Do Top Offenses make it to more Super Bowls than Top Defenses? (1 Viewer)

[benson_will_lead_the_way]

In light of the RGIII trade and all the talk that obtaining a franchise QB is the end all to get to a super bowl. I decided to check it out.

I simply looked at the past Super Bowl participants and went all the way back to 2000. I charted if they were a top 5 offense/defense and/or a top 10 offense/defense in terms of Points.

Results:

Super Bowl Champions

Top 5 Offenses=2

Top 5 Defenses=8

Top 10 Offenses=7

Top 10 Defenses=9

Super Bowl Losers

Top 5 Offenses=6

Top 5 Defenses=8

Top 10 Offenses=8

Top 10 Defenses=10

 

[Drop]

I think there is some analysis of this question in the book entitled Scorecasting.

 

[jurb26]

This doesn't really tell us the whole story IMO. The important question that comes to mind for me is what where the rankings of both the offense and defense of each team. For example you say 2 teams with top 5 offenses won the SB. What were the rankings of those 2 teams defenses? You say 8 teams with top 5 defenses won the SB. What were the rankings of those 8 teams offenses.

If the 8 teams with great defenses also had average/above average offenses (ranked in the 17 - 6 range of the league) and the 2 teams with the great offenses had average/bellow average defenses (17 - 32 range of the league) then it's pretty clear that the 1st group were better OVERALL teams. That changes things for simply saying they won because of there defense.

 

[benson_will_lead_the_way]

This doesn't really tell us the whole story IMO. The important question that comes to mind for me is what where the rankings of both the offense and defense of each team. For example you say 2 teams with top 5 offenses won the SB. What were the rankings of those 2 teams defenses? You say 8 teams with top 5 defenses won the SB. What were the rankings of those 8 teams offenses. If the 8 teams with great defenses also had average/above average offenses (ranked in the 17 - 6 range of the league) and the 2 teams with the great offenses had average/bellow average defenses (17 - 32 range of the league) then it's pretty clear that the 1st group were better OVERALL teams. That changes things for simply saying they won because of there defense.

Thank you for the appreciation of my research(time/effort) to put it all together.If you would like to do that study I would be interested.