I've looked at this game in great detail, and I concluded that for a number of reasons there is VERY little chance of Balt winning this game. Here are a few of them........
1) As we know, teams can change quite a bit during the season....just look at Arizona, who started the year 4-0 and then went into the toilet....losing 11 of their final 12 games. Injuries, etc can completely change the character of a team from early season to the end of the year. So when trying to assess a team's strength of opposition, rather than simply saying that a team's opponents were, for example, 59-53 when combining their records for the season, there is a better way. A team that played Arizona in week 5, after AZ had beaten NE, Seattle, Miami and Philly was playing quite a different Az team than a team that played AZ at the end of the year. So a win vs AZ in week 5 would count for a lot more than a win vs AZ in week 15.
So what happens when we look at SF and Balt's strength of opposition in a different way? Instead of calculating how their opponents finished on the year, let's look at how many teams SF and Balt beat that had a winning record ON THE DAY THEY ACTUALLY PLAYED THEM. What we get is this...
SF played 8 teams during the year that on the day SF played them had winning records at that time. They won 6 of those 8 games and lost 2.
Balt played 6 teams that had winning records on the day that Balt actually played them. They won 1 and lost 5 of those games.
That shows you quite a different picture than simply calculating that Balt's opponents were 59-53 on the year, and SF's were 59-52-1 on the year. Sometimes you have to look a little deeper to get the true picture.
2) What happened when SF and Balt played teams that later went on to qualify for the playoffs?
SF played 6 games against teams that turned out to be playoff bound. They won 4 and lost 2 of those games.
Balt also played 6 games against eventual playoff teams. They won 2 and lost 4.
Again, quite revealing.
Once the playoffs started a few more quite interesting developments occurred.
Often, the final score of a game doesn't tell the whole story. Last minute gift TDs allowed by the winning team who were so far ahead that they didn't care if the losing team scored, as long as the clock was running. Turnovers run back for a TD.....these can give you the wrong impression of the game if you look at the scores only, instead of the stats.
During Balt's 3 playoff games, they have gotten 64 first downs, and given up 83. Very, very seldom would a team go 3-0 in games in which the first down ratio was that much against them. They held the ball for 90 minutes during those three games, with their opponents having time of possession of 106 minutes. What DID favor Balt is they were plus 5 net turnovers during the playoffs. Take away the turnovers, and they easily lose to NE and Denver. Turnovers are a fairly random event.......if you are betting Balt to beat SF in the Superbowl, you are pretty much betting that the turnover ratio favors Balt in the game, because if it does not, there is nothing in the two team's performances to date to suggest that Balt can beat SF. There are three things that could happen in the SB.....turnovers could favor SF, in which case they will almost certainly win, turnovers could be neutral, in which case SF is a definite favorite to win the game.......or turnovers could favor Balt, in which case they'd have a decent chance of winning, but even that is no sure thing.
During SF's two playoff games they are plus 3 first downs, (as opposed to Balt being -19) and have time of possession of 66 minutes to 54 minutes for their opponents. They are therefore +22 in minutes of possession vs Balt being -16. But what SF didn't have to rely on to demolish GB, and dominate Atlanta over 3 quarters, is turnovers. They are net 0 turnovers during those two games. In short, they won the games without having to rely on random events (which turnovers pretty much are)...and therefore you won't need SF to benefit from MORE random events during the Superbowl to have them achieve the same sort of results they have achieved in the playoffs so far.
In reality, other than staring out flat as a pancake vs Atlanta for the first quarter, which was also a factor of Atlanta being sky high on adrenalin at the start of the game, SF dominated the next 3 quarters, scoring 28 points to 7, gaining 406 yards to 280 yards for Atlanta. The thing about adrenalin is that it wears off, and Atlanta came back down to earth, and for three quarters were beat up by SF.
In the Green Bay game, SF was dominant throughout. The game was much more of a blowout than the score reveals. SF had a first down edge of 29-20, a time of possession edge of a remarkable 38 minutes to 22 minutes, and had 217 more net yards. Sheer, unadulterated domination against a very good GB team.
We all know what happened in Denver. Balt won on a last minute long TD with no timeouts left and the clock almost down to zero. 'An exciting finish, but one that wouldn't happen more than a few times out of 100 games for teams in that exact position. Virtually a fluke. Yes they played Denver tough enough to at least be in a position to benefit from that fluke-ish play, but the reality is that they would lose that game almost every time, and got lucky on the day.
Their luck continued to some extent in NE. Watch how the game was going before the dominant Aqib Talib went out of the game, leaving NE without its best defensive weapon. While Talib was in the game, Balt were meeting with very little success. As soon as Talib went out, which left an already-thin NE defense extremely vulnerable in the secondary, Balt started to move the ball. Balt was also +3 in turnovers in the game. Conclusion, Balt played well, but most of the breaks went their way....and without them, NE probably would have won the game.
Flacco, a middle-of-the-road NFL quarterback, is on a good run at the moment, with 8 TD passes and no INTs. But that is not indicative of his true abilities, he's just having a good run lately. You wouldn't (I hope) bet on Red on the roulette wheel just because it's come up red the last several times. Short term streaks happen, but in the end, there is always a reversion to mean. Balt have gotten into the Superbowl on the back of a fair bit of luck in the playoffs, after losing 4 of their final 5 games in the regular season. To be blunt, they don't belong in this game, and are almost certainly not the best team in the AFC.
SF, on the other hand, are in the game after beating the crap out of GB, and coming back from a cold 1st quarter to dominate Atlanta....after going 5-2 to close out the regular season. They are almost certainly the best team in the NFC, and by default, the best team in the NFL.
Although the Pro Bowl is just an exhibition game, the NFC still blew out the AFC...and this was with the NINE players from SF who were voted onto the team not participating. No other team in the NFL had as many players voted onto the pro bowl team as SF. The NFC is clearly the superior conference at the moment, and SF are clearly the best team in that conference. Baltimore got hot for a couple of games in the playoffs, but beyond that, it's hard to justify them even playing in this game. Sure, all the breaks could go their way on Sunday, in which case they might win. But if the breaks even out, or if they favor SF, this is an SF game all the way.
1) As we know, teams can change quite a bit during the season....just look at Arizona, who started the year 4-0 and then went into the toilet....losing 11 of their final 12 games. Injuries, etc can completely change the character of a team from early season to the end of the year. So when trying to assess a team's strength of opposition, rather than simply saying that a team's opponents were, for example, 59-53 when combining their records for the season, there is a better way. A team that played Arizona in week 5, after AZ had beaten NE, Seattle, Miami and Philly was playing quite a different Az team than a team that played AZ at the end of the year. So a win vs AZ in week 5 would count for a lot more than a win vs AZ in week 15.
So what happens when we look at SF and Balt's strength of opposition in a different way? Instead of calculating how their opponents finished on the year, let's look at how many teams SF and Balt beat that had a winning record ON THE DAY THEY ACTUALLY PLAYED THEM. What we get is this...
SF played 8 teams during the year that on the day SF played them had winning records at that time. They won 6 of those 8 games and lost 2.
Balt played 6 teams that had winning records on the day that Balt actually played them. They won 1 and lost 5 of those games.
That shows you quite a different picture than simply calculating that Balt's opponents were 59-53 on the year, and SF's were 59-52-1 on the year. Sometimes you have to look a little deeper to get the true picture.
2) What happened when SF and Balt played teams that later went on to qualify for the playoffs?
SF played 6 games against teams that turned out to be playoff bound. They won 4 and lost 2 of those games.
Balt also played 6 games against eventual playoff teams. They won 2 and lost 4.
Again, quite revealing.
Once the playoffs started a few more quite interesting developments occurred.
Often, the final score of a game doesn't tell the whole story. Last minute gift TDs allowed by the winning team who were so far ahead that they didn't care if the losing team scored, as long as the clock was running. Turnovers run back for a TD.....these can give you the wrong impression of the game if you look at the scores only, instead of the stats.
During Balt's 3 playoff games, they have gotten 64 first downs, and given up 83. Very, very seldom would a team go 3-0 in games in which the first down ratio was that much against them. They held the ball for 90 minutes during those three games, with their opponents having time of possession of 106 minutes. What DID favor Balt is they were plus 5 net turnovers during the playoffs. Take away the turnovers, and they easily lose to NE and Denver. Turnovers are a fairly random event.......if you are betting Balt to beat SF in the Superbowl, you are pretty much betting that the turnover ratio favors Balt in the game, because if it does not, there is nothing in the two team's performances to date to suggest that Balt can beat SF. There are three things that could happen in the SB.....turnovers could favor SF, in which case they will almost certainly win, turnovers could be neutral, in which case SF is a definite favorite to win the game.......or turnovers could favor Balt, in which case they'd have a decent chance of winning, but even that is no sure thing.
During SF's two playoff games they are plus 3 first downs, (as opposed to Balt being -19) and have time of possession of 66 minutes to 54 minutes for their opponents. They are therefore +22 in minutes of possession vs Balt being -16. But what SF didn't have to rely on to demolish GB, and dominate Atlanta over 3 quarters, is turnovers. They are net 0 turnovers during those two games. In short, they won the games without having to rely on random events (which turnovers pretty much are)...and therefore you won't need SF to benefit from MORE random events during the Superbowl to have them achieve the same sort of results they have achieved in the playoffs so far.
In reality, other than staring out flat as a pancake vs Atlanta for the first quarter, which was also a factor of Atlanta being sky high on adrenalin at the start of the game, SF dominated the next 3 quarters, scoring 28 points to 7, gaining 406 yards to 280 yards for Atlanta. The thing about adrenalin is that it wears off, and Atlanta came back down to earth, and for three quarters were beat up by SF.
In the Green Bay game, SF was dominant throughout. The game was much more of a blowout than the score reveals. SF had a first down edge of 29-20, a time of possession edge of a remarkable 38 minutes to 22 minutes, and had 217 more net yards. Sheer, unadulterated domination against a very good GB team.
We all know what happened in Denver. Balt won on a last minute long TD with no timeouts left and the clock almost down to zero. 'An exciting finish, but one that wouldn't happen more than a few times out of 100 games for teams in that exact position. Virtually a fluke. Yes they played Denver tough enough to at least be in a position to benefit from that fluke-ish play, but the reality is that they would lose that game almost every time, and got lucky on the day.
Their luck continued to some extent in NE. Watch how the game was going before the dominant Aqib Talib went out of the game, leaving NE without its best defensive weapon. While Talib was in the game, Balt were meeting with very little success. As soon as Talib went out, which left an already-thin NE defense extremely vulnerable in the secondary, Balt started to move the ball. Balt was also +3 in turnovers in the game. Conclusion, Balt played well, but most of the breaks went their way....and without them, NE probably would have won the game.
Flacco, a middle-of-the-road NFL quarterback, is on a good run at the moment, with 8 TD passes and no INTs. But that is not indicative of his true abilities, he's just having a good run lately. You wouldn't (I hope) bet on Red on the roulette wheel just because it's come up red the last several times. Short term streaks happen, but in the end, there is always a reversion to mean. Balt have gotten into the Superbowl on the back of a fair bit of luck in the playoffs, after losing 4 of their final 5 games in the regular season. To be blunt, they don't belong in this game, and are almost certainly not the best team in the AFC.
SF, on the other hand, are in the game after beating the crap out of GB, and coming back from a cold 1st quarter to dominate Atlanta....after going 5-2 to close out the regular season. They are almost certainly the best team in the NFC, and by default, the best team in the NFL.
Although the Pro Bowl is just an exhibition game, the NFC still blew out the AFC...and this was with the NINE players from SF who were voted onto the team not participating. No other team in the NFL had as many players voted onto the pro bowl team as SF. The NFC is clearly the superior conference at the moment, and SF are clearly the best team in that conference. Baltimore got hot for a couple of games in the playoffs, but beyond that, it's hard to justify them even playing in this game. Sure, all the breaks could go their way on Sunday, in which case they might win. But if the breaks even out, or if they favor SF, this is an SF game all the way.
