Super Bowl Losers & The Next Year
By: Marc Lawrence
Super Bowl losers often suffer a letdown in the following season. But there's money to be had in heartbreak.
Close. Oh, so very close.
Close, though, is good for only three things: intimate encounters, horseshoes and hand grenades. To a football team it's as bad, or perhaps worse, as getting blown out in a game.
Coming within smelling distance of winning a coveted game can often times result in heartbreak, especially when that desired contest was the penultimate of all games, namely the Super Bowl.
Arriving to the Super Bowl game and winning it are two different things, indeed. Much like the loser in a championship fight - no one ever remembers your name, nor do they care. Consequently, many times when a fighter falls short of winning the belt in a title game his career goes downhill all too quickly.
With this thought in mind, I examined how the loser of the previous year's Super Bowl fares the following season. According to our powerful Sports Data football database, here is the ATS (Against The Spread) breakdown of how defending Super Bowl losers have fared in a game-by-game breakdown since 1981, in regular season games the following year:
Game One: 11-14
Game Two: 15-9-1
Game Three: 10-14-1
Game Four: 17-7-1
Game Five: 10-15
Game Six: 10-14-1
Game Seven: 13-12
Game Eight: 13-12
Game Nine: 6-18-1
Game Ten: 12-12
Game Eleven: 13-11
Game Twelve: 7-17
Game Thirteen: 11-13
Game Fourteen: 13-10-1
Game Fifteen: 9-13-2
Game Sixteen: 13-9
Unlike defending Super Bowl champions who tend to struggle out of the chute, defending Super Bowl losers are moderate moneymakers throughout their initial four games of the season, going 53-44-3 ATS. They tend to struggle immediately after the halfway point of the campaign, however, going 38-58-1 ATS in Games 9-12.
Their worst role, or the most lucrative pointspread proposition - from our point of view - occurs whenever we...PLAY AGAINST any defending NFL Super Bowl runnerup in any game away from home the following year if they are 'pick' or favored.
Saddled with too much weight from their success the previous season, these Super Bowl losers are 36-68-3 ATS on the road the next year when not taking points. Send them out against a non-division foe in this role and they dip to 12-34-2 ATS, including 2-17-1 ATS if the non-division opponent is a .500 or better team.
By: Marc Lawrence
Super Bowl losers often suffer a letdown in the following season. But there's money to be had in heartbreak.
Close. Oh, so very close.
Close, though, is good for only three things: intimate encounters, horseshoes and hand grenades. To a football team it's as bad, or perhaps worse, as getting blown out in a game.
Coming within smelling distance of winning a coveted game can often times result in heartbreak, especially when that desired contest was the penultimate of all games, namely the Super Bowl.
Arriving to the Super Bowl game and winning it are two different things, indeed. Much like the loser in a championship fight - no one ever remembers your name, nor do they care. Consequently, many times when a fighter falls short of winning the belt in a title game his career goes downhill all too quickly.
With this thought in mind, I examined how the loser of the previous year's Super Bowl fares the following season. According to our powerful Sports Data football database, here is the ATS (Against The Spread) breakdown of how defending Super Bowl losers have fared in a game-by-game breakdown since 1981, in regular season games the following year:
Game One: 11-14
Game Two: 15-9-1
Game Three: 10-14-1
Game Four: 17-7-1
Game Five: 10-15
Game Six: 10-14-1
Game Seven: 13-12
Game Eight: 13-12
Game Nine: 6-18-1
Game Ten: 12-12
Game Eleven: 13-11
Game Twelve: 7-17
Game Thirteen: 11-13
Game Fourteen: 13-10-1
Game Fifteen: 9-13-2
Game Sixteen: 13-9
Unlike defending Super Bowl champions who tend to struggle out of the chute, defending Super Bowl losers are moderate moneymakers throughout their initial four games of the season, going 53-44-3 ATS. They tend to struggle immediately after the halfway point of the campaign, however, going 38-58-1 ATS in Games 9-12.
Their worst role, or the most lucrative pointspread proposition - from our point of view - occurs whenever we...PLAY AGAINST any defending NFL Super Bowl runnerup in any game away from home the following year if they are 'pick' or favored.
Saddled with too much weight from their success the previous season, these Super Bowl losers are 36-68-3 ATS on the road the next year when not taking points. Send them out against a non-division foe in this role and they dip to 12-34-2 ATS, including 2-17-1 ATS if the non-division opponent is a .500 or better team.
