The Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams square off in this year’s Super Bowl this Sunday. While some schools near Cincinnati have cancelled classes for the following Monday, calling it a Snow-Dey, Cleveland Browns fans throughout the state of Ohio are left out in the cold.
For years, the AFC North has been considered a “ground and pound where defense matters” division. Narratives around cold weather, snow and the legacy of being “tough” lead to fans and media prioritizing rushing attacks and defense.
The statement “defense wins championships” has been echoed throughout the sport since Paul “Bear” Bryant uttered them all those years ago.
That may have been true for a long time but the NFL, as well as the NBA and MLB, have tried to do everything they can to incentivize offense over the last couple of decades. The real saying now should be “Offense sells tickets, gear and ad revenue.”
Due to the continual tweaking of the rules that almost always favor the offense, often under the guise of safety, it may no longer be true that “defense wins championships.” A look at Super Bowl participants since 2011 shows very clearly that almost always only great offenses make the big game:
where teams have ranked on offense and defense in the years that they made the super bowl
19 of the 22 teams had offenses in the top-10 pic.twitter.com/LDhIiNadJg
— Tej Seth (@tejfbanalytics) February 8, 2022
The tweet provides the context, 19 of the 22 teams were top ten in offense. Only 10 of the 22 teams were top ten in defense. In fact, four of those teams were not even in the top 20 in defense.
This year’s Bengals are the outlier as the only team to not be top 10 in either offense or defense but still make the Super Bowl. They join Seattle’s 2013 team and Denver’s 2015 team, both defensive juggernauts, as the three teams to make the championship game without a top-flight offense.
Ben Baldwin took the data a step further by focusing just on the passing game. Only two teams made the Super Bowl without a top 10 passing attack:
This one might be the most striking of all:
Here is the *passing* offense and defense rank of Super Bowl teams.
Look at how big the upper right cluster is! Pass the ball well and stop the pass pic.twitter.com/YU6SVdB8lo
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) February 8, 2022
Similar to the first chart, 11 teams made the Super Bowl despite not having a top 10 passing defense.
Based on the last 11 Super Bowls, offense wins conference championships and, more specifically, passing offense wins conference championships and gets teams to the Super Bowl. The Cleveland Browns may be taking notes.