Super Bowl Predictions and Charts

It's super bowl week!  Our last real NFL game before the long dark time of the offseason.  We get one of the team's that before the season pretty much everyone expected to still be in the hunt at least, with the New England Patriots.  Tom Brady has somehow staved off father time for one more year, and despite the ongoing potential drama, the Pats still were able to roll over opponents by 162 total points.  The 2nd quarter is where they did most of they work, basically doubling up on their opponents then.

The other team up through week 14 was thought to be the easy favorite, but that was before the Eagles lost Carson Wentz to an ACL tear.  The Eagles though have been resilient,  and with Nick Foles leading them have been able to get past every challenge so far.  They also in a coincidence were +162 points this year, but they were much more explosive early in the season.

Can you spot when Carson Wentz went down?  That is what is driving the Eagles trend line down, otherwise they were much better than they have been.  Last week's explosion is a bit closer to what we should be expecting from that team, and it might be what we could see if this is Foles finding a rhythm in the Doug Pederson offense.  The Pats have had a little more up and down, but were more within their 95% confidence interval all season.  Slow and steady, they flipped the field consistently. 

The Pats Defense underwent probably the biggest swing from the start to the end of the year of any team.  There were still a lot of bumps but it solidified by consistent play (8th best by Footballoutsiders) and limiting deep passing plays (11th best DVOA against the pass, 11.6%).  The Eagles defense is based upon pressure,  and shutting down run games.  They gave up just 2.99 adjusted line yards this year, by far the best.

One of the biggest storylines in this games in the QB battle, Nick Foles vs Tom Brady.  It has not been a great year so far for Foles, and he looked very good against the Vikings last week.  But his completion percentage so far is still well below 60%, and he has not hit a ton of big plays.  But, he has keep the interceptions and sacks down to keep the offense on schedule.

Player	Completion Percentage	TD%	Int%	Yards per Attempt	Adjusted Yards Per Attempt	Yards per Completion	Net Yards Per Attempt	Adj. Net Yards Per Attempt	Sack%
Nick Foles	56.4	5	2	5.3	5.4	9.4	4.65	4.75	4.7
Tom Brady	66.3	5.5	1.4	7.9	8.4	11.9	7.1	7.56	5.7

Overall, I dont think the Eagles have any room for error.  The Jags played one of the best first halves of football they could, and a couple key mistakes let the Pats walk away in that game.  Both teams utilize a lot of tight ends passes and running backs swings, while both have good deep threats.  The Pats will be at a disadvantage though with Gronk still facing some lingering concussion issues, and the fact that Tom has been sacked quite a bit this year.  The Eagles run D though might be a little understaffed in Timmy Jernigan can't get over his illness.  Its going to be a close game I think, but the Pats pull it out with an average margin of 3.2, with a 63% chance to win.