SUPER BOWL...............MY LINE..............................
Using the 1st power ratings posted.......................
Seattle 15.79 VS Denver 10.53
Seattle -5.26
This power rating is 19-5 ATS over 9 seasons and 2-1 ATS this season with a 6 pt diff with the closing line.
Not sure the record in SB's but will post some past SB's with the ratings and lines in next couple of days.
Value mismatch .................Seattle +4.16 VS Denver -2.41
Seattle by 6.57, Seattle is much better than the final scores in their games would suggest while Denver is not as good as the final scores in their games.
The 6.57 is the largest value mismatch of any game this playoffs using this power ratings.
Eagles by 5.86 over Saints was the largest until now. Seattle by 4.64 over 9ers and by 4.42 over Saints were the top 3.
PLAYOFF ONLY LINE................................
Seattle 5.97 VS Denver 2.94
Seattle - 3.03
Value mismatch................Seattle -1.04 VS Denver -5.56
Seattle by 4.42
Playoff only line since 1997 is 12-3-1 ATS, including my call last year on the Ravens -8.8 over 9ers.
Playoff only line is 9-3 ATS with a 6 point difference to closing line.
Seattle has played better in both the regular season and the playoffs then Denver has in this power rating which is more pass heavy.
Denver is overvalued in both the regular season and playoffs, meaning they are not as good as their margin of victory would suggest.
Seattle has played easily the 2 better opponents in the playoffs..............Saints and 9ers ave power rating of 7.26...............compared to Denver's opponents, Chargers and Pats ave of 2.75.
Seattle played 13.23 above their opponents power rating , Denver just 5.69 above their opponents.
That'd be a 7.54 difference.
No doubt about who the better team is...........................it's Seattle.
Regular season strength of schedule................Seattle opponents averaged a -.69 power rating.
Denver's opp -1.53.
Seattle again played the slightly better opponents, adjusting for this Seattle -6.1 over Denver.
I don't really use strength of schedule but like to look at it, it verifies everything about Seattle being the better team.
SEATTLE +3 (-130) over DENVER --- 13 units to win 10 units.
Well, we did it again boys, my power ratings finished up another successful playoffs.
This power ratings went 3-1 ATS, winning with Denver over Pats, Seattle over 9ers and Seattle over Denver. And our only loss of the playoffs Eagles failing against the Saints.
That brings the record to a pretty impressive 22-6 ATS over 10 seasons.
The best team in the power ratings in both the regular season and playoffs , Seattle won the SB.
The largest value mismatch of any game, Seattle over Denver was a landslide victory.
The playoff only line in the SB did it again as well, now 13-3-1 ATS since the 1997 season.
This power rating pretty much will finish with a winning SU record every year, after going 0-4 in the wild card round it roared back, winning SU 6 of the next 7 games to finish 6-5 SU.
It doesn't always finish with the greatest winning records but sometimes it will, however, when it takes a team the odds favor that team to win the game.
Looking at the 2cd set of Power Ratings posted................................
Seattle 14.34
Denver 3.63
Seattle - 10.71
This power rating rewards overall-team balance, better defense and teams that don't turn the ball over and Seattle wins in a landslide.
VALUE RATING.............................
Seattle +2.71
Denver -9.3
Seattle +12.01
Denver ranks as the most over-value team right with the 2007 Pats this method has seen by far and This is the largest value mismatch I've ever seen.
This method tells us that Denver is no-where near as good as the final scores of their games while Seattle's play-on-the-field is far better then the final scores of the games would suggest.
And this is a big reason we're seeing sooooo many Denver backers.
The previous largest value mismatches in this years playoffs...............SD +9.88 over Denver........ Eagles +9.84 over Saints........... Seattle +7.97 over Saints
Balance, balance, balance, this power rating told the tale of which team had the better overall team balance.
Pass heavy teams need not apply.
Denver was the most overvalued team ever seen by this method with the 2007 Pats, 1-5 ATS in the postseason for these 2 extreme pass heavy overvalued teams, tells us a lot about what covers the spread come playoff time.
This power rating was a little disappointing this year, gets 5 to 7 plays most every year, but only had 3 this year, going 1-1-1 ATS with posted plays.
Still has never finished with a losing record, and could of been 2-1 ATS by getting the best available line which I layed-out on buying the .5 on Seattle -7 over Saints but did not move on it quick enough.
This method Could of had Chargers over Denver but the public money moved the line to far for a 6 pt diff.
And the largest value mismatch either method has ever seen turned into a complete mismatch of BALANCE VS PASS HEAVY and it was no match for the better balanced team.
And we keep intact the fact that no team overvalued by -5 or more has gone on to win the SB, which included the Saints -5.26 and Denver -9.3 this season.
This is so important to remember, because next year during the season I'll be posting the overvalued teams and those are teams you won't want to be backing to win the SB.
I posted about Denver many times during the season as the most overvalued team ever seen.
Looking at playoff only power rating ...................................
Seattle 7.35
Denver 3.12
Seattle -4.23, based on each teams play throughout the playoffs only.
Seattle's playoff opponents.........................
Saints 1.74
9ers 9.9
AVERAGE ..............5.82
Denver's playoff opponents..................
SD 3.63
Pats 2.7
AVERAGE .......................3.17
Seattle played better against better teams.
VALUE RATINGS PLAYOFFS ONLY ..........................
Seattle +.34
Denver -1.8
Seattle by 2.21
Anyway you want to slice it folks, IT'S AALLLLLLL SEAHAWKS ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY !!!
Interesting that so many people thought Denver played better than Seattle throughout the postseason and in particular the Championship games, but looking beyond the final score would prove a completely different story.
And this is why you can't just watch games on TV and think you'll know who played better.
Both power ratings had Seattle playing better against better opponents.
Not sure how this method does in playoffs only, I broke-down many SB some years back but can't find the info, but really didn't need it this season as everything pointed to Seattle anyway.
Hopefully I will get around to updating the records for next season.
Thanks for the kind words guys.
The question now becomes...............Can the Seahawks Repeat ?
Let's start with this..................Weak statistical regular season teams that win the SB have never repeated and rarely make the playoffs, like for example the Ravens or Giants, the past 2 SB Winners both failing to make the playoffs the following season.
Strong statistical teams almost always make the playoffs the next year.
Seattle was a very strong statistical team.
7 of the 8 repeat winners in the SB Era were strong statistical teams in the regular season.
The lone repeat team, 2003/2004 Pats were more mediocre team but not weak.
Seattle was one of the teams in history that played well above league averages in both offensive and defensive efficiency, of those SB winners doing this over 50% made it back to the SB the following season.
WOW, that's and incredibly high % to get back.
There have been a few teams which played as such but did not win the SB, of these 40% made the SB the following season.
I think we might be on to something here.
Factor in we been on a long period between repeat winners.
We went through a similar period way back when.
The Steel Curtain repeated in 1978/1979 and then the next repeat winners were 1988/1989 Montana 9ers.
The 2003/2004 Pats repeated and if the Seahawks repeat it would be 2013/2014, exactly the same time-frame between the 2 longest periods of repeat winners.
Seattle has all the ingredients to repeat, and they have a special player at the most important position..............QB.
Barring injury to any key players, which is not predictable (injuries), YEP, I'll call for a repeat SB Win for the Seahawks.
Just how good was Seattle ?
Well, I broke-down every SB team since 1978 the year the league expanded to the 16 game schedule using the 1st power rating posted which uses end-of-the-season stats, making it somewhat quick and easy to do.
These are stats which have a high correlation to winning games and high predictive value going forward.
Here's the top 10 teams to make the SB....................................
1. 1991 Skins 18.1
The only team over 18.
2. 89 49ers 17.3
The only other team over 17.
3. 85 Bears 16.59
4. 94 49ers 16.58
The only other teams over 16. These 4 teams completely dominated the postseason and SB.
5. Seattle 15.79
Wow, Seattle ranked as the 5th best team to make the SB and dominated the SB as well, and could of easily beaten the Saints by 16 pts, with the Saints scoring on 4th down with 23 seconds left or whatever it was.
6. 83 Skins 15.72, one of 2 top teams to lose in SB.
7. 2007 Pats 15.64, the other losing team in SB
8. 84 49ers 15.42
9. 2002 Tampa 15.18
10. 96 Packers 14.81
The only other team over 14 was 2009 Saints 14.04
Of the 11 teams over 14........... 9 won the SB and 2 lost the SB 81.8%.
The 2 losing teams were easily the worst defensive teams on the list, 2009 Saints were weak in some areas but very strong in Defensive Passer Rating at 3rd best in the league.
Overall, my line's favorite won the SB 23-12 65.7%, but went just 3-4 when favored by 2 or less points, in other words a close game.
When favored by 5 or more the favorite went 15-5 SU 75%.
Seattle was favored by 5.26 over Denver.
My line was 9-3 ATS with a 6 pt diff to closing line 75%.
The best Pats team to win the SB was 2003 at 11.24, pales in comparison with the top teams.
Greatest show on turf Rams were 1999 13.07 and 2001 Rams who lost to Pats were 12.15...............Pats 4.49, so Rams favored by 7.66 but were 14 pt favs in the closing line.
Rams not nearly as good as the top teams.
The Best Big Ben led Steeler team was 2010........... 12.62, but the 2005 team, the 1st 6th seed to win the SB was ranked no.1 in the league that year at 12.49.
Wow, wish I had known this back then, one could have made some serious coin off the Steelers team backing them every game, they were huge dogs against Manning's Colts in the divisional round
My line on that game would have been Pitt -.48 and they were getting something like 10 pts. And a huge ML to boot.
The worst team to win the SB was easily 2007 Giants (-2.12), the only other team to be out-played in the regular season and make the SB was the 1979 Rams (-1.45).
This only includes teams who made the SB, there could be teams ranking high who lost in the playoffs and did not make the SB.
I did look at some championship games to see how my lines did and pretty much the same results.
the 1998 15-1 Vikes ranked 12.04. Atlanta 9.97 which made Vikes at home -5.07 , closing line was 10.
That Vikings team not as good as the top teams.
The one very interesting team was 84 Bears, Jim McMahon the starting QB was injuried , he was 7-2 as a starter , the back-ups which were a few different QB's went 3-4.
The Bears with McMahon were ranked 17.15, better than the 49ers who won the SB in 84 and one of the few teams ranked over 17.
The backup QB who started the playoffs Steve Fuller started just 4 games, went 2-2 and threw just 78 passes so a very small sample size to use his stats for a team ranking.
That high ranking with McMahon was a possible preview of what was to come in 1985 when the Bears put in one of the most dominating season and postseasons in history.
I been toying around with giving bonus points for the better defenses in the first power rating posted and bonus points for fewer TO on offense, similar to what the 2cd power ratings does.
The results are quite impressive...........................................
The better defensive team in SB's receiving 3 bonus pts or more went 9-1 SU and 8-1-1 ATS.
Here's the teams receiving the most bonus pts over their opponents defense............................................
1. 2002 Bucs defense 8.61 over Raiders defense.
My line Bucs -6.7, but after adding in the bonus pts it becomes Bucs -15.31, wow good indication of what was to happen in this game.
2. 2013 Seahawks 7.24 over Denver
3. 1982 Killer Bee's Dolphins defense 5.8 over Skins
The only losing team
4. 81 9ers 5.46 over Bengals defense
4. 96 Packers 5.46 over Pats
6. 91 Skins 5.38 over Bills
7. 90 Giants 5.1 over Bills
8. 85 Bears 4.12 over Pats
9. 94 9ers 3.94 Over SD
10. Ravens 3.1 over Giants who had a good defense in regular season
The next best team was 86 Giants 2.8 over Denver, another easy winner.
The only losing team 82 Dolphins were very weak on offense with a poor QB in David Woodley, my line was Skins -2.36, adding in bonus pts was Dolphins -3.44.
Closing line was Dolphins -3 pretty much right on my line with the bonus pts.
With a 6 pt difference between my line and closing line with defensive bonus pts added in my line went 6-0 ATS in with those 10 better defensive teams.
Seahawks would have been -12.5 over Denver with bonus pts added.
I did not look at surprise teams who would turn-up their games in the playoffs and make the SB because by the very nature, these teams did not playwell in the regular season and regular season stats would not be good indicators for them.
A classic example would be 2006 Colts VS Bears..........................................
Regular season defense Bears receive 7.28 pts over the Colts defense. 2cd mos bonus pts receivedt.
However, after getting Bob Sanders back from injury the Colts defense dominated in the postseason, out-playing the Bears defense in every stat, the Bears did have fewer TO's on offense though, thanks to all P. Mannings INT's.
Poor ole P. Manning, more evidence of failure in the postseason as he remains the lowest rated SB QB throughout the postseason on his way to winning the SB and was carried by a dominating defense, but hey that's a story for another day.
Playoffs only defense Colts receive 4.08 bonus pts, but keep in mind Colts defense received 5.88 pts but Colts offense lost 1.8 pts for TO's.
Colts had really turn-up their defense in the playoffs much more so than the Bears.
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