Super Bowl Champions: Chiefs or 49ers?

It is that time of football season once again.  After getting through a week of not caring about the Pro Bowl since none of the players actually try in that game, we finally get to the biggest game of them all:  The Super Bowl. 

I am a big fan of this Super Bowl because it is a Super Bowl that we've never had before: Chiefs vs. 49ers.  We have Patrick Mahomes vs. Jimmy G.  Andy Reid vs. Kyle Shanahan. This is gonna be good. 

If I am going to pick a team, I will pick the Kansas City Chiefs.  For one, I think it is finally time for Andy Reid to win a Super Bowl.  Andy Reid has 221 wins including the Regular Season and the Playoffs total in his career.  That is 6th all-time which makes him the winningest NFL coach in NFL history from the Super Bowl Era without a Super Bowl win.  The time could finally come for Andy Reid to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.  Also it is time for him to have that fast food buffet in the White House with Donald Trump.

Comparing the Super Bowl Opponents

I am now going to go over some of the stats for each team that shows the comparisons between them.  The Chiefs in the Regular Season scored 28.2 points per game which is 5th in the league and allowed 19.3 points per game which is 7th in the league.  The 49ers in the Regular Season scored 29.9 points per game which is 2nd in the league and allowed 19.4 points per game which is 8th in the league.  When it comes to these numbers, these teams look pretty even.  However, they run very different offenses. 

The Chiefs are a lot more pass heavy.  They averaged 281.1 pass yards per game which was 5th in the league while the 49ers averaged 237 pass yards per game which was 13th in the league.  This will show then that the 49ers ran the ball more effectively.  The 49ers averaged 144.1 rush yards per game which was 2nd in the league and the Chiefs averaged 98.1 rush yards per game which was 23rd in the league.  These are just their stats from how they have been performing during the regular season.  The FPI can tell us more about how to predict this match from past performances.

The FPI now has the Chiefs winning it all with a 64.8% chance.  The FPI takes into account many factors to how a team can win.  It can be if it is a home or an away game, who is starting, amount of rest for each team, past performances, and even things like how long of a distance of travel does a team have to make that affects the team's preparation.  In my opinion, I feel that the past performance is what is affecting this FPI rating.  Let's look at the these teams more recent performances. 

In the past 8 games, the Chiefs have scored an average of 31.6 points and allowed only 15.5 points per game.  The 49ers scored an average of 31 points and allowed 23.9 points per game.  So far, the Chiefs look more impressive during this run.  Not to mention that the Chiefs are 8-0 in this run and the 49ers are 6-2.  But maybe I'm the dummy by not looking at it at a different perspective.  The 49ers during that run were 6-1 against teams with winning records.  They scored 32.3 points and allowed 22.3 points on average for those games.  Kansas City was 3-0 against teams with winning records.  They scored 36.3 points and allowed 23.7 points on average for those games. 

What the FPI is probably taking into account too is also how these teams have endured adversity recently.  Let's look at these two teams' playoff games so far this season.  The 49ers were able to easily handle their playoff games easily by scoring 32 points and allowing 15 points per game.  The Chiefs though had some adversity to overcome.  They were down 24-0 against Houston and down 17-7 against Tennessee during their playoff games.  But once they turned it on, there was no going back.  The Chiefs went on a 51-7 scoring spree against the Texans after down 24-0 to win 51-31.  They then went on a 28-7 scoring spree against the Titans down 17-7 to win 35-24.  If you were to just take in the scoring numbers for Kansas City for when they did these comebacks, they scored 39.5 points and allowed 7 points per comeback.  The way that they have responded to adversity in the playoffs has just been staggering. 

It is for this reason that I think the FPI has taken a lot to favor the Chiefs because of their recent showing of overcoming adversity very well.  Not to mention, that the 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator for the 2016 Falcons when they played the Patriots in Super Bowl 51.  That is the famous Super Bowl where the Falcons were up 28-3 against the Patriots and lost 34-28 making it the biggest choke I have ever seen in my life.  Perhaps the same thing could repeat again but with the Chiefs now against Kyle Shanahan?  I mean, the Chiefs have been doing phenomenal comebacks throughout the playoffs.  So why not the Super Bowl as well?

To me, the best champions are the ones that usually do well.  But when they are faced with adversity, they do it in a spectacular performance.  I just love that touchdown run by Patrick Mahomes against the Titans.  It shows his toughness and grit to get his team to win.  I'll end this post with a video I made that compares this run to a similar one done by Steve Young in 1988.

Once again, my choice is the Chiefs.  My record so far for this NFL season has been 56-33 which is 62.9% accuracy.  Let the football game and Super Bowl commercials begin!

The Best Ever?

This week was when the National Championship between Clemson and LSU happened to determine the National Champion of College Football.  There were points of the game where I thought Clemson was going to pull it off, but then LSU would put on all gears to embarrass them to a 42-25 beating.
Over the course of this week, I have been hearing from radio shows and on the TV about how people are ranking this LSU team compared to other greatest teams in college football history.  I even heard someone say that Joe Burrow is the greatest college football quarterback to every play the game.  Since this is MathSportsGuy, I need to really see the numbers in order to really make a good indication on these claims.  Let us go over some numbers.

Team Stats Per Game

LSU this year was able to score 48.4 points per game and their defense allowed 21.9 points per game.  Their offensive points per game was 1st in all of college football rankings and their defensive points was 32nd in all of college football rankings for the 2019 season.  If you are wondering, the record for most points scored per game was set by Army in 1944.  The record that they set was 56 points per game.  The record for least amount of points per game for defense was tied for 0.8 points per game by Duke in 1938 and Villanova in 1937.  Of course, the stats by these teams from the 1930s and 1940s are impressive, but football was way different back then from what it is now.
Let's take a look at the size of the offensive linemen just to see how different the game is now compared to back then.  In the 1930s, the average weight of an offensive lineman was 220 pounds with a height of 6-foot-1.  In the 1940s, the only difference is that the average offensive lineman weighed 221 pounds.  In today's college football, the average offensive lineman is 6-foot-4.3 and weighs 305.4 pounds.  Just by looking at these size differences in just the offensive linemen, we can see that the game has definitely changed just by size of the players.  If any of the football teams from the 1930s and 1940s were to play today's football teams, they would get slaughtered.  This in turn shows that to comparing LSU's 2019 season to average team stats ranked from the greatest stats ever, it won't be a good comparison because a lot of the best stats are ridiculous ones from the 1930s and 1940s.

Strength of Schedule

In today's world of college football, the teams are mainly ranked now by the College Football Playoff Committee.  They take heavily on the rankings on who did each team beat.  LSU in the 2019 season was able to beat ranked teams like (with their rankings at the time) Texas 9, Florida 7, Auburn 9, Alabama 3, Georgia 4, Oklahoma 4, and Clemson 3.  Those teams' current rankings are now Florida 9, Auburn 12, Alabama 13, Georgia 5, Oklahoma 4, and Clemson 3 (Texas is no longer ranked).  LSU was able to beat 7 teams that were ranked in the top 10 when they matched them up during the season.  But in reality, they were able to beat 6 teams that are currently ranked and 3 of them are in the top 5.  When you take into account of when it was this first set of ranked teams that included Texas, LSU beat them all by an average of 15.4 points together.  When LSU played Georgia, Oklahoma, and Clemson, who are ranked in the top 5 now, LSU beat them by an average of 26.3 points.  Whenever the conversation about LSU playing well against good teams, they on average would beat them by a little more than 2 touchdowns each.

What if LSU played a former greatest of the greats?

ESPN recently released a list of the 150 greatest college football teams ever since this season was the 150th season.  Their list put 1971's Nebraska as #1.  That year, Nebraska did beat the ranked number 2, 3, and 4 teams of that season.  You can say that that Nebraska team does have a good argument of being the best team because they had a dominant season against good teams.  You can see the rest of the ranks from this link.  Remember what I said earlier that size can be the difference here.  In the 1970s, the average weight and height of an offensive lineman was 255 pounds and 6-foot-3.  I said earlier as well that the average size of an offensive lineman now weighs 305.4 pounds and is 6-foot-4.3.  LSU's offensive line for this season was 6-foot-4.4 and 323.4 pounds.  When it comes to a size difference this big, I would definitely take LSU over Nebraska here.  I emphasize the offensive linemen because they are the most important part of the offense.  They help block for the running backs and give the quarterback the time he needs to make a play.  To win a game, you need to score points.  Without a good offensive line, it will be very hard to score any points on offense.  Of course special teams and defense could make some points here and there.  But, most of the points are scored by the offense.
Just watch the plays that even the offenses made for the Super Bowl contenders Chiefs and 49ers did last Sunday.  Their offenses were able to score because of the blocking orchestrated by the offensive line.  Look at these run plays by the 49ers against the Packers.

Watch this TD for the Chiefs from last Sunday.  Watch how the offensive line works to block for the quarterback.  One of the linemen pancakes a guy!

Whenever you watch any more football games, just watch how well the offensive line battles to get the offense working.  Therefore, the size of LSU's offensive line will determine how badly they will beat Nebraska's 1971 team.  Because of LSU's resume of beating a ton of highly ranked teams and beating some of them by a lot, it is a good argument that this team could be the greatest college football team ever.  They went 15-0 which makes it more solidified because the College Football Playoff kind of confirms how well these National Champions are because they have more chances to beat the best teams.

What about Joe Burrow?

Joe Burrow probably had the best season that I've ever seen by a quarterback.  I mean he put up some big stats.  He made a new record of 60 passing touchdowns for the season and a new record of total touchdowns which he made 65 of.  He also threw 5,671 yards which is 3rd all-time.  He also had a 15-0 record and won the National Championship.  I heard on ESPN radio from Jim Rome and on Sportscenter from Kirk Herbstreit that he is probably the best college football quarterback that they've ever seen.  I mean, he probably had the best season ever, but the best college football quarterback ever?  Let's look at some stats from former quarterbacks.

The winningest quarterback for college is Kellen Moore who had an impressive 50-3 record.  Did he do well in the NFL? Nope.  He became an assistant on the Cowboys staff.  The quarterback with the most touchdowns responsible for is Case Keenum with 178.  What is he doing now? Starting a very mediocre Redskins team that finished 3-13 in 2019.  There are 3 QBs that I remember that have won the National Championship multiple times.  Tommie Frazier for Nebraska, A.J. McCarron for Alabama, and Tim Tebow.  How is Tommie Frazier? He never played in the NFL.  What about A.J. McCarron?  He's Deshaun Watson's backup on the Houston Texans.  How about Tim Tebow?  He just got married and is a commentator on SEC Nation but only had one year of excitement in the NFL.  What I'm saying is that Joe Burrow had probably the best season ever.  But, I think it will solidify him even more depending on how well he does in the NFL.  If he does well, he can be considered one of the greatest ever.  Just imagine if he was playing with LSU his whole career as the starter?  It would have boosted his career stats better instead of most of them being from this last season.  He was a graduate transfer to LSU.  

Feleipe Franks from Florida is a graduate transfer to Arkansas.  He was the starter for the Florida Gators.  Cross my fingers that he repeats Joe Burrow's season with Arkansas.  Woo pig!

Football Season is Nearly at an End

Man what an end to the college football season.  It has been awhile since I have posted anything about football because of holidays and I've felt....lazy.  But, the college football season is over and now I can tally my results of predictions for the season.  On my earlier post called "Bowl Games and NFL Games", I made predictions for all of the bowl games for this season.  Now that the National Championship is over, I can give my full tallies now.  For bowl season, I went 29-11 which is 72.5% correct for my predictions.  I think that I was doing pretty good since most of these games seemed to be evenly matched.  So, that means that my season total got to 89-23 which is 79.5% correct for all predictions that I've done on the season.  I think that is pretty good so far for my first try.  I hope to be able to improve that for next season.

Now, NFL season is still going on and it is just getting really hot with these games now.  I was just shocked as anyone by seeing the Titans in the AFC Championship! They beat the Patriots at home (which I loved so much!) and then they embarrassed the Ravens at home as well!  My favorite meme that I've seen so far from this impressive run by the Titans was:

I am just wondering if this can continue for the Titans when they play the Chiefs in Arrowhead this Sunday.  And talk about the Chiefs game!  When I saw that the Chiefs were down 24-0 to the Texans, I just thought that it was over.  But then after that, they went on a 51-7 point run and then they broke a lot of records.  I've heard that the Chiefs staff ran out of fireworks during the game because they scored so much.  The best post from this game was:

The guys that make these memes deserve a lot of money for this gold.  If you have been reading my posts so far, you may have noticed in an earlier post that I made a prediction for the Super Bowl back in Rivalry Week of College Football in November.  Don't laugh, but my prediction was Ravens vs. Seahawks.  Now, my prediction is poo doo.  So now what we have left in the playoffs is just Titans vs Chiefs and Packers vs. 49ers.  I'll try to not make early predictions for the NFL like that again because, it just makes me look like a fool.  I mean, these next images show the predictions for the seasons for the 49ers and the Titans from an "expert" on NFL Network.

I don't want to look like a fool like this guy looks now.  When you make predictions, you need enough statistical evidence to really make a good argument.  Make predictions in the very beginning of the season to prediction the whole season will just do this to you.  I always like to make predictions seeing what the FPI on ESPN shows because it is a computer program of all the information about the teams that makes 10,000 simulations of each match-up.  So the FPI can give good info on who might actually win.  Also use it on weekly predictions and not seasonal or you'll look like this fool.  

So, that means I'll make my NFL predictions for this week.  So far, my running total is 54-33 which is 62.1% correct.  Now my predictions are:

Titans vs. Chiefs.  Winner:  Chiefs

Packers vs. 49ers.  Winner:  49ers

The Super Bowl will be Chiefs vs. 49ers which is a Super Bowl that we've never had before.  The Chiefs haven't been to the Super Bowl in 50 years and the 49ers haven't been there in 7 years.  Even if this isn't the Super Bowl, we also have the Titans that haven't been to it in 20 years and the Packers haven't in 9 years.  We have a group of potential Super Bowl Champions that have not even been to the Super Bowl in a while.  This means that this will be the first Super Bowl that I am actually going to enjoy since Super Bowl 50 because it was Panthers vs. Broncos.  What I am saying is that the Patriots will not be in the Super Bowl which is so relieving.  This last image will explain what I mean after the Titans beat the Patriots in Wild Card Weekend.

Fantastic Beasts (2016): Jacob Kowalski Laugh after Newt Descends into H...

This is my reaction after seeing Chad Morris get fired.

The Force Part 3 (Nerd Post)

Here it is! Another nerd post about Star Wars and the Force.  If you haven't read my other posts about this series of parts about me talking of the Force, here are the links to The Force Part 1 and The Force Part 2.

If you aren't aware, I have recently seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  The last post about the Force which is The Force Part 2 with the link above had me talking about bringing ultimate balance to the Force and how Rey and Kylo Ren would do that.  I did enjoy the movie a lot, but there are perhaps some things that I would change that would make things make more sense. 

Spoiler Warning! You have been warned.

First of all, I would like to do an analysis on how ultimate balance has been brought to the Force from what we got from the movie.  Kylo Ren and Rey's force connection grows ever stronger in the movie.  It gets so strong that they could take or switch out physical objects to each other through space.  The movie mentions that their bond is now a "dyad in the Force."  A dyad means "two individuals (such as husband and wife) maintaining a sociologically significant relationship" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Basically this is saying that what they have would make them soulmates literally.  Near the end of the movie, Palpatine is able to suck some of the life force of their dyad bond since it is as powerful as life itself and hasn't been seen for thousands of generations.  To make this short of how the movie ends, Palpatine throws Kylo Ren into a pit, or Ben Solo because he's good at this point, Rey gets up and calls up all of the past Jedi to help her and then Rey is able to kill Palpatine when she pulls out Leia and Luke's lightsabers to deflect Palpatine's force lightning and he dies.  

Then Rey dies from the effort but Ben Solo comes out of the pit that he was thrown in and brings her back to life when he passes his life essence to her like was foreshadowed throughout the movie.  Since he had to use so much of his life essence to bring Rey back, he dies and becomes one with the Force.  Then the ending of the movie has Rey burying Leia and Luke's original lightsabers at the moisture farm in Tatooine where the whole saga started.  Rey shows that she has constructed a new lightsaber that is a yellow color and then she tells a random old woman near that she is Rey Skywalker after acknowledging Luke and Leia's force ghosts.  Then she looks out to the twin suns and then the movie ends.

From what the movie shows us, this is how I am interpreting how ultimate balance in the Force has been achieved.  For one, the Force was not balanced because of Palpatine and he had to be stopped.  So he was stopped and so there is not a clear light side is more than dark side or dark side is more than light side balance going on now.  Rey dies but is saved from Ben Solo passing his life essence to her.  Since she is alive now and was revived by all of Ben Solo's remaining life essence, it pretty much means that Rey and Ben Solo are physically one being now in Rey's body.  Rey is alive, but she is filled with Ben Solo's life essence.  So now Rey is literally the Ying and Yang dyad since she is the light side and Ben Solo was the dark side of the Ying and Yang.  Since Rey is like this, she balances between the light and dark side equally.  She also has dark side potentially since being Palpatine gives her those tendencies.  She has also been reading about the ways of the Jedi from the sacred jedi texts that Luke planned to burn in The Last Jedi.  From this movie, Wookiepedia reveals to us that the first Jedi of the Jedi Order were the Prime Jedi.  This following image was shown in The Last Jedi depicting the Prime Jedi.

This looks pretty similar to the Ying and Yang symbol.  The Prime Jedi were Jedi that believed in coexistence and having perfect balance between the light and dark sides of the Force.  Rey has been studying the teachings the these Prime Jedi because she has the old jedi texts from that time.  So even if we don't see it in the movie, it can be implied that off-screen she was learning from these books from the Prime Jedi to create balance.  I mean, Luke's first lesson with Rey in The Last Jedi was all about balancing between the light and dark side.  So Rey has been learning all she knows about the Force by Luke's teachings, the Prime Jedi's scriptures, and some training from Leia from what Leia remembers.  But Rey's first understanding of the Force is to have balance between the light and dark side of the Force.  That is probably how she learned how to Force Heal others by passing life essence because it is not a strictly light or dark side ability.  It is strictly an ability that one can have by being balanced in both the light and dark side of the Force.  That is probably why Anakin Skywalker couldn't really learn this power because he was either being swayed to the light or the dark side.  An besides, the Jedi Order at the time taught about no attachments and let the Force do its will on whether people die or not.  The Sith taught about selfishness and would definitely not teach anyway to use the Force by sacrificing yourself to save someone else.  So it was only by having balance that Rey was able to learn that ability.  Since she is now centered like that, it could explain why she has a yellow lightsaber.  

If you don't know, yellow is the opposite of the color purple.  The two colors that make purple are both blue and red.  So this could be implying that Rey is not entirely Jedi blue or Sith red but in between them instead.  Having Rey as a "Prime Jedi" now would mean if she starts another Jedi Order, she would teach about balance like when the Jedi Order was first made.  Maybe those books teach about how those past jedi fell to being all light side and how others went to the dark side.  Perhaps she will teach how to keep that balance to her future students so that there will never be another war between the Jedi and the Sith ever again to ultimately keep that ultimate balance.

I am about to wrap up, but his all ultimately goes back to Anakin Skywalker.  The prophecy mentions that through the Chosen One will ultimate balance come.  This doesn't say "by" the Chosen One but through him.  To me, Star Wars in the Skywalker Saga has been about to finally get that ultimate balance in the Force.  This meant in big shifts of being heavy on the light side or the dark side and making it shift until it is finally balanced.  Anakin Skywalker was integral in the Jedi Purge to bring down the light side since it was too heavy on that side and then killing Palpatine the first time to bring down the dark side to help even out the balance.  Then finally, Kylo Ren and Rey were the last punch to the Sith and the Force to finally bring the Force into ultimate balance.  With Anakin, all of that wouldn't have happened.  Anakin's two children Luke and Leia were Rey's teachers.  She wouldn't have grown in the Force without them and without Ben Solo's help in the balance.  So, through Anakin Skywalker, ultimate balance looks like has been brought to the Force.

Of course, this is just all that I am thinking and Disney and Lucasfilm may have different explanations.  In my opinion, I think I might've changed some things to make it better, but I'll talk about that another time.  Give me any comments and be sure to subscribe and following MathSportsGuy on facebook as well!