Since 1987, Offense Wins Super Bowls about 2/3's of the time.

[Chaos]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WfzinZlUIPrSBp_SzdwM8zGmpKivZ1vJzA6sP0Z2gjs/edit?usp=sharing

 

Most teams, even the Super Bowl Champion, are better on one side of the ball or ther the other. 

 

I went through each super bowl winner to decide if that winner was more offensive oriented or defensive oriented or a rare exactly equal balanced team. 

The metric I user to decide if a team was better on offense or better on defense, is the teams points scored rank, and the teams points against rank.  For example, using that Metric, the Chiefs, in 2022 had the number one offense and the number 17th ranked defense. So for purposes of this analysis, the 2022 Chiefs primarily won from offense.  While the metric is not perfect, it is objective and easy enough to understand. 

 

Using this Metric from the first Super Bowl through the 1987 Giants team (21 super bowls) eight of the winners were offensive teams, and twelve were defensive teams, with one team the 1972 dolphins being equally dominant on offense and defense (ranking #1 on both sides of the ball) As a side note, the 1996 packers were th only other Super Bowl winner to be #1 points scored and #1 points allowed. 

Since the 1987 season, things have changed. 21 winners since them were higher ranked on the offense side of the ball, and 11 winners were higher ranked on defense, with 4 balanced teams. 

The link above lists the winners and their ranks. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Chaos

[Sierra Foothills]

Good work.

 

I copied the spreadsheet to check out a few things.

 

One thing that was interesting is that the average rank for the sample size of your study (36 years) shows that the mean average ranks were:

 

Offense:  6.25

Defense: 6.666666667

 

Not nearly the difference one would think based on the 21 vs 11 winners.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Sierra Foothills

[White Linen]

Just going from memory and no stats to back up my claim, but I seem to recall several offensive minded teams playing better on defense in the playoffs than their ranking would suggest.

 

In other words,  they played better defensively at the right time.

[mrags]

However, 7 of the last 10 Super Bowl winning teams had higher ranking defenses than the losing opponents. 
 

so you may be right that offense is key to winning championships, but 7 of the last 10 times the team with the better defense won the game. It’s an unarguable fact and it’s pretty eye opening. 
 

If you go back farther you’ll see it’s not much different over history. Regardless of offense, of the 2 teams in the game, the team with the better defense wins a majority of the time. 

[Doc Brown]

5 hours ago, Chaos said:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WfzinZlUIPrSBp_SzdwM8zGmpKivZ1vJzA6sP0Z2gjs/edit?usp=sharing

 

Since the 1987 season, things have changed. 21 winners since them were higher ranked on the offense side of the ball, and 11 winners were higher ranked on defense, with 4 balanced teams. 

 

3 hours ago, mrags said:

However, 7 of the last 10 Super Bowl winning teams had higher ranking defenses than the losing opponents. 

So, the better overall team on average wins more.  Great Scott.

[Chaos]

9 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

Good work.

 

I copied the spreadsheet to check out a few things.

 

One thing that was interesting is that the average rank for the sample size of your study (36 years) shows that the mean average ranks were:

 

Offense:  6.25

Defense: 6.666666667

 

Not nearly the difference one would think based on the 21 vs 11 winners.

 

I also looked at the medians which is 4 for the offense and 4.5 for the defense (since 1987).  Another interesting stat, is the Median for best of offense/defense ranking (for example a 7th rank offense, 3rd ranked defense would have a "best" of three.  Since the 1987 cutoff point median best is 2.0.  This suggests it is important to be at the top on one side of the ball or other. Since the expansion to 32 teams (and more playoff teams) the "best" median has dropped to 3.0)

What actually really jumps off the page statistically, is how much more random things became at the beginning of the 21st century.  Expanded playoffs dramatically changed things.  Which is easy to understand.  For the first Super Bowl for the 1966 season, there was only one play off game in each conference.  In that scenario it is almost inevitable that a team which is at the top or near the top of the regular season offense and/or defense will participate in the single playoff game. 

With 14 teams making the playoffs, the oppportuntity for highly underperforming regular season teams to win is literally infinitely greater than in the early Super Bowl era. 
 

While it is more likely the a high powered offense team will win the Super Bowl, it is certainly possible for a team to win with defense.  
I suspect the reality is that Championship teams are no longer really "won" by any particular style and that the Offense Vs. Defense wins championship argument not particularly revealing at this point. 

Playoff sample sizes are small. But I suspect championshps are won now by teams getting to the playoffs healthy and prepared, and with coaching staffs who are great at game day coaching.

[billybrew1]

10 hours ago, Chaos said:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WfzinZlUIPrSBp_SzdwM8zGmpKivZ1vJzA6sP0Z2gjs/edit?usp=sharing

 

Most teams, even the Super Bowl Champion, are better on one side of the ball or ther the other. 

 

I went through each super bowl winner to decide if that winner was more offensive oriented or defensive oriented or a rare exactly equal balanced team. 

The metric I user to decide if a team was better on offense or better on defense, is the teams points scored rank, and the teams points against rank.  For example, using that Metric, the Chiefs, in 2022 had the number one offense and the number 17th ranked defense. So for purposes of this analysis, the 2022 Chiefs primarily won from offense.  While the metric is not perfect, it is objective and easy enough to understand. 

 

Using this Metric from the first Super Bowl through the 1987 Giants team (21 super bowls) eight of the winners were offensive teams, and twelve were defensive teams, with one team the 1972 dolphins being equally dominant on offense and defense (ranking #1 on both sides of the ball) As a side note, the 1996 packers were th only other Super Bowl winner to be #1 points scored and #1 points allowed. 

Since the 1987 season, things have changed. 21 winners since them were higher ranked on the offense side of the ball, and 11 winners were higher ranked on defense, with 4 balanced teams. 

The link above lists the winners and their ranks. 

This is absolute BS…… watch the games…..

[buffblue]

9 hours ago, White Linen said:

Just going from memory and no stats to back up my claim, but I seem to recall several offensive minded teams playing better on defense in the playoffs than their ranking would suggest.

 

In other words,  they played better defensively at the right time.

I still remember the year the Colts won the Super Bowl with Manning. Indy was dead last in the league by a wide margin at stopping the run, but their defense completely transformed in the playoffs and peaked at exactly the right time

[boyst]

offense wins games, defenses win championships.

 

the offense scores and gets you the W's to get to the playoffs.

 

by the time the playoffs come the top 4-6 teams are fairly equal in ability and talent to score. it is the defense that makes the difference.

 

i don't care what stats say.

 

DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS.

 

** this does not endorse our defensive strategy to overspend on non-skill players, etc. this does not endorse that the defense should outweigh the offense. this merely states that the defense must be good enough to be top 10.

 

***  it is overlooked that a good ball control offense is just as important or potent as a big time defense. the giants in superbowl 25. the saints super bowl over the colts. if you can control the clock on offense you can win the game on offense as well as any defense can. thats what the colts did against the bears, as well. they were schooled on it a little bit later by the saints.

Edited July 24, 2023 by boyst

[BuffaloBillyG]

9 hours ago, mrags said:

However, 7 of the last 10 Super Bowl winning teams had higher ranking defenses than the losing opponents. 
 

so you may be right that offense is key to winning championships, but 7 of the last 10 times the team with the better defense won the game. It’s an unarguable fact and it’s pretty eye opening. 
 

If you go back farther you’ll see it’s not much different over history. Regardless of offense, of the 2 teams in the game, the team with the better defense wins a majority of the time. 

It's almost like that cringe inducing catch phrase that McDermott has often thrown out there of "complimentary football" actually means something. Wow.

[hondo in seattle]

Interesting trend, Chaos, but I'm not sure what the take-away is.  

 

So if I'm a GM or HC and I take this idea of offense-wins-Lombardis to heart, then I'm going to build a really good defense to stop my opponents' offense from beating us.  Paradoxically, if offenses win, then you have to build a defense to counter a team with an offense.  So defenses win.  

 

No offense plays in a vacuum.  It's always an Offense vs Defense struggle.  Ignoring ST for a moment...  If our O is better than their D, and our D is better than their O, we win.  O and D are equally balanced.  

[dave mcbride]

2 hours ago, buffblue said:

I still remember the year the Colts won the Super Bowl with Manning. Indy was dead last in the league by a wide margin at stopping the run, but their defense completely transformed in the playoffs and peaked at exactly the right time

It was really all about the presence or absence of Bob Sanders for that defense. He played in only four games that season, and when he came back for the playoff run they transformed immediately into an elite defense because he was THAT good at that particular point in his career. He played in all of the playoff games, and in those games, they gave up 8, 6, 27, and 10 points (the Pats had an INT return for a TD to get 7 points in the AFC championship game, and their offense scored 27; the Bear had a kickoff return for a TD in the SB and otherwise only scored 10 points). Over the course of the playoffs, the defense allowed an average of 12.75 points. Injuries were the real reason there defense was so bad. When the key defensive player got healthy, they became a lot better. The next season (2007), he was the AP Defensive Player of the Year and the Colts defense was ranked #1 overall.

Edited July 24, 2023 by dave mcbride

[Don Otreply]

100% of the time the team that scores the most points wins. The word “team” is inclusive of both sides of the ball, but always excludes special teams, because we all know they don’t count, because there are no hall of fame awards for special teams. ( special teams is the red headed step child of pro football) 😁👍
 

 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

I think you have to be able to get some big stops in the playoffs to win a super bowl.  I don't think your regular season DVOA or rankings should factor into that.   Sometimes its reading a trend at the right time, a pass rusher having a good game, or just some flukey turnover stuff. 

 

The Chiefs have a really solid if unspectacular defense, but that defense played pretty terrible in the super bowl.  They did have a fumble recovery for a TD though, and they had 2 big stops in the 2nd half.  A FG stop kept it a 1 score game, and a big 3 and out that lead to a big punt return.  Other than that they got walked all over the entire game - but with the chiefs offense humming in the 2nd half, that was really enough (that and the trash call to let KC run the clock out).  

 

Buffalo needs to have better game plans for specific opponents, and not just try to always dictate.  Sometimes you're a bad matchup to dictate, so you have to adapt, blitz more, play different coverages, take chances.  

[Nextmanup]

I can only imagine your "objective" analysis is FILLED with subjective takes and opinions that resulted in your conclusions.

 

All of analytics is this way--and I'm a big believer in analytics.

 

But this isn't mathematics and it's not science.

 

Regardless, I've said many times my team would be 100% offense and replacement quality defense.

 

Special Teams would be beyond an afterthought.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

14 hours ago, Chaos said:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WfzinZlUIPrSBp_SzdwM8zGmpKivZ1vJzA6sP0Z2gjs/edit?usp=sharing

 

Most teams, even the Super Bowl Champion, are better on one side of the ball or ther the other. 

 

I went through each super bowl winner to decide if that winner was more offensive oriented or defensive oriented or a rare exactly equal balanced team. 

The metric I user to decide if a team was better on offense or better on defense, is the teams points scored rank, and the teams points against rank.  For example, using that Metric, the Chiefs, in 2022 had the number one offense and the number 17th ranked defense. So for purposes of this analysis, the 2022 Chiefs primarily won from offense.  While the metric is not perfect, it is objective and easy enough to understand. 

 

Using this Metric from the first Super Bowl through the 1987 Giants team (21 super bowls) eight of the winners were offensive teams, and twelve were defensive teams, with one team the 1972 dolphins being equally dominant on offense and defense (ranking #1 on both sides of the ball) As a side note, the 1996 packers were th only other Super Bowl winner to be #1 points scored and #1 points allowed. 

Since the 1987 season, things have changed. 21 winners since them were higher ranked on the offense side of the ball, and 11 winners were higher ranked on defense, with 4 balanced teams. 

The link above lists the winners and their ranks. 

 

 

You're misrepresenting your data here.

 

Just as an example, you call the 2017 Eagles an offensively balanced team because they ranked 3rd in offense and 4th on defense. That's absolutely ridiculous. That's a balanced team. The difference is statistically insignificant, as is the difference for many of the teams.

 

Offense does appear to have become more important over time. Not nearly as much as you're implying.

 

Teams like last year's Chiefs really are unbalanced, 1st at offense, 17th at defense. That's very significant. 

 

But the 2020 Bucs at 3rd and 8th? The 2019 Chiefs at 5th and 8th? The 2018 Pats at 4th and 7th? The Eagles as mentioned above, and the 2016 Pats at 3rd and 1st?

 

Those are balanced teams, and there are a lot of them on your list.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Thurman#1

[Chaos]

8 hours ago, billybrew1 said:

This is absolute BS…… watch the games…..

You don’t like numbers?

4 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

You're misrepresenting your data here.

 

Just as an example, you call the 2017 Eagles an offensively balanced team because they ranked 3rd in offense and 4th on defense. That's absolutely ridiculous. That's a balanced team. The difference is statistically insignificant, as is the difference for many of the teams.

 

Offense does appear to have become more important over time. Not nearly as much as you're implying.

 

Teams like last year's Chiefs really are unbalanced, 1st at offense, 17th at defense. That's very significant. 

 

But the 2020 Bucs at 3rd and 8th? The 2019 Chiefs at 5th and 8th? The 2018 Pats at 4th and 7th? The Eagles as mentioned above, and the 2016 Pats at 3rd and 1st?

 

Those are balanced teams, and there are a lot of them on your list.

 

 

Reading is a good thing .  In the opening paragraph i said the metric is not perfect but it is easy to apply and to understand. Be careful you don’t hurt yourself falling off your high horse.  
 

Over the course of 57 Super Bowl seasons there is some expectation these “ridiculous “ things average out. 
 

feel free to provide another metric for deciding if a team is more dependent on offense than defense. 

[BADOLBILZ]

 

The statistical reality is that offense is lot easier to predict because it's the easier side of the football to maintain once built..

 

Defensive performance being less reliably predictable makes it the larger gamble to build around.

 

In the current NFL..........that's all you need to know about how to build your team.

 

I don't want to go all the way back to 1987 because defense was much easier to maintain until the mid 2010's.........a few years post the major rules interpretation changes for QB's and WR's. 

 

Be offense-centric......keep yourself competitive defensively(specifically thru coaching)............and you will get a lot more chances at the Lombardi.

 

   

Edited July 24, 2023 by BADOLBILZ

[dave mcbride]

3 hours ago, Chaos said:

You don’t like numbers?

Reading is a good thing .  In the opening paragraph i said the metric is not perfect but it is easy to apply and to understand. Be careful you don’t hurt yourself falling off your high horse.  
 

Over the course of 57 Super Bowl seasons there is some expectation these “ridiculous “ things average out. 
 

feel free to provide another metric for deciding if a team is more dependent on offense than defense. 

I’d be much more interested in DVOA rankings. Easy enough to put that material together.

 

[mjd1001]

It was different a decade or so ago and longer....but my recollection is when you have games where one of the top 5 defensive units in the league meets one of the top 5 offensive units in the league...it seems the 'good' offense scores closer to their 'regular' number of points than the 'good' defense holds them to their 'regular' allowed points.  The top defense units thet their stats/points allowed for the most part by being superior vs the bad teams.  But put those D-units up against the top offenses in the league and often times they look almost as bad as any other defense.

Edited July 25, 2023 by mjd1001