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Why Super Bowl XXXVIII Is Going To Be a Blowout
In this column, you'll learn all about my fool-proof theory for picking the Super Bowl every time. Point-spread and over/under-wise, that is.
The only problem is, it didn't work at all last year. In fact, the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen, happened.
However, the X-factor last year -- as far as I was concerned -- was Raiders center Barret Robbins, who went a little nuts and spent the day before the Super Bowl drinking himself into a stupor down in Tijuana. This brought the record of teams who had someone go missing/crazy/arrested on the eve of the Super Bowl to 0-3, and, since the results flew in the face of my carefully crafted theory, I'm choosing to ignore last year's game.
Scientific method, schmientific method.
So. The figures you encounter will relate to Super Bowls played BEFORE last year's Buccaneers-Raiders clash.
Okay.
The idea is, and I'd been saying this for a while before last year's Super Bowl, that Super Bowls that were played only one week after the conference championship games (hereafter "one-week Super Bowls") are close, and Super Bowls played two weeks after the conference championship games (hereafter "two-week Super Bowls") are blowouts.
My confidence in the theory was enhanced when, in Super Bowl XXXV, the low-octane Ravens (the same Ravens team that went, what, four or five games in a row without scoring an offensive touchdown during the regular season) blew out the Giants in a two-week Super Bowl. I told everyone the Ravens would blow out the Giants (my reasoning being that as a two-week game it had to be a blowout, and no one was blowing out that Ravens defense), no one believed me, then it happened. I said Ravens and the over, I was right.
The theory was really on point in Super Bowl XXXVI, when the heavily-favored Rams (14 points, wasn't it? Or some ungodly number like that? Maybe it was just ten. Anyway, it was big) fell to the Patriots. I picked Patriots and the under (I say "picked" rather than "bet;" unless I'm in Vegas, and I'm doing so on a lark, I don't like to bet on sports, mainly because I'm bad at it), and I was right.
Last year I had Raiders and the under, and that blew up in my face. But I'm choosing to blame Barret Robbins and not my precious theory, because I did all this pretty math that I'm about to show you.
I started with Super Bowl XV, both because 15 is a nice, round number, and because I figured that by 1981, when that game was played, the Super Bowl had achieved its current status as "The Super Bowl," with all the rights and privileges therein. Super Bowl I was a bit of curiosity, Super Bowl III "made" the NFL as it is today, but I figure that by Super Bowl XV the game had pretty much evolved to where it is today. It's a fairly arbitrary Super Bowl to start with, I suppose, but it's backed up by the fact that the subsequent game, Super Bowl XVI, was the biggest Super Bowl ever in terms of TV ratings (and I realize that with cable and satellite and TiVo, today's Super Bowls can't hope to break that record, but now we're getting way, WAY off topic).
So, there have been 22 Super Bowls played since then (23, if you count last year's, which I've already told you I don't). Of those, 17 have been two-week Super Bowls. The average margin of victory in those games was 21.4 points (although, for what it's worth, the Broncos and Bills were involved in a number of those games).
There have been five one-week Super Bowls played in that time, and the average margin of victory in those games was 7.6 points (still barely over ten if you count last year, which, again, I don't).
So, basically, what we have here is a statistic that shows the average margin of victory in two-week Super Bowls is almost THREE TIMES as large as the average margin of victory in one-week Super Bowls.
Hm.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Or, at least, I know what I was thinking after I did the math. Five games is not a large enough sample size to "prove" that one-week Super Bowls are closer that two-week Super Bowls.
Ya got me. It's true.
But, just for poops and giggles, I went and calculated the average margin of victory in the five closest two-week Super Bowls, and it came out to 7.8 points. So, even the five ABSOLUTE CLOSEST two-week games still weren't as close as the AVERAGE one-week game (say it with me: "Not counting last year").
Why is this?
Who the heck knows? Maybe it's because players aren't used to taking a week off and then playing a game (or, maybe, they didn't used to be; a good many of these games took place before the introduction of the mid-season bye week). Maybe it's because with two weeks to sit and think about the biggest game of their lives players inevitably come out tight, and as soon as one team gets behind they'll panic, press too hard and lose control (not that that always happens; some of the two-week blowouts, like Cowboys-Bills I and Redskins-Broncos, had the eventual blowout winner being behind early).
Those are a couple ideas, but since I've never played in a Super Bowl (no, really, it's true), I can't say for sure. All I know is that the numbers don't lie, provided no one on either team goes out to buy coke, gets arrested for soliciting prostitution or gets blasted in Tijuana.
That leads us to Sunday's game. As of this writing, the Patriots are 6.5 point favorites, and the over/under is 38. That's low for a blowout, and The Average Theory tells us that, as a two-week Super Bowl, a blowout this will be. So, do you see the Patriots being blown out in the Super Bowl after winning, what, 972 games in a row (I think the last time they lost, the Red Sox were the defending World Series champions. I read that somewhere)? I don't. So, if they don't get blown out, and the game has to be a blowout, then the Panthers will be on the receiving end (which is appropriate, given all of the comparisons I've been hearing between them and the '98 Falcons).
Now, if the game's a blowout, then the two teams are bound to combine for more than 38 points, right? Right.
So, there you have it. The Patriots and the over.
I'm not going to bet my hard-earned money on the game but if you want to, armed with a solid mathematical theory that has been right a tiny bit more than half the time, be my guest. You can thank me later.
In the form of presents or money, preferably.
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