Yeah good point, until the huge blowout by the Riders the Surge were obviously clearly the best most dominant team in the league.
And you can explain that away in part in Week 12 and 13 with "Oh, well, Chapman didn't play the whole game" but he played the whole game against the Knights and if the Knights had any pass protection going, they would have won that game.
You make a good point about the Surge's season coming from seeming nowhere, though--I didn't realize it's actually been slightly
longer since the Surge were in the playoffs, and since they hosted a playoff game, compared to the Thunder. The Surge just haven't been quite as hapless in the intervening years, but the drought is very similar.
Here's an interesting stat I hadn't noticed until just now:
In the EFC, three of the four playoff teams are returning from last year (Berlin, Frankfurt, Scotland) and Berlin and Frankfurt even have the same seeding.
In the AFC,
all four of the playoff teams finished out of the money last year.