So you want to win a Super Bowl?

Recent discussions have led me to do a *slightly* deeper dive into the Superbowl winning (and runner-up) teams over the last 20 years, as a way of looking at what approach to take in terms of building a winner, and whether that sort of success is really sustainable for more than a year or two.

Because it's a nice even 20 years, I figured I'd use the Pats first Superbowl win as a jumping-off point. Below are the Superbowl winners and runners-up, and their records the following year.

Of the 20 Superbowl winners, 8 missed the playoffs entirely next year, and 4 returned to the Superbowl. Of those 4 returning teams, 2 of them were led by Tom Brady, one of them by Patrick Mahomes, and one by Russell Wilson (important as all 3 were superstar QB's). Only one team repeated- the Brady-led pats (*insert walter white "you're goddamn right" gif*).

Of the 20 Superbowl losers, 9 missed the playoffs entirely the next year, and only 1 returned to the Superbowl- the Tom Brady led Pats (*refer to walter white "you're goddamn right" gif*). The Chiefs have a chance this year to be a rare team to lose the SB and then make it back and win it the next year. They also have Mahomes who, as much as it pains me to say it, is a generational difference-maker at the QB position.

Because we want to think realistically about the future chances of winning a SB, we'll take the Patriots- the most dominant dynasty in NFL history, and a period of success that will likely never be repeated- out of the picture, we have 14 SB winners and 17 SB losers. Of those 31 teams, 14 of them missed the playoffs the following year. So just under half of all SB teams MISSED the playoffs completely the following year. Out of the teams that *did* make it back to the playoffs, 10 lost in the divisional round, and only 3 made it back to the conference championship.

So what does it all mean?

Well, there are probably a lot more details that would need to be looked at in terms of the makeup of each team, their payroll and roster talent/depth, their competition, etc... to really come up with a definitive answer of any sort, but rather than go overboard, and because I dont want to spend the time to go through all of that, I'll simply leave my analysis to a general perception of whats going on.

For the most part, getting to the superbowl is an irregular thing. If it weren't for the Patriots, there would only be 4 teams: the Bucs, Giants, Eagles, Steelers, who have won multiple superbowls in the last 2 decades. 7 teams got to the big game only once: the Raiders, Bears, Cardinals, Ravens, Packers, Falcons, and Bengals all only had 1 shot and only the packers pulled it off. That is despite the packers having (again, as much as it pains me to say it) an all-time great QB leading the team. To their credit though, the Packers have been one of the winningest franchises in the league for the better part of the last 20 years, so its not like they're a flash in the pan single season team.

Which brings me to the next point: *how* can a team build a superbowl winner? What does it take to be a "perennial contender"? First, I think it bears repeating again that no team can do what the Patriots did and sustain that level of success for as long as the Patriots did it. The combination of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Again, even taking out the pats record, no team won more than 2 superbowls in 20 years, no team repeated as champs, and hardly any team even played in back to back superbowls. Now, we could of course expand the data to look at how many teams were consistently in the playoffs each year, and in theory having a chance once you get to the playoffs is better than not making the playoffs at all, but again, look at how many superbowl teams DIDNT make the playoffs the following year anyway- almost half.

With that said, the teams that have come closest to sustaining excellence? Teams that have insanely talented QB's: The Rodgers', Mahomes', Mannings, and Brees' of the world. Throw in Big Ben and Russell Wilson for good measure since they actually played at an elite level for two teams that were as close to any as consistent contenders. Now of course it's not ALL about the QB- any team that is going to be successful has to have the complete package of good coaching, a strong overall roster, quality depth, and maybe most importantly, good injury luck throughout the year, but there's no question that having a true difference-maker at the most important position in sports is, well, just that- a difference maker. Tom Brady was the ultimate difference maker and allowed the Patriots to spend money on having perhaps the deepest roster in the league in terms of the gap between the "starters" and the "next men up". Mahomes is seemingly doing that now with the supporting cast he's working with outside of Travis Kelce. An elite QB can also go out and "win you the game" in those win-or-go-home situations in a way that no other component of team building can. Having a quality swing tackle doesn't help you when you have to go 80 yards with no timeouts and 90 seconds left on the clock. But having Brady, Manning, Brees, Rodgers, or Mahomes might.

So what then do we make of the teams that "sold out" to try to win a ring? The rams have mortgaged the future but they got their ring in 2021. The Bucs sort of did the same and got their ring in 2020. Now the future for both those teams is pretty bleak. But are they really going to be that much worse off than any other teams when we really think about the bottom line of winning superbowls? Things fell apart for the falcons too after their SB loss. The Seahawks Legion of Boom dynasty was over before it began. The Giants, despite winning two superbowls, were really more just teams on a hot streak than a team built to contend year in/year out (and their wins were 4 years apart also). The Steelers are consistently good enough to be fighting for a 4th-6th seed in the playoffs but haven't been able to get back to the SB in over a decade. The Ravens, for all the talk about how great they are at drafting and team building, and despite having a league MVP at QB, have still not made it to the SB since they won 10 years ago. The Broncos are currently bottom dwellers after their supernova-like burst of competitiveness in the twilight of Peyton Manning's career. We've seen the 49ers look like contenders for the past few years but they've lacked two things: good health and a QB that can win them the games that matter most. SF might have the most Superbowl ready roster (and coaching staff/system) of any team in the league, and yet they still haven't found a way to win one.

How then do we apply this to the Patriots and their short and long-term prospects for getting back to the Superbowl? I think it's simple. You try to build the most complete roster you can, and if you don't have a generational talent at QB who can make up for any number of smaller deficiencies around the roster, then you have to bring in top-level talent at key positions and try to make a run. Of course, it's possible to win a Superbowl without a future HOFer at QB, but I don't think you can do that if you don't have true elite talent around the QB. The approach the Patriots used for 20 years, of having insane depth and never overpaying for the most talented guys was really something not sustainable without the Tom Brady lynchpin to hold it all together. That doesn't mean the team should go fully the Rams or Bucs route and just blow up the future, but I think the evidence suggests that you're better off "going big or going home" rather than being a perennial contender who never actually contends. 

The TL;DR version of this is to say that unless you have Tom Brady and BB at the head of your franchise if you want to win Superbowls, you have to look at every year as a "maximize your window" year. Yes, you can build for the long term, but there is no such thing as "long term" in the NFL anymore when it comes to competing for Superbowls.