship.

Football is about players and execution. The Vikings have probably the best running back in the NFL in Adrian Peterson. The Packers finished 17th in rushing defense. Saturday’s game features the fifth best scoring offense, Green Bay, against the 15th best scoring defense, Minnesota, and the 14th best scoring offense, the Vikings, against the 11th best scoring defense, the Packers.

On the other hand (are you dizzy yet?), the Packers haven’t been playing with a full roster for most of the season. No regular running back, no Greg Jennings, no Jordy Nelson, no Clay Matthews and no Charles Woodson for much of the season. That may strike you as being similar to the Packers’ 2010 season (except that Ryan Grant and Jermichael Finley were lost for the season,  not just much of the season), and you know how that season ended. Four of this season’s five Packer losses were by eight or fewer points. So maybe the Packers are better than 11–5.

And the Packers have something no one else has,  as This Given Sunday points out by ranking the Packers fourth in the NFL and second in the NFC:

The Niners are tougher but the Packers have a championship quarterback. …

That’s the key for Green Bay. No other quarterback in the NFC playoff picture has had any playoff success.