Shared Traits of Super Bowl Teams:

One of my favorite things to do when looking at championship futures wagers is to compare the resumes of past championship-type teams with the current contenders. While the actual teams change, what makes a team a champion stays pretty consistent. Hopefully you’ve seen my analysis of this type before, most notably for NCAA basketball, which has been most successful. Well, the NFL playoffs are here, so it’s time to update my analysis on the shared traits of past Super Bowl teams and compare them to our current crop of NFL title hopefuls.

 

***Top NFL Resources***

*Join thousands of other sports bettors and unlock access to picks, public betting splits data, & the VSiN live video broadcast by upgrading to VSiN Pro. Grab your first month for less than $10.*

I’ve tracked the traits of the last 46 Super Bowl participants at the end of the regular season. This can help bettors looking for value in making futures wagers, and, to a lesser degree, those betting game lines and totals as well. With that in mind, read on as I share the list of qualifications and the chart detailing the resumes this season’s 14 playoff teams.

When comparing past championship teams, I look at all kinds of characteristics, from strength ratings to momentum to raw statistics. Naturally, the current futures odds at the sportsbooks reveal the feelings of the experts as to which teams they believe 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. I believe my method of finding shared characteristics from past success stories provides bettors more concrete evidence from which to base their wagers. 

So let’s take a look at some of the key statistical characteristics each team boasts now compared with those of the Super Bowl teams of the last 23 years. Just a word of caution, however, as I looked back at my chart from a year ago, it didn’t do nearly as well as it had in the prior years. In fact, the two Super Bowl participants, the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, ranked third and sixth on my chart, respectively. In addition, one team had a “perfect score” of 27 marks, and that team, the Dallas Cowboys, was upset on wild-card weekend. I have found that this analysis usually pegs at least one of the conference’s top teams and rarely if ever goes below position No. 4. In 2023, the Super Bowl participants ranked No. 2 and 4 on this chart. Hopefully normalcy returns this year.

You will see that the stats that I use are mostly “body of work” figures; in other words, they encompass the entire regular season for teams. That said, my Bettors Ratings and Momentum Ratings do reflect a more recent status of teams. This is a list of the 27 statistical/strength characteristics I used to qualify this year’s teams for their worthiness of winning the Super Bowl next month. 

Steve Makinen’s Power Rating

Steve Makinen’s Effective Strength Indicator

Steve Makinen’s Bettors’ Rating

Steve Makinen’s Momentum Ratings

Won-Lost Record

ATS Won-Lost Record

Offensive PPG

Offensive Rushing Yards per Game

Offensive Rushing Yards per Attempt

Offensive Passing Yards per Game

Offensive Passing Yards per Attempt

Offensive Total Yards per Game

Total Offensive Yards per Play

Offensive Third-Down Conversion Percentage

Defensive PPG

Defensive Rushing Yards per Game

Defensive Rushing Yards per Attempt

Defensive Passing Yards per Game

Defensive Passing Yards per Attempt

Defensive Total Yards per Game

Total Defensive Yards per Play

Defensive Third-Down Conversion Percentage

Sacks

Scoring Differential

Yards per Play Differential

Turnover Differential

Average Time of Possession 

In general, whenever I do this type of exercise, I’m typically looking for teams that share the same traits as 80% or so of the sample group I’m studying. So, to find separations in the teams’ stats/ranks of the last 46 Super Bowl participants, I’m looking for about 37 teams to fit the bill. You will find the qualifying teams for each trait in the chart below. Of the Super Bowl teams since 2001, AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE REGULAR SEASON, approximately 80% of them: 

– Had a Steve Makinen Power Rating of 28 or higher

– Had a Steve Makinen Effective Strength Indicator of +4.0 or higher

– Had a Steve Makinen Bettors’ Rating of -6.0 or better

– Had a Steve Makinen Momentum Rating of +6.0 or better

– Won 11 games or more (>=68.%)

– Won 9 games or more ATS (>=56%)

– Scored 24 PPG or more on offense

– Rushed for >=100 YPG

– Averaged 4.0 yards or more per rushing attempt

– Passed for >=210 YPG

– Averaged 7.0 yards or more per passing attempt

– Gained >=350 total yards per game offensively

– Averaged >=5.5 yards per play or more on offense

– Converted 37% of third-down opportunities on offense

– Allowed 22 PPG or fewer on defense

– Allowed <=120 rushing yards per game

– Allowed 4.5 yards or fewer per rushing attempt

– Allowed <=238 or fewer passing yards per game

– Allowed 6.6 yards or fewer per passing attempt

– Allowed <=350 total yards per game defensively

– Allowed 5.6 yards per play or fewer on defense

– Yielded opponents to 39% or less on third-down conversions

– Recorded 2.5 sacks per game or more

– Outscored opponents by 6.8 PPG or more

– Outgained opponents by 0.3 yards per play or more

– Had turnover differential of +6 or more (+0.38)

– Averaged more than 30 minutes time of possession

Qualifying each of the 14 NFL teams that have reached the playoffs this season, we come up with this chart, with marks indicating they meet the criteria for that statistic:

Theoretically, the more marks, the more qualified that team’s resume figures to be to make a run at the Super Bowl. The way I figure it, the teams with the most shared characteristics are the strongest, hottest and most balanced teams in the league. That would put this weekend’s GREEN BAY/PHILADELPHIA winner vs. BALTIMORE as the Super Bowl 58 matchup at this time. The Packers and Eagles share a score of 25 for NFC honors, while Baltimore leads the AFC with that same score. The next group scored 22. Interestingly, though, the two-time defending champion and top-seeded Chiefs are far down the list with just 16 marks. They were rather famously a not very strong team statistically this season. We’ll see if this is the year that someone finally steps up in the AFC and conquers them. Also of note, the Rams’ score of 6 is one of the worst I have encountered. In fact, it was five worse than the lowest team last year. Still, they host a playoff game on Monday night.

If you’re looking at the chart and thinking about the opening weekend matchups, the biggest mismatch figures to be the Vikings (22) vs. Rams (6). The Ravens (25) vs. Steelers (14) is also significant. The Chargers (19) vs. Texans (14) is the only other one in which the road team has the higher score. The Packers-Eagles matchup is theoretically even on this paper, but the point spread (Philadelphia -4.5) doesn’t reflect that.

It should be a great month of playoff football. Hopefully this analysis helps you win a futures wager or two.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR