Fantasy Index

Factoid

Top-10 Defenses in Super Bowls

Matchups often feature more points than expected

New England and Seattle both ranked in the top 10 in terms of points allowed last season. Seattle allowed a league-low 15.9 points per game, while New England gave up 19.6 (8th-best). Given that, you might expect a low-scoring defensive struggle in the Super Bowl. And while that's possible, it's not as certain as you might expect.

Over the last 20 years, there have been 11 Super Bowls where both teams ranked in the top-10 in scoring defense. Although five of those games have been fairly low scoring, more than half (six) have not only been high-scoring, they've been six of the eight highest-scoring Super Bowls in that timeframe.

Only two of the 11 matchups of top-10 scoring defenses in the last 20 years have been below-average in terms of total points. Each of those games, at least, featured one of the two teams playing in this game: New England vs. St. Louis back in 2001 (37 total points) and Seattle vs. Pittsburgh in 2005 (31 total points). Three of the games featured average-types of totals (41-45 points between the teams), but the other six all featured at least 53 total points.

Maybe that's why the over-under for this game is a little bit higher than you might expect (48-49 points).

The Super Bowl results over the past 20 years, sorted by fewest total points, are presented below. Matchups of defenses ranked in the top 10 in points allowed are in bold.

TOTAL POINTS IN SUPER BOWLS, 1994-PRESENT
YearAFCRkNFCRkFinalPts
2014N.E.8Seattle1??
2007N.E.4NY Giants17NY Giants 17, New England 1431
2005Pittsburgh3Seattle7Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 1031
2001N.E.6St. Louis7New England 20, St. Louis 1737
2011N.E.15NY Giants25NY Giants 21, New England 1738
1999Tennessee15St. Louis4St. Louis 23, Tennessee 1639
2000Baltimore1NY Giants5Baltimore 34, NY Giants 741
1995Pittsburgh9Dallas3Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 1744
2004N.E.2Philadelphia2New England 24, Philadelphia 2145
2006Indianapolis23Chicago6Indianapolis 29, Chicago 1746
2009Indianapolis8New Orleans20New Orleans 31, Indianapolis 1748
2008Pittsburgh1Arizona28Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 2350
2013Denver22Seattle1Seattle 43, Denver 851
1998Denver8Atlanta4Denver 34, Atlanta 1953
1997Denver6Green Bay5Denver 31, Green Bay 2455
2010Pittsburgh1Green Bay2Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 2556
1996N.E.14Green Bay1Green Bay 35, New England 2156
2003N.E.1Carolina10New England 32, Carolina 2961
2012Baltimore13San Francisco2Baltimore 34, San Francisco 3165
2002Oakland6Tampa Bay1Tampa Bay 48, Oakland 2169
1994San Diego9San Francisco6San Francisco 49, San Diego 2675

--Andy Richardson

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