One of my favorite things to do at the conclusion of the NFL’s regular season is to update my analysis of the shared traits of past Super Bowl teams in order to compare those traits to our current crop of NFL title hopefuls. The traits were snapshots of the last 42 Super Bowl teams at the conclusion of the regular season, and my assumption is that though the teams involved may change, what it takes to be a champion in the NFL for the most part does not. This can help a great deal for bettors looking to make futures wagers, and I suppose to a lesser degree, those betting game lines and totals as well. With that in mind, read on as I share the qualifications and the chart detailing the resumes of the 14 playoff teams.
A quick review before we get into the specific analysis after 17 regular-season games. One of my favorite habits in looking for futures wagers in all sports is to compare the resumes of current teams with those of past champions. It’s a good way to discover which teams have the pedigree to accomplish something special. When I look for comparisons of these teams, I look at all kinds of characteristics from Strength Ratings to momentum to raw statistics. My favorite place to use this methodology has been for the NCAA tournament each March, and if you’ve been a reader of VSiN for any of the last five tournaments, you’ll recognize the format.
For this week’s NFL version, I’m going to take a look at the teams vying for the Super Bowl title in February. Naturally, the current futures odds at the sportsbooks reveal the feelings of the experts as to which teams they feel have the best shot to win, but these aren’t always resume-built, more often they are formed simply from won-lost records, recent games, path to the title, or even from simply where the most money is coming in. My method for finding shared characteristics from past success stories provides bettors more concrete evidence from which to base their wagers. So, let’s take a look as some of the key statistical characteristics each team boasts now in comparison to those of the Super Bowl teams of the last 21 years.
You will see that the stats are “body of work” type of figures, in other words, they encompass the entire regular season for teams. This is a list of the 27 statistical/strength characteristics I’m using to qualify this year’s teams for their worthiness of winning a Super Bowl title next month.