Who Will Win the Big Game? Super Bowl LV (2021)
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs kick-off for Super Bowl LV in less than a week. About ten years ago, we performed research on decades’ worth of championship results across the major sports, including the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.
Our goal is to quantify the impact of factors related to sports psychology. Early results are mentioned in our book, “Who Will Win the Big Game: A Psychological and Mathematical Method.”
At that time, the Wall Street Journal asked us to create a model to predict the winner of that year’s Super Bowl. That article correctly predicted the underdog winner and started a journey that has led to our published results picking the correct winner of major sporting events about 65% of the time.
What do our “championship factors” say about this year’s Super Bowl?
Big Game Experience
Our readers will know that “big game experience” is one of the key factors related to winning the big game. Whether this is due to confidence, experience — or the simple fact that getting to the finals again means that your team is not a fluke — the fact remains that big game experience is correlated to winning title games. Although Tom Brady has been to more Super Bowls than some people can bear, the Kansas City Chiefs won last year’s Super Bowl. Our methods go with the team’s experience. Edge: Kansas City.
Defense
Our research shows that defense wins championships, no matter what sport we study. In tightly contested games, the hard work and consistency of defense shines through. About two-thirds of the time, the team with the better defense brings home the title. Tampa Bay edges Kansas City in this area. Edge: Tampa Bay.
Leadership
In today’s modern football game, the quarterback is the most important player on the field. Interestingly, the QB’s leadership is related to winning the Super Bowl NOT by shiny statistics, but by minimizing interceptions! The team with fewer INTs during the regular season has gone on to win close to 70% of all Super Bowls. Tom Brady has historically been great in this category, but Patrick Mahomes put up great numbers this year, while throwing just 6 picks all season. Edge: Kansas City.
Consistency — Defense
Football is a sport where defense can really win championships. This is true to such a degree, that our key consistency factor related to winning the Super Bowl is on the defensive side. That is, if your defense can prevent your opponent from mounting a good consistent offense, you are well on the way to winning the big game. The metric we use is each team’s defensive “yards per carry” yielded. Tampa Bay led the NFL in this category during the regular season. Edge: Tampa Bay.
Consistency — Offense
0ur “quant facts” are currently tied at 2–2, so we went to the tiebreaker. Our consistency factor on the offensive side is not as statistically significant as that for the defense, but it is still positively correlated to winning the Super Bowl. Kansas City was superior to Tampa Bay in “rushing yards per carry” on offense during the regular season. This may allow the Chiefs to mount more consistent drives during the Super Bowl. Edge: Kansas City.
Monte Carlo Simulations
This year, we had a chance to run Monte Carlo simulations for the Super Bowl, based on each team’s performance during drives this season. Both teams put up impressive numbers on offense, while Tampa Bay’s defense outperformed KC’s in certain areas. The Monte Carlo outcome with the most common outcome had Tampa Bay winning by 3 points. It is noteworthy, however, that sports have a high degree of randomness, so that KC won over 40% of the simulations. Edge: Tampa Bay.
Summary
The championship factors favor Kansas City 3–2, but our Monte Carlo analysis predicts a win for Tampa Bay. Thus, we have no official quant fact prediction for this year’s Super Bowl. We do see some value on Tampa Bay. Enjoy the big game!
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Carlton Chin, a graduate of MIT, is an investment officer and portfolio strategist. When not studying downside risk and portfolio construction, he enjoys applying numbers and probability to sports analytics. He has worked with various sports organizations, including the Sacramento Kings — and has been quoted by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN.
Dr. Jay Granat is a psychotherapist and founder of StayInTheZone.com. He has worked with athletes of all levels, including high school athletes and Olympians. He was named one of Golf Digest’s Top Ten Mental Gurus and has been on Good Morning America, the New York Times, and ESPN.