bubba9497 Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 Many roads lead to the Super Bowl By Ryan Early NFL Insider Tuesday, August 26 http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/story?id=1603340 In our quest to identify what makes a champion, we can start by looking at the recent Super Bowl winners to see what they have in common. We also can examine popular NFL myths to see if they hold water. Does having a top defense -- or one of the best running games, or home-field advantage through the playoffs -- give a team an advantage in winning the Super Bowl? Or has the complete randomness of parity taken over the league? Defense wins championships This is a common belief among NFL experts, and there's certainly a large amount of truth behind it. But it's certainly not the only factor. Of the last 10 top-ranked defenses (in terms of points allowed), only three won Super Bowls. So leading the league in scoring defense is no guarantor of a championship. But the lowest-ranked defense to win a title in that same period was the '98 Broncos, who were ranked ninth. And they were the lowest by a fair margin. The last 10 champions have averaged a No. 4 ranking in scoring defense. The '02 Bucs and '00 Ravens proved that a defense can carry a team to a title. But every other champion has needed an offense ranked at least sixth to win it all. You have to run the football Another popular belief in the NFL, hearkening back to the days of three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust, is that a championship teams needs a strong running game. Ironically, the goal of a ball-possession strategy is to play it safe and avoid losing the game rather than to be aggressive and actually try to win it. Fortunately, that has changed in recent years with the advent of offenses such as the West Coast scheme, which believes a high-percentage pass is better than a run, as it puts the ball carrier in the open field and away from the mass of bodies at the line of scrimmage. However, recent history falls on the side of teams that can run the ball. Seven of the last 10 Super Bowl champions have ranked at least sixth in the league in rushing offense. Even more revealing is that for eight consecutive Super Bowls, the winner was the better running team. In the last two title games, however, the team with the worse ranking in rush offense took the trophy. Home-field advantage At the beginning of each season, teams outline the path to the championship. The first step is to win the division, as it is the surest way to make the playoffs. The second is to win home-field advantage through the playoffs. While it isn't a sure thing, it does give teams a solid advantage. Nine of the last 18 teams to make the Super Bowl had home-field advantage. However, that also means that the other nine teams reached the Super Bowl without benefit of the home field. If securing home-field advantage throughout the playoffs offers only a 50-50 chance of reaching the Super Bowl, the odds of winning once you've reached the game go up only slightly, too. Six of the last 10 Super Bowl winners arrived at the game after enjoying home-field advantage. So home-field advantage might be a bit overrated, especially in recent years - the last three Super Bowl winners had to win at least one road playoff game to get to the title game. A 500-point offense If a defense considered to be one of the best of all time can carry a team to a championship, can one of the best-ever offenses do likewise? The easy answer is no. Since the league went to a 16-game schedule, there have been only eight teams to score more than 500 points in a season. The '01 Rams, the '00 Rams, the '99 Rams, '98 Vikings, '98 Broncos, '94 49ers, '84 Dolphins, and the '83 Redskins. Six of those eight reached the Super Bowl -- the '00 Rams and '98 Vikings both lost in the playoffs -- but only three won it. You can see a telling trend, though, as five of the eight high-scoring squads are from the last five years. The game is becoming more wide open, and offenses are gaining an advantage. The aberration The 2001 New England Patriots are the one champion that stands as an exception to almost every rule we'd like to present as evidence of what it takes to win a Super Bowl. By all the numbers, they should not have won. The Patriots won only 11 regular season games, while every other champion won at least 12. They did not earn home-field advantage, while six of the other nine in the group did. Every other champion had either its offense or defense ranked in the top five (and 4 teams had both units in the top five), while the Patriots had neither. Eight of the other 9 champs had one aspect of their offense (either running or passing) ranked in the top 5 (the '02 Bucs were the exception, but they had one of the best defenses of all time to fall back on), while the Patriots ranked 13 th in rushing yards and 21 st in passing. Based on the numbers, New England should not have won. But one aspect of the game for which there are no easily categorized numbers is special teams, and that is where the Patriots dominated the league in their Super season. The latest trend: Anyone can win it Until five years ago, the NFL didn't see many sudden improvements in a team's won/lost ledger. Rather, teams improved slowly, building over several years of drafting and perfecting a successful offensive or defensive system. Those few teams that did suddenly become good were called "Cinderella stories" but almost never won the whole thing. Both the '94 Chargers and '96 Patriots went from fourth in their divisions to the Super Bowl, but both were blown out in the big game by an established winner. That changed dramatically with the '99 Rams. They scored 524 points with a quarterback who, in the preseason, was slated to be a backup. They went from fifth in their division the year before to winning the Super Bowl. Since then, only one team to appear in the Super Bowl won its division the previous year (the '02 Raiders). The out-of-nowhere team is suddenly the norm. The late Pete Rozell, former NFL commissioner, often talked about the need for parity in the NFL and set up the draft and schedule formula to give advantages to the weaker teams. Free agency has finally achieved it. So while it is easy to look at Tampa Bay and see that, on paper, the Bucs look even stronger this year than last, it is an easy bet that a team you aren't looking at will be holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year. 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Mad Mike Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 Defense wins championships This is a common belief among NFL experts, and there's certainly a large amount of truth behind it. But it's certainly not the only factor. Of the last 10 top-ranked defenses (in terms of points allowed), only three won Super Bowls. So leading the league in scoring defense is no guarantor of a championship. But the lowest-ranked defense to win a title in that same period was the '98 Broncos, who were ranked ninth. And they were the lowest by a fair margin. The last 10 champions have averaged a No. 4 ranking in scoring defense. The '02 Bucs and '00 Ravens proved that a defense can carry a team to a title. But every other champion has needed an offense ranked at least sixth to win it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yomar Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 re: the Anyone Can Win It trend, I think that was more a product of the scheduling than anything else and now that all division teams play practically the same schedule I think you will see a lot less of that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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