The madness of the 2021 season continues to the Super Bowl, and we are about to witness the final showdown between the four seeds of two leagues for the first time in history.
Last February, the bookmaker gave the Tigers 25/1 odds to win the North and 150/1 to win the Super Bowl, and when they entered the playoffs this year, the Tigers had not won a single playoff in 31 years, and the team's history had never won a playoff away. However, they just beat the League top Titans and Super Bowl hot chiefs back-to-back on the road.
The Rams, on the other hand, participate in the Super Bowl twice every four years. They pressed the reset button at quarterback a little over a year ago, and they sent Jerry Gough to the Lions, from which they exchanged Matthew Stafford, who had played for the Lions for 12 seasons, never topped the North, and lost 0-3 in the playoffs.
After completing the league's defensive feat of number one last season, the Rams lost John Johnson III and Troy Hill and replaced the departing Brandon Starley with Rahim Morris.
After a strong start, a losing streak in mid-season, and a "we studded" tweet in the middle of the season, the Rams traded for von Miller and signed Odell Beckham Jr., stealing the West championship from the Cardinals. They then became the first team in history to win the DivisionAl Civil War twice in the playoffs and bid farewell to Brady in the Divisional Rounds.
In this article, I want to explore how the Tigers and Rams came to the Super Bowl.
Imperfect teams topped the list in imperfect leagues
One of the biggest features of the league this season is that there is no single team. Judging by the odds given by the bookmakers, the odds for each team to win the Super Bowl are average and quite high.
As you can see in the image below, the road to the Super Bowl has its ups and downs, but in the end, the Tigers and Rams were able to win the chance to travel to the SoFi Stadium for the Super Bowl:
In a season without elite teams, the Rams' "all-in" investment could have a higher return than usual. In the NFL, their team's victory contribution ranks second in the league, behind the Pirates, however the playoffs are better than the Pirates.
Cooper Karp, Aaron Donald and Jaylen Ramsey are all the players with the highest victory contributions in their respective positions, with three superstars, and Sean McVeigh's team is difficult to beat.
In the quarterback position, Stafford completed his best season of his career so far and the league's fifth-highest victory contribution:
On the other hand, the Ravens' massive injuries and Brown's unexpected slump have benefited the Tigers, and the first round of the playoffs has won the raiders who have advanced to the playoffs. The Titans then returned Derrick Henry, who had not recovered from injury, to the field and completed nine tackles in a single game, but the Tigers intercepted Ryan Tanesir three times, and rookie kicker Evan McPherson became the hero of the killer.
In the American League final, the Tigers let the Chiefs attack in the first half, thanks to the second half to defend Mahoms. While Joe Burrow and the offensive group couldn't replicate the highlights of Week 17, it was enough to stop the Chiefs' Three-Game League.
Both teams pass and defend against passing
Despite the nuances of rugby, the game usually boils down to a few principles – you have to be able to pass the ball efficiently and guard against it.
Both teams have done a good job of this, but the Tigers have performed slightly worse – Burrow can always blast big yards in the third gear:
Judging from the efficiency of each gear, the road attack of both teams is not very good. Coincidentally, both teams almost lost the game in the federation final because they deliberately wanted to "enter the game on the road", because every attempt to rush the ball was equivalent to helping the opponent:
The Tigers are trying to get their money off after giving Joe Mixon a big enough contract before the start of the 2020 season. Mixon is doing what he can, and he leads the league in the number of road yards that are not perfectly covered: 742 yards.
Meanwhile, the Rams picked out running back Cam Ax in the second round in 2020, and although an Achilles tendon injury left him missing most of the regular season, he returned at the speed of light in week 18. Still, he averaged just 2.6 yards this year.
In the Super Bowl, if the two teams invest too much energy on the road, I am afraid that they will suffer losses.
On the defensive end, the Rams are clearly better at defending than the Tigers, especially in the early stages:
Note that despite the Tigers' poor defense in the first gear, their defense pass in the first gear is not bad, and both teams are in the league's top ten in the first gear:
The two teams defended passes in two different ways, at least in terms of staffing. The Rams spent a lot of draft signings and renewed Ramsey with a big contract, and Ramsey was indeed worth the money. The Tigers also spend a lot of money on the diagonal position, and although Trae Wiens (the highest salary share of the Tigers this season) does not contribute much, from the playoffs, the overall effect of the Tigers' defense pass is quite good.
KPI data
Throughout the year we've been tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) for offense, defense, and special agents across all teams, trying to find the core information in them.
The Rams got it right on a lot of things. During the regular season they are:
The average pass depth is the first in the league
Fraud tactics or looks like the second highest fraud-paired usage rate in the league
The third highest use of reversing passes in the league
Hide or change defensive rates before and after kickoffs are the highest in the league
Lightweight box usage is the highest in the league when defending in the first gear
The Rams are extremely good at hiding defensive intentions in double positions before kickoffs and then changing defensive patterns after kickoff.
When the opposing side has no defensive intentions to hide, Joe Burrow is the second-highest-scoring quarterback in this season's (including playoffs) PFF rating league in this type of pass. Brady, who beat the Rams in the division, was the highest-scoring league member. Keller Murray, who beat the Wild Card Battle Rams, was the third highest on this rating.
But Burrow's PFF pass rating was as high as 91.2 when he changed his form after facing the kickoff, the highest in the league, so it would be very interesting whether the Rams defense should hide and change against Boro.
On the other hand, the Tigers are in the top five in one KPI, namely:
Raid usage is the third lowest in the league
Despite the difficult road, the Tigers managed to beat the United States. Their opponent is Sean McVeigh, who has made mistakes in managing suspensions and four-stop selections, can he do the right thing in the final game of the season?
From the edge to the Super Bowl
At some point in the season, the Tigers and Rams' chances of winning divisions — let alone moving into the Super Bowl — are on the verge of being fairly marginal. Week 14, for example, the Cardinals had more than 95 percent chances of winning the National West.
The Rams won a crucial victory in a direct encounter in Arizona, followed by the success of the "most familiar stranger" Gough and the Lions to block the Cardinals, which prevented the Cardinals from winning again after 2015, and the loss of the Rams Cardinals in the late week of the regular season allowed the Rams to lock in the West and also allowed the two teams to meet in a wild card battle.
The Tigers, which swept the Ravens and Steelers this season, lost at home to Brown and then to Mike White-led jets, putting them in third place in the North before week 10:
After a strong rebound, the Tigers lost consecutively to the Lightning and the 49ers, and fell back to third in the division before week 15:
Aside from a pointless loss to Brown in the late week of the season, the Tigers have never tasted a loss again, their first North Title since 2015.
While the road to the playoffs for both teams is bumpy, there are times when the playoffs are more dangerous. Toward the end of the third quarter of the National League Championship, the Rams trailed 7-17 with a 20% chance of victory, and the fourth quarter defensive and Cooper Karp's brilliant performances allowed the Rams to advance into the Super Bowl, avoiding seven consecutive losses to the 49ers led by Shanahan Jr.
The Tigers were in a much tougher position, with less than five minutes left in the first half of the American League Finals when they trailed by a 3-21 deficit when their chances of winning were only 7.8 percent. Samaget Pilain's short-passing touchdown stabilized the hearts of the army, and then the Tigers conceded only three points, and the Tigers reversed the Chiefs 27-24 in overtime to return to the Super Bowl after 33 years.
What happens on Sunday
At this point, it's reasonable to expect anything to happen. After the finals of the federation, the Rams opened with 3.5 to 4 points, and although the advantage of the time period in the middle reached 4.5 points, this number has basically stabilized at the Rams to make 4 points.
The biggest offensive-defensive mismatch in this game is also a remake of last year's Super Bowl, the Chiefs are powerless to stop the pirates from rushing, just as the Tigers' poor offensive front line also has to face the impact of Donald, von Miller and Leonard Floyd.
The last time the market was so disparity was when the Hawks fought back against the Patriots in Minneapolis with 4.5 points. Although the Tigers also received a 4.5 point at one point, they soon fell back to 4 points. So you're betting on the Tigers' "dog counterattack," and you need to consider that the Rams have multiple dominant players, and the Tigers' lineup is mediocre, especially the defensive group.
In my opinion, the only thing that could stop the Rams from winning the second Super Bowl in franchise history — and the first in Los Angeles — could be mcVeigh making a mistake similar to the National League Final, forcing the first gear to walk, and wasting a timeout and a haphazard four-stop.