Defense Wins Titles? or does It?

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One of my biggest pet peeves occurs when an NFL announcer states, as if it’s grade-A proven fact, that defense wins titles. It sounds so simple and catchy, yet when we look at how NFL teams behave, they spend as … Continue reading → (http://www.solecismic.com/frontierblog/?p=11)

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[garion333]

Interesting dive into data.

Out of all the data I examined, this was the only piece that stood out for the defense. With everything else, the suggestion that the two are equal or the offense has a slight edge was supported.

Then it's likely the small sample size, right? With another 50 Super Bowls I can't help but feel the results will regress to the mean and become more like all the other data. The Super Bowl can't be that much different than every other game, right?

Or maybe it makes a case for coaching staffs being more cautious on offense in the Big Game.

[Solecismic]

It's hard to tell. All I can say is that I've run correlations and averages on many different groups of teams. For every group, I've found offense is even or has a slight edge. In general, since 1978, scoring correlates 74% with winning and scoring defense correlates 70% with winning.

Until you break the Super Bowl between winners and losers. And there, you get the expected numbers on offense, but Super Bowl winners have much better defenses than losers. And it's not even close.

So, with that sample of 37 Super Bowls (1979-2015), defense is important enough that in the 16 cases where one team was better on defense and the other better on offense, the defensive team is 12-4.

But, as you say, what's different about the Super Bowl? Is it the extra week of preparation? Is it the effect of really, really great defenses? And, if so, why are those great defenses only outperforming in the Super Bowl? The top 20 offenses 1978-2014 are 6-6 in Super Bowls, while the top 20 defenses 1978-2014 are 9-0. So yes, I think it's small sample size.