Saturday, February 4, 2012

Who Will Win Super Bowl XLVI? (2012: Giants vs. Patriots)

With an eye toward quantitative analysis that attempts to identify factors that are as independent from one another as possible, five key statistical factors were identified. These statistics are related to principles of sports psychology like experience, leadership, error control, confidence and consistency. With the Giants’ surge late in the season and during the playoffs, we also looked at momentum.


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...  how do we account for the Giants’ momentum? We studied teams that reached the Super Bowl with less impressive regular-season records. Since 1990, when the N.F.L. went to its current playoff format, teams with 11 wins or fewer during the regular season have gone 4-7 in the Super Bowl. This includes Green Bay’s win last year and the Giants’ championship from four years ago; both teams had a 10-6 record during the regular season.
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Long-story short: our championship factors point to New England.  We'll highlight additional Super Bowl stats by Sunday morning.


Read more here:
http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/keeping-score-championship-factors-for-giants-and-patriots/#more-98635