The table below shows each Super Bowl champion since 1970 and its rank in various categories. At the top, I’ve included an average of the ranks of the teams over the last 10 years and since 1970, and each team is hyperlinked to its Pro-Football-Reference team page. The categories in this first table are record, points for, points allowed, Pythagenpat record, offensive yards, defensive yards, yards differential, offensive pass yards, offensive rushing yards, defensive passing yards (i.e., passing yards allowed), and defensive rushing yards. [continue reading…]

No team has won back-to-back Super Bowls since the 2003–2004 Patriots, which means the last eight champions have failed in their bid to repeat. Three of them — the ’06 and ’09 Steelers and the 2012 Giants — failed to even make the playoffs. Some writers have used this as a reason to suggest that Baltimore may be subject to a Super Bowl curse.

Of course, the idea of a curse — or a sample of data — doesn’t mean much in the abstract. Let’s look at some numbers on the 42 Super Bowl winners between 1970 and 2011. On average, those teams had a 0.676 winning percentage in Year N+1 (i.e., the year after they won the Super Bowl). Thirty of those teams made it back to the playoffs, one out of every six of those teams won the Super Bowl, and three more lost in the Super Bowl (the ’78 Cowboys, ’83 Redskins, and ’97 Packers). Some would use this as evidence of a curse — i.e., only 9 of 42 teams made it back to the Super Bowl — but again, we need some context.

I decided to compare Super Bowl winners since 1970 to three other teams: Super Bowl losers, the Simple Rating System champion from that season (which may or may not be a team that made it to the Super Bowl), and an average of all playoff teams from that year. On average, Super Bowl winners have the best winning percentage of that group in the following year. And Super Bowl winners are the most likely to win the Super Bowl. Super Bowl winners are less likely to lose in the Super Bowl the next season than the Super Bowl loser (thanks, Buffalo) or the SRS champ, but the defending champion is still the team most likely to make it back to the Super Bowl. The two Super Bowl teams and the SRS champ also make the playoffs the following season just north of 70%, well ahead of the average playoff team.

The chart below shows all of these results, which makes it pretty clear that being the defending Super Bowl champion is a good thing for future prospects (and it’s not too shabby on a resume, either):
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With Anquan Boldin being traded to San Francisco, he’ll have the rare opportunity to win the Super Bowl in consecutive years with different teams. Here’s another bit of trivia: if Boldin makes it back to the Super Bowl, he’ll become just the 11th player to ever make Super Bowls with three different teams. (man, the Anquan Boldin tag at Football Perspective has gotten way more use than I ever expected).

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Happy New Year to the NFL, which opened for business at 4PM yesterday. It’s been a busy couple of days, as the Seahawks (Percy Harvin) and 49ers (Anquan Boldin) acquired veteran receivers a day before the floodgates opened. The Dolphins made the biggest waves yesterday by signing WR Mike Wallace and ILB Dannell Ellerbe from AFC North heavyweights, and then later released ILB Karlos Dansby and signed OLB Philip Wheeler from the Raiders. The Colts chose to go quantity over quality by signing four different players (G Donald Thomas from New England, OLB/Colin Kaepernick turnstile Erik Walden from Green Bay, T Gosder Cherilus from Detroit, and DE Lawrence Sidbury from Atlanta). The Ravens lost Paul Kruger to Cleveland but did sign former Giants DE Chris Canty.

Tennessee made some noise signing G Andy Levitre from Buffalo and TE Delanie Walker from San Francisco, while the Chiefs picked up 3-4 DE Mike DeVito and TE Anthony Fasano from the AFC East. Chicago helped out Jay Cutler by signing TE Martellus Bennett (Giants) and T Jermon Bushrod (New Orleans), while Sam Bradford will be happy to know that the Rams added TE Jared Cook from Tennessee. The Broncos added guard Louis Vasquez from division-rival San Diego to keep Peyton Manning upright, and are rumored to be after Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall. The Eagles won’t win the headlines, but made a couple of interesting signings in NT Isaac Sopoaga (San Francisco) and TE/HB/WR/FB/Chip Kelly chess piece James Casey from Houston. About an hour later, the Eagles added CB Bradley Fletcher (Rams), S Patrick Chung (Patriots) and LB Jason Phillips (Panthers). And there were some releases, with Ryan Fitzpatrick (Buffalo), Nnamdi Asomugha (Philadelphia), Sione Pouha (Jets), and Darrius Heyward-Bey and Michael Huff (Oakland) among the more notable cuts. You can check out Pro-Football-Reference.com’s free agent tracker to stay up to date on the latest signings.

The first few days of the league year provide fans across the country with an opportunity to ring in the new year with a dash of optimism. But how often does adding a veteran or two via trade or free agency land a team in the Super Bowl? The table below lists every notable veteran acquisition ^[1]Here, notable means having an AV of 4 or greater in Year N. by the 40 teams to make the Super Bowl since 1993, the start of the Free Agency era in the NFL. The “W/L” column shows whether the team won or lost in the Super Bowl, while the AV column shows how much Approximate Value the player provided in his first season with the new team. The N-1 Tm and N-1 AV columns show where the player came from and how valuable he was in the prior year; the table is sorted by the average of the player’s AV in Years N and N-1.
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“He’s the best coach in football right now.”

That was what John Harbaugh said about his little brother after the game. It’s hard to argue: I’ve said a few times that I think Jim Harbaugh is the best coach in the league, too. (Although I gave my mythical COTY vote to Pete Carroll.)

It was a classy thing to say by the winning coach, especially on a day where he outcoached his little brother. Actually, the more accurate way of putting it would be to say that “John Harbaugh made fewer bad decisions than Jim Harbaugh.” Let’s go through the game in chronological order

The First Snap

I’ve watched enough Jets games to know that there’s a certain level of horribleness that comes with having a pre-snap penalty at the start of a quarter or half. Maybe you don’t want to blame Jim Harbaugh for the 49ers lining up in an illegal formation on the first snap of the game, but let’s just say this: that’s not how the New York media would react if Rex Ryan’s team did that. Jim Harbaugh would be the first to tell you that it was inexcusable to have such a penalty on the first snap of the game, and the team didn’t look any more prepared on snap two, when Colin Kaepernick and Frank Gore were on the wrong page of a fake-handoff that instead went to Lennay Kekua.

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Before we get to my preview, I feel the need to point you to some excellent Super Bowl previews I saw this week:

• Bill Barnwell at Grantland with his excellent Super Bowl preview
• Chris Brown on the Ravens defense against the 49ers offense and the Ravens offense against the 49ers defense, both also at Grantland
• Aaron Schatz brings his Super Bowl Preview to Football Outsiders
• Sam Monson at Pro Football Focus also previewed the 49ers offense (and how to stop it) and the Ravens plan of attack
• Scott Kacsmar picked the Ravens in an upset and updated his impressive library of career playoff drive stats for quarterbacks
• Brian Burke is a big Ravens fan, but his model gives them only a 38% chance of success
• Last but not least, my old comrade Jason Lisk has been chronicling all things Super Bowl at the Big Lead

The Ravens can stop the zone read, but at what cost?

In Colin Kaepernick’s nine starts, the 49ers have averaged 159 rushing yards per game on 4.9 yards per rush and have rushed for 14 touchdowns; at the same time, they’ve averaged 8.1 ANY/A through the air. That makes them close to unstoppable, much like the Seahawks when Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch were dominating defenses over that same stretch.

For San Francisco, their dominance starts up front, and their offensive line needs only sustained success to rival what the lines of the ’90s Cowboys or ’00 Chiefs delivered. According to Pro Football Focus, left tackle Joe Staley is the best tackle in the league, while right tackle Anthony Davis is the second best run-blocking tackle in the league (behind only Staley). PFF ranks both Mike Iupati and Alex Boone as top-five guards in the league, and places both of them in the top three when it comes to run blocking. Center Jonathan Goodwin also ranks as an above-average center, and the 34-year-old veteran is more than capable of anchoring a line filled with Pro Bowl caliber players. As if that wasn’t enough, Vernon Davis is one of the top two-way tight ends in the league, while TE/H-Back/FB Delanie Walker and FB Bruce Miller provide excellent support in the run game.

Without any schematic advantage, the 49ers have enough talented beef up front to have a dominate running game. But add in what Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman have been able to do with the Pistol formation and the zone read, and you have a running game that borders on unstoppable.

We saw that against the Packers, as Colin Kaepernick broke the single-game rushing record by a quarterback. The beauty of the zone read is that it gives the offense an extra blocker, an advantage the 49ers didn’t need. After the Packers were shredded by Kaepernick, the Falcons focused on containing the quarterback. Take a look at the photograph below, courtesy of Ben Muth of Football Outsiders.
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A week before the Super Bowl, I asked if you could name the seven wide receivers to start for two different teams that reached the Super Bowl. In the comments to that post, JWL alerted me to a pretty cool piece of Super bowl trivia.

Eight different men have been the leading rusher in multiple Super Bowls. Seven of these men (Ahmad Bradshaw, New York Giants; Antowain Smith, New England Patriots; Terrell Davis, Denver Broncos; Emmitt Smith, Dallas Cowboys; Tony Dorsett, Dallas Cowboys; Franco Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers; and Larry Csonka, Miami Dolphins) pulled off this feat while playing for the same team.

However, one running has been the leading rusher in two Super Bowls for two different teams. He’s the subject of today’s trivia question. Can you name him?

In 2009, Doug produced a Super Bowl Squares post, itself a revival of his old Sabernomics post eight years ago. In those posts, Doug derived the probability of winning a squares pool for each given square (or set of numbers). Unsurprisingly, he found that those lucky souls holding the ‘7/0’ squares were in good shape, while those left holding the ‘2/2’ ticket were screwed. You can download the Sports-Reference Super Bowl Squares app here, which is free, and should help you taunt your guests at your Super Bowl party.

Let’s say that this year, your Super Bowl squares pool allows you to either pick or trade squares: if that’s the case, this post is for you. I looked at every regular season and postseason game from the last ten years. The table below shows the likelihood of each score after each quarter, along with three final columns that show the expected value of a $100 prize pool under three different payout systems. The “10/” column shows the payout in a pool where 10% of the prize money is given out after each of the first three quarters and 70% after the end of the game; the next column is for pools that give out 12.5% of the pool after the first and third quarters, 25% at halftime, and 50% for the score at the end of the game. The final column is for pools that give out 25% of the pot after each quarter — since I think that is the most common pool structure, I’ve sorted the table by that column, but you can sort by any column you like.
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Ever wondered which Super Bowl teams were the oldest or youngest? I went and calculated the AV-adjusted age of every team to appear in the Super Bowl. (AV stands for Pro-Football-Reference’s Approximate Value system, which assigns an approximate value to each player in each season; you can read more about it here.) You can probably guess who the oldest team was, but the youngest might be a bit of a surprise. Baltimore and San Francisco both come in roughly in the middle of the pack, with the Ravens slightly older than the 49ers. This also jives with Football Outsiders’ snap-adjusted ages article.

Bill Barnwell wrote a good article yesterday summarizing the success of Ozzie Newsome, the Baltimore Ravens general manager. That made me curious to see what percentage (based on AV, not total players, naturally) of the players on each Super Bowl team had never before played for another team. Great general managers do more than build their teams through the draft (and Barnwell specifically praised Newsome for that, including the trade for Anquan Boldin), but the question of what percentage of the team is “homegrown” is still an interesting one.

For the Ravens, 73% of their players (as measured by AV) have never played for another team, with Boldin, Cary Williams, Jacoby Jones, Bryant McKinnie, Matt Birk, Bernard Pollard, Corey Graham, and Vontae Leach being some notable exceptions. On the other side, 75% of the 49ers have only worn the red and gold, although Justin Smith, Jonathan Goodwin, Randy Moss, Donte Whitner, Carlos Rogers, Mario Manningham (at least, in the regular season) were key contributors who are not home-grown 49ers.

When it comes to AV-adjusted age or measuring how ‘home-grown’ each team is, neither team really stands out from the pack. The ’78 and ’79 Steelers featured 22 starters that were all home-grown, although making placekicker Roy Gerela the lone outlier (and since AV does not include kickers, both Pittsburgh teams were at 100%).

In addition to the AV-adjusted ages and “home-grownness” of each Super Bowl participant, the table below includes where each team (since 1970) ranked in points for, points allowed, yards, and yards allowed, and whether or not the team won the game. The table is fully sortable and searchable, and the rows for San Francisco and Baltimore will remain highlighted after sorting.

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On Sunday, I looked at how the football legacies of certain Ravens would be affected by a win in Super Bowl XLVII; today I will do the same for the 49ers. And the best place to start is with the only surefire Hall of Famer on the team.

Randy Moss turns 36 in a couple of weeks, and he’s caught just 56 passes over the last three years. Super Bowl XLVII may not be his final game, but it probably will be Moss’ last chance to give us one final “Randy Moss” moment. Moss will one day be in the Hall of Fame, despite the fact that he rubbed many fans, sportswriters, teammates, coaches, owners, and a few referees the wrong way. But Moss is a six-time Pro Bowler, a four-time first-team AP All-Pro, and ranks 9th in career receptions, 3rd in career receiving yards, and 2nd in career receiving touchdowns. He’s had 64 100-yard games in his career, second only to Jerry Rice. He’s produced despite a relatively unstable quarterback situation for much of his career (admittedly, some of this was due to Moss): over one-third of his career receiving yards came from Daunte Culpepper, and no other single quarterback was responsible for even twenty percent of his yards. When he finally got a HOF-caliber quarterback, Moss broke the single-season record for receiving touchdowns in a season. But even before New England and Tom Brady, Moss had established himself as one of the greatest receivers in NFL history. If the 49ers win on Sunday, he’ll be like a modern Lance Alworth, who won a forgettable ring with the Dallas Cowboys in 1971.

It’s fitting that Patrick Willis and Ray Lewis are in the Super Bowl together. Willis was only 11 years old when Lewis entered the NFL, and Willis has modeled his game and his uniform number after Lewis. And in turn, if any linebacker has resembled Lewis over the last decade, it’s Willis, and there will be a figurative passing of the torch on Sunday. Even if he isn’t the next Ray Lewis, Willis has paved his own path towards Canton: he has been a first-team All-Pro choice by the Associated Press in five of his first six seasons. Lawrence Taylor, Eric Dickerson, Jerry Rice, Gale Sayers, and Reggie White are the only other NFL players since 1960 to be selected as a first-team AP All-Pro five or more times in their first six seasons. Absent a serious injury or a shocking career turn, Willis will one day be a Hall of Famer himself, but it sure can’t hurt to add a Lombardi Trophy to the resume.
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Being a Super Bowl champion is a pretty nice bullet to place on your Hall of Fame resume. For players like Jerry Rice or Peyton Manning (or say, Steve Largent or Dan Marino), the failure to acquire a ring wouldn’t have prevented their induction; on the other hand, would Lynn Swann or Paul Hornung or a host of quarterbacks have made the HOF without a Super Bowl ring (or two, or three, or four?)

Just winning a Super Bowl guarantees nothing — Charles Haley and his five rings are on the outside looking in, as is Fuzzy Thurston, winner of six NFL titles. The borderline cases are the ones most helped or hurt by that Lombardi Trophy (or lack thereof) on the resume, and that class of players seems to be among the largest growing segment each year. So today, I’m going to take a look at how winning the Super Bowl could impact the legacies of certain Ravens.

Ray Lewis is a first ballot Hall of Famer regardless of what happens in Super Bowl XLVII, although his status as the game’s best inside linebacker of all-time might be boosted with a second Lombardi. The Ravens have been on a magical “Ride with Ray” and he’s been the face of a defense that’s turned from average in the regular season to excellent in the playoffs.

Ed Reed is another obvious Hall of Famer, even though unlike Lewis he was not a member of the 2000 Ravens teams that won the Super Bowl. Still, considering Troy Polamalu has appeared in three and won two of these games, Reed’s resume will look slightly less glamorous if he never is able to win a Super Bowl. And while it isn’t particularly relevant here, but I’ll just note that from 2005 to 2007, Bob Sanders made them a “Big Three” at the position, when Sanders won both a Super Bowl and a Defensive Player of the Year award. All three have battled injuries, showing just how dangerous the safety position can be in the NFL.
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Anquan Boldin is back in the Super Bowl. Four years ago, Boldin and the Cardinals lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII. That season, Boldin was one of the game’s best wide receivers, catching 89 passes for 1,038 yards and scoring 11 touchdowns in just 12 games. His production was slightly less impressive in 2012 — 65/921/4 in 15 games — but he was still a valuable member of the Ravens offense.

He signed with Baltimore in the 2010 offseason, and after a few heartbreaking post-seasons, Boldin and the Ravens are back in the Super Bowl. Since he was one of the team’s starting receivers this year, that makes him the 7th wide receiver to start for two different teams that reached a Super Bowl.

How many of the first six can you name (either with or without any hints)? For each receiver, the one hint shows the two Super Bowl franchises. Let us know how you did in the comments: as always, the honor system will be strictly enforced.

Last year, Mario Manningham was one of the stars of Super Bowl XLVI, as his great sidelines catch helped the Giants defeat the Patriots (although it wasn’t even his most meaningful catch in that game). As a member of the 49ers this season, Manningham has been placed on injured reserve, but that doesn’t make him ineligible to earn a second straight Super Bowl ring. Brandon Jacobs, who was waived by the 49ers in December, is in the same boat.

How rare is that? Believe it or not, only four players in NFL history have ever won back-to-back Super Bowls with different teams. Guard Russ Hochstein was drafted by Tampa Bay in 2001 and played in one game in 2002; he was waived in October and signed by the Patriots a week later. He stayed in New England through 2008, so Hochstein picked up a Super Bowl ring for his cup of coffee with the Bucs and then earned two more the next two seasons in New England. Hochstein was also a freshman with Nebraska in 1997, when the Cornhuskers were named national champions by USA Today and ESPN.

Defensive back Derrick Martin was drafted by Baltimore in 2006 and has already spent time with four distinguished franchises. He made the AFC Championship Game with the Ravens in 2008, won the Super Bowl with the Packers in 2010, won another super Bowl with the Giants in 2011, and nearly made it back there this year with New England.

Those are the two obscure names. The other two? Well, let’s see if you can guess.

In October 2009, Neil Paine wrote that Eli Manning had seemingly turned the corner, starting with the five-game stretch from week 17 of the 2007 season that ended in the Super Bowl. And since that post, Manning has been even better, with his 2011 season standing out as the best year of his career. I thought it would be fun to chart Eli’s career game-by-game according to ANY/A. Actually, since that chart would be incredibly volatile, I’m going to do it in five- and ten-game increments.

The chart below shows the average of Manning’s ANY/A in each of his last five games (playoffs included) beginning with the fifth game of his career in 2004. Of note: the black line represents the league average ANY/A (which, if we’re talking about the last 2 games of Year N and the first 3 games of Year N+1, is 40% of the Year N league average and 60% of the Year N+1 league average), and the two big purple dots show the two Super Bowl victories (or, more accurately, the Super Bowl win, the prior three playoff wins, and the week 17 game).

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Now that the Super Bowl matchup is set, I thought I’d start the two-week period with some Super Bow history. The table below lists some information from each of the first 46 Super Bowls. With Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick facing off, that ends five-year streak where at least one of the two quarterbacks in the Super Bowl had previously won (or been in) a Super Bowl:

Year	SB	Winner	PF	Loser	PA	Location	ST	QB	Opp QB	MVP
2011	XLVI	New York Giants	21	New England Patriots	17	Indianapolis	IN	Eli Manning	Tom Brady	Eli Manning
2010	XLV	Green Bay Packers	31	Pittsburgh Steelers	25	Arlington	TX	Aaron Rodgers	Ben Roethlisberger	Aaron Rodgers
2009	XLIV	New Orleans Saints	31	Indianapolis Colts	17	Miami	FL	Drew Brees	Peyton Manning	Drew Brees
2008	XLIII	Pittsburgh Steelers	27	Arizona Cardinals	23	Tampa	FL	Ben Roethlisberger	Kurt Warner	Santonio Holmes
2007	XLII	New York Giants	17	New England Patriots	14	Glendale	AZ	Eli Manning	Tom Brady	Eli Manning
2006	XLI	Indianapolis Colts	29	Chicago Bears	17	Miami	FL	Peyton Manning	Rex Grossman	Peyton Manning
2005	XL	Pittsburgh Steelers	21	Seattle Seahawks	10	Detroit	MI	Ben Roethlisberger	Matt Hasselbeck	Hines Ward
2004	XXIX	New England Patriots	24	Philadelphia Eagles	21	Jacksonville	FL	Tom Brady	Donovan McNabb	Deion Branch
2003	XXXVIII	New England Patriots	32	Carolina Panthers	29	Houston	TX	Tom Brady	Jake Delhomme	Tom Brady
2002	XXXVII	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	48	Oakland Raiders	21	San Diego	CA	Brad Johnson	Rich Gannon	Dexter Jackson
2001	XXXVI	New England Patriots	20	St. Louis Rams	17	New Orleans	LA	Tom Brady	Kurt Warner	Tom Brady
2000	XXXV	Baltimore Ravens	34	New York Giants	7	Tampa	FL	Trent Dilfer	Kerry Collins	Ray Lewis
1999	XXXIV	St. Louis Rams	23	Tennessee Titans	16	Atlanta	GA	Kurt Warner	Steve McNair	Kurt Warner
1998	XXXIII	Denver Broncos	34	Atlanta Falcons	19	Miami	FL	John Elway	Chris Chandler	John Elway
1997	XXXII	Denver Broncos	31	Green Bay Packers	24	San Diego	CA	John Elway	Brett Favre	Terrell Davis
1996	XXXI	Green Bay Packers	35	New England Patriots	21	New Orleans	LA	Brett Favre	Drew Bledsoe	Desmond Howard
1995	XXX	Dallas Cowboys	27	Pittsburgh Steelers	17	Tempe	AZ	Troy Aikman	Neil O'Donnell	Larry Brown
1994	XXIX	San Francisco 49ers	49	San Diego Chargers	26	Miami	FL	Steve Young	Stan Humphries	Steve Young
1993	XXVIII	Dallas Cowboys	30	Buffalo Bills	13	Atlanta	GA	Troy Aikman	Jim Kelly	Emmitt Smith
1992	XXVII	Dallas Cowboys	52	Buffalo Bills	17	Pasadena	CA	Troy Aikman	Jim Kelly	Troy Aikman
1991	XXVI	Washington Redskins	37	Buffalo Bills	24	Minneapolis	MN	Mark Rypien	Jim Kelly	Mark Rypien
1990	XXV	New York Giants	20	Buffalo Bills	19	Tampa	FL	Jeff Hostetler	Jim Kelly	Ottis Anderson
1989	XXIV	San Francisco 49ers	55	Denver Broncos	10	New Orleans	LA	Joe Montana	John Elway	Joe Montana
1988	XXIII	San Francisco 49ers	20	Cincinnati Bengals	16	Miami	FL	Joe Montana	Boomer Esiason	Jerry Rice
1987	XXII	Washington Redskins	42	Denver Broncos	10	San Diego	CA	Doug Williams	John Elway	Doug Williams
1986	XXI	New York Giants	39	Denver Broncos	20	Pasadena	CA	Phil Simms	John Elway	Phil Simms
1985	XX	Chicago Bears	46	New England Patriots	10	New Orleans	LA	Jim McMahon	Tony Eason	Richard Dent
1984	XIX	San Francisco 49ers	38	Miami Dolphins	16	Stanford	CA	Joe Montana	Dan Marino	Joe Montana
1983	XVIII	Los Angeles Raiders	38	Washington Redskins	9	Tampa	FL	Jim Plunkett	Joe Theismann	Marcus Allen
1982	XVII	Washington Redskins	27	Miami Dolphins	17	Pasadena	CA	Joe Theismann	David Woodley	John Riggins
1981	XVI	San Francisco 49ers	26	Cincinnati Bengals	21	Pontiac	MI	Joe Montana	Ken Anderson	Joe Montana
1980	XV	Oakland Raiders	27	Philadelphia Eagles	10	New Orleans	LA	Jim Plunkett	Ron Jaworski	Jim Plunkett
1979	XIV	Pittsburgh Steelers	31	Los Angeles Rams	19	Pasadena	CA	Terry Bradshaw	Vince Ferragamo	Terry Bradshaw
1978	XIII	Pittsburgh Steelers	35	Dallas Cowboys	31	Miami	FL	Terry Bradshaw	Roger Staubach	Terry Bradshaw
1977	XII	Dallas Cowboys	27	Denver Broncos	10	New Orleans	LA	Roger Staubach	Craig Morton	Randy White [1]Co-MVP with Harvey Martin
1976	XI	Oakland Raiders	32	Minnesota Vikings	14	Pasadena	CA	Ken Stabler	Fran Tarkenton	Fred Biletnikoff
1975	X	Pittsburgh Steelers	21	Dallas Cowboys	17	Miami	FL	Terry Bradshaw	Roger Staubach	Lynn Swann
1974	IX	Pittsburgh Steelers	16	Minnesota Vikings	6	New Orleans	LA	Terry Bradshaw	Fran Tarkenton	Franco Harris
1973	VIII	Miami Dolphins	24	Minnesota Vikings	7	Houston	TX	Bob Griese	Fran Tarkenton	Larry Csonka
1972	VII	Miami Dolphins	14	Washington Redskins	7	Los Angeles	CA	Bob Griese	Billy Kilmer	Jake Scott
1971	VI	Dallas Cowboys	24	Miami Dolphins	3	New Orleans	LA	Roger Staubach	Bob Griese	Roger Staubach
1970	V	Baltimore Colts	16	Dallas Cowboys	13	Miami	FL	Johnny Unitas	Craig Morton	Chuck Howley
1969	IV	Kansas City Chiefs	23	Minnesota Vikings	7	New Orleans	LA	Len Dawson	Joe Kapp	Len Dawson
1968	III	New York Jets	16	Baltimore Colts	7	Miami	FL	Joe Namath	Earl Morrall	Joe Namath
1967	II	Green Bay Packers	33	Oakland Raiders	14	Miami	FL	Bart Starr	Daryle Lamonica	Bart Starr
1966	I	Green Bay Packers	35	Kansas City Chiefs	10	Los Angeles	CA	Bart Starr	Len Dawson	Bart Starr

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Three teams have started 0-2 and won the Super Bowl. In 1993, the Dallas Cowboys started 0-2 in part because Emmitt Smith was holding out for a new contract. In 2001, the New England Patriots — with Drew Bledsoe as starting quarterback — began the year 0-2, before Tom Brady got his first professional start in week three. In 2007, the Gianst allowed 80 points in the first two weeks of the regular season, months before shutting down the highest scoring offense in NFL history in Super Bowl XLII.

There have been 68 teams to win a championship since 1950, including the six AFL champions in the pre-Super Bowl era. 41 of those teams started the season 2-0, and the group as a whole had a 0.790 winning percentage after two weeks. That shouldn’t be too surprising, as the best teams are likely to win most weeks. The last six Super Bowl champions not named the Giants have started the year 2-0.

But which Super Bowl champ had the greatest points differential after two weeks? One team started the year with wins of 34-3 and 39-13 (and won 42-10 in week three).

Note: Tomorrow, in lieu of Sunday trivia, I’ll present the first edition of the SRS for college football teams.

I broke down each of the NFL and AFL champions since 1950 into three categories:

• Pass Efficiency, measured by a modified version of ANY/A. The formula was (Passing Yards + 10*TD – 22.5*INT – Sack Yards)/(Pass Attempts + Sacks). This strikes a middle ground between traditional ANY/A and NY/A.
• Rushing Success, according to the following formula: (Rushing Yards + 10*RTD + 5*Rushing1stDowns)/(Carries).
• Defensive Rating, based on the number of offensive touchdowns scored by their opponents.

There are ways to quibble with those categories, and I won’t begrudge anyone who does. After giving each team a rating in each category, I calculated how they compared to the league average in each season. In all cases, the average is 100%, and a number higher than 100% means better.

Here’s what each of the columns mean, from left to right. In 2011, the New York Giants won the Super Bowl; they allowed 43 touchdowns to opposing offenses, averaged 7.6 in my modified version of ANY/A, and averaged 4.9 adjusted yards per carry. The next three columns show how New York ranked relative to league average. By allowing 43 scores, the Giants D was well below average, putting them at 83% of the average mark; they were 25% better than average at passing, but only 86% of league average efficiency in the running game. Since the Giants highest rating came in the passing category, they are listed in the Identity column as a Passing team.
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