I’m on a deadline here.

Next Wednesday I have to have completed all deliberation on what team is going to win Super Bowl LVII. Before that, on Tuesday, I will release our choices on team win totals. In most years, we win these season long bets because we have some good and fast methods to identify team direction.

In 1981, in his third professional season, Joe Montana led the San Francisco 49ers to a win in Super Bowl XVI. The next year, even though more than half the league entered a playoff round-robin based on an expanded playoff schedule, the 49ers missed the postseason. Originally scheduled for 16 games, the 57-day strike reduced the regular season in 1982 to nine games.

Teams with losing records, 4 wins and 5 losses, were allowed into this playoff free-for-all … but Montana and his Niners missed the postseason while earning only three wins.

The 49ers had a losing record in 1980, 6 wins and 10 losses, making the 49ers shifts from one season to the next extreme three years in a row. In 1981, the 49ers were able to win in a season in which they prepared with an underdog mentality based on recent results. It is a lot easier to succeed when a team’s play is spiked by a need to overcome, but once at the top of the mountain, a team as young as the 49ers were at the mercy of high expectations that far exceeded their maturity as a winning franchise. Success, particularly for a team not used to winning, often is followed by a down campaign.

Knowing the 49ers dipped in 1982 before developing into the best team in football, has no earning power remaining. But, the factors that drove the 49ers 1982 season can be found this year with the defending American Football Conference Champion Cincinnati Bengals.

So, even though we can no longer cash in on the 49ers dismal season following their Super Bowl win, we do have the opportunity of utilizing the same fundamentals to wager that the Cincinnati Bengals will have a bad 2022 following their breakthrough 2021 season.

In 2020, the Bengals were 4-11-1 and outscored on the season by a number that reached triple digits. Then they go to the Super Bowl and they have talent, particularly at the skill positions, to qualify as a legitimate prospect to again win the American Football Conference.

That is from a talent angle, while the motivational scale is way out of whack. The Bengals go from doormats to the Super Bowl. Their successful season last year was anchored by a solid underdog role that had them needing to play their best and still not be assured of a win mentality. Now, just like the 49ers in 1982, they are preparing for the upcoming season off success. The edge, the key ingredient in a performance above a player’s perceived talent level, is routinely accomplished when fear is a factor. When preparing for an upcoming season following a Super Bowl trip, a team is preparing for the season thinking they need to do again what they did last year.

Horrible motivation.

Few things are more deliberating to a team’s performance than thinking what they need to do is what they already did. What rules a game day is the mindset that says one needs to do everything they can to even hope to succeed. Teams with seemingly more vulnerabilities are the exact squads that will succeed week after week based on motivational factors.

Yep, I’m on a deadline, and I know this, when we release our season win totals next Tuesday among the recommendations will be the Bengals going under 10 wins this season.