Sports Reference Blog

Archive for the 'Super Bowl' Category

NFL100 Awards on PFR

16th March 2020

Part of the celebration of the National Football League's 100th anniversary included celebrating the top 100 in the league's history in various categories. Pro Football Reference has collected the major awards for display on the site: top 100 games of all time, top 100 teams of all time, and the NFL's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. You can find them all linked on PFR's Awards index. The top 100 games list is unique in that we include a summary of what made the games notable, as well as a link to YouTube for games that the NFL has officially uploaded in full in case you want to go through history in the offseason.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form or Pro Football Reference's official Twitter account. Thanks for following us!

Posted in Announcement, Awards, Data, Features, History, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | Comments Off on NFL100 Awards on PFR

PFR Adds Preseason Over/Unders and Super Bowl Odds

6th May 2019

Pro-Football-Reference has added preseason Super Bowl odds back to 1977, as well as preseason over/unders on win totals back to 1989. This information can be found on a team's season page in their information profile. For example, you can go to the 2011 Eagles page and quickly spot they were +800 to win the Super Bowl before the season, and that the over/under for their win total was set at 10.5. (They would go on to finish under that year.)

You can also see the preseason Super Bowl odds and over/unders for all teams in a season by going to a league season page, and then following the Preseason Odds link located in the Other tab. Here's a link to the 2018 odds table, where you can spot the Super Bowl-winning Patriots having the best odds before the season and the highest-set over/under (which they pushed on).

One question that can be answered with this information is: who were the unlikeliest Super Bowl winners based on these preseason odds? Here's a look at the top 10 longest odds since 1977.

RAM 1999 +15000
NWE 2001 +6000
SFO 1981 +5000
PHI 2017 +4000
RAI 1980 +3500
WAS 1982 +3500
NYG 2007 +3000
RAV 2000 +2200
NYG 2011 +2200
NOR 2009 +2000

Also, here's a look at the teams since 1989 that outperformed their preseason over/unders the most.

O/U Wins Over by
RAM 1999 5.5 13 7.5
SDG 2004 4.5 12 7.5
PIT 2004 7.5 15 7.5
ATL 1998 7 14 7
MIN 1998 8.5 15 6.5
CLT 1999 6.5 13 6.5
ATL 2008 4.5 11 6.5
CAR 1996 5.5 12 6.5
CAR 2015 8.5 15 6.5
CHI 2001 7 13 6

A special thanks to sportsoddshistory.com for contributing to this addition to our site. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form. Also, please keep your eyes peeled for similar content coming to our other sites in the future.

Posted in Announcement, Features, History, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl, Trivia | 1 Comment »

Everything You Need to Know About Super Bowl LI

2nd February 2017

After 20 weeks of football (and an extra week of skills challenges and half-contested exhibition action in the Pro Bowl), we've arrived at the Super Bowl. And in between the commercials, the (sometimes overly enthusiastic) questions from reporters, Media Day, Opening Night, the NFL Honors show with awards like NFL Most Valuable Player and the announcement of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2017, more commercials, Lady Gaga, and the Jack Bauer-free return of 24, there's an actual game to played!

The good news is that, on paper, Super Bowl LI seems like it should be a good one. The bad news is that I also said that last year and, unless you're a Denver Broncos fan, there wasn't much to enjoy in that one. However, between the quality of the two teams, especially at quarterback, and the extremely high-stakes historic implications in play for the outcome, there's plenty in this year's matchup for us to dig into. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | Comments Off on Everything You Need to Know About Super Bowl LI

4 Matchups That Will Decide the 2015 NFL

10th September 2015

There will be 256 regular season games in the NFL this year and within each of those games, there are countless matchups. However, some matchups matter more than others. It's not likely that the AFC champion will be decided by how Tennessee's secondary contains Jacksonville's WR, for example. With that in mind, here are 4 matchups that could end up deciding this year's Super Bowl champions. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Pro-Football-Reference.com, Stat Questions, Super Bowl | Comments Off on 4 Matchups That Will Decide the 2015 NFL

PFR Celebrates the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2015

7th August 2015

It's been a long six months, but this weekend the NFL is back in our lives. However, while the Hall of Fame Game is always a fun spectacle to start the preseason, we're just as excited for the Hall of Fame Induction. In order to celebrate this year's inductees, we combed through our database to find some interesting or unique accomplishments. This post is by no means comprehensive, but here are the charts, graphs, and tables that begin to scratch the surface of the greatness of the Hall of Fame Class of 2015. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in History, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | 1 Comment »

Explore PFR’s Super Bowl Section

23rd January 2015

If you haven't seen the Super Bowl Section of our site yet, you should head over and check it out right now, because we think it's pretty awesome. Here are some of the features you'll find once you get there:

And best of all is the Super Bowl Play Finder tool. It's similar to the Play Index Game Play Finder tool, but limits your searches strictly to Super Bowls and allows you to search through every play of all 48 previous games. Some examples:

Our Player Game Finder and Team Game Finder are also unique tools for Super Bowl research. You can use them to find things like every 100-yard rusher in Super Bowl history, the largest point spreads in Super Bowl history or the highest over/unders. You can also identify trends such as the record of the team leading after one quarter (26-11), at halftime (36-10) and through three quarters of play (39-8).

So go ahead and try the Super Bowl Section right now -- it's free, easy to use, and best of all, with it you'll be able to dominate anyone who challenges you in Super Bowl trivia.

UPDATE: We have also added a Super Bowl filter to our Drive Finder, which allows users to find things such as the longest drives in any Super Bowl since 1998 or the fastest Super Bowl touchdown drives since 1998.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, History, Play Index, Playoffs, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Super Bowl Option Added to Player Game Finder

4th February 2013

Two quick notes:

Posted in Announcement, Play Index, Playoffs, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl, Trivia | 1 Comment »

Super Bowl Squares App (UPDATE)

1st February 2013

Earlier this week, we posted about out Super Bowl Squares app, which will calculate the squares that give you the best odds of winning if you're in a contest on Sunday. Since then, we had a problem with the app in the Android marketplace, but you can go here for a free online version of the app; we also still offer the app in the iTunes Store.

Posted in Announcement, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | 1 Comment »

Features: Super Bowl Box Scores

3rd February 2012

Features: Super Bowl Box Scores

Posted in Announcement, Features, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | Comments Off on Features: Super Bowl Box Scores

Features: Super Bowl Play Finder

2nd February 2012

Features: Super Bowl Play Finder

Posted in Announcement, Features, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | Comments Off on Features: Super Bowl Play Finder