Update: OK, the Republicans have to feel good about Romney’s chances based on Carolina’s victory over Washington. Here’s my updated post from Friday.

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Forget about all the analysis and polls and polls about polls.

The outcome of next Tuesday’s Obama-Romney rumble was decided at the Carolina-Washington game in D.C. Sunday.

So says Steve Hirdt, inventor of the “Redskins Rule.”

Hirdt, the executive vice-president for the Elias Sports Bureau, has determined that the outcome of the Redskins final home game prior to the election has predicted the winner of 17 of the last 18 elections; or 18 for 18 according to a Hirdt “revision” in 2004. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party remains in office. And if they lose, the other guys take control.

So Carolina’s victory bodes well for Romney, who will take everything he can get going into Tuesday.

I talked to Hirdt when he was in Chicago for the Bears-Detroit game. He has been crunching the numbers on Monday Night Football for 31 years, dating back to Howard Cosell and “Dandy Don” Meredith. He has terrific stories, and I’ll have more from my interview at a later date.

With the election coming up, we had to talk about the “Redskins Rule.” In 2000, while preparing for the Redskins-Tennessee game in D.C., Hirdt thought he should do something to link football to the upcoming George Bush-Al Gore election.

“I started to go through the Redskins press guides and look at the scores of the games,” Hirdt said. “And then I tried to figure out each year what happened off their last home game before the election. I went Democrats and Republicans, but it didn’t match up.

““Then I went with incumbents. I was shocked to see it lined up exactly right, that whenever the Redskins won their last home game prior to the presidential election, the incumbent party retained the White House, and whenever the Redskins lost their last home game prior to the election, the out-of-power party won the White House.”

Hirdt noted that Tennessee native Gore shouldn’t have been happy that the Titans won that night in D.C. “He should have been rooting for Tennessee to lose,” he said.

Tennessee’s victory foreshadowed a change in party in the White House, even if it took the Supreme Court to make it official.

“For the next 37 days of indecision, I said, ‘This has been settled already. The Redskins lost,'” he said.

The ‘Redskins Rule’ held true in 2008. Washington lost to Pittsburgh in its final home game before the election. And presto, Obama got the keys.

The only wrinkle was in 2004. The Redskins lost to the Packers in their last home game prior to the election, but Bush, the incumbent, remained in office.

Hirdt then did some playing with the numbers. He prefaced his remarks by saying, “With tongue firmly in cheek…”

“I went back and studied the ‘Redskins Rule’ data and what happened in 2004 was explained in 2000,” Hirdt said. “Because Al Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000 — but lost in the Electoral College – it reversed the polarity of the subsequent election. The opposite of the usual ‘Redskins Rule’ was true.

“Redskins Rule 2.0 established that when the popular vote winner does not win the election, the impact of the Redskins game on the subsequent presidential election gets flipped. So, with that, the Redskins’ loss in 2004 signaled that the incumbent would remain in the White House.”

OK, that may be a stretch. Besides, even 17 for 18 is fairly telling.

Hirdt talked about recently receiving a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter who was plugging NFL numbers into the computer in an attempt to find new election trends.

“I said do any of yours deal with the Washington and with the final score of the game,” Hirdt said. “‘No, he said. OK, the ‘Redskin Rule’ reigns supreme.'”

Here’s the breakdown compiled by ESPN. Keep in mind Hirdt’s “revision” in 2004: