The first game played between the American Football League and National Football League wasn’t sold out. In 1967, everyone in Los Angeles covering or playing in the game was making their first appearance at the championship game between the two leagues which four years later would pick up the Super Bowl designation.
In the second Super Bowl played, to complete the 1967 season, the Green Bay Packers had returned and after beating the Kansas City Chiefs the prior year they downed the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II. That game started a strong trend that a team with experience, that had participated in a prior Super Bowl, had an advantage over a team making their initial appearance in the Roman Numeral matchup.
There had been four experienced teams that beat first timers before the Pittsburgh Steelers broke that trend in Super Bowl IX. Terry Bradshaw and company downed the Minnesota Vikings, 16-6, while making their first Super Bowl appearance and pinning the Vikings with their third loss in the NFL’s biggest game.
In all, 18 times the game has featured one team making their initial trip to the contest against an opponent who had Super Bowl experience. Fourteen times the experienced team won, the only four exceptions were that win by Pittsburgh to complete the 1974 season, a victory by the New York Giants over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI, the first time participant Tampa Bay Buccaneers downed the Oakland Raiders to complete the 2002 season and head coach Sean Payton had led the New Orleans Saints into their first Super Bowl when they beat the Indianapolis Colts to complete the 2009 season.
Experience over first-time participants by a 14 to 4 margin. For the record, in those same 18 games with an experience factor the team that had played in a prior Super Bowl was 12 and 6 against the point spread.
This week, when the Chiefs host the Eagles, we have two experienced teams going at each other. The Eagles are making their fifth Super Bowl appearance, the Chiefs their sixth. Both teams have had success in recent seasons and met in this game two years ago which resulted in a narrow Chiefs win in Super Bowl LVII.
If both are experienced, then I would be looking for a revenge factor to push the motivational juices for one of the combatants. That would seem to favor the Eagles, who having lost to Patrick Mahomes and company two years ago would have an edge to even the score.
But, to rely on that measure, we would have to discount what happened last year. In a similar situation. The Chiefs had beaten the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV and now returned four years later looking for a second win over the Kyle Shanahan coached Niners. They got it, again in a game that ended in true Kansas City fashion, close.
So, we know the Chiefs are capable of multiple wins over their opponents and that both teams participating in New Orleans on Sunday are experienced Super Bowl squads. Is there any element of the Super Bowl LIX matchup that can tip the scale.
Well, there is this. In the Chiefs victory last year over a San Francisco team that they had beaten in a Super Bowl just four years earlier the 49ers were favored to get the revenge. The Chiefs were also underdogs to the Eagles two years ago, and won, now they are favored to pin Philadelphia with a second Super Bowl loss in the span of three seasons.
An underdog looking for revenge is a much more consistent winner than a team giving points and favored to get their revenge. A revenge factor is much stronger when the team looking to turn the tables isn’t favored to get it done.
I know, it is just a one-point line on the game … but an underdog is an underdog and in this case worth a second look.