Which team will win the Super Bowl this at the conclusion of this season? This is a difficult question because only a few games have been played so far this season. Many people will exhibit a bias towards their favorite team, since every team is still in the running for the national title. The results also demonstrate a potential geographic bias- people are more likely to pick the team they live near and read about in the newspaper every day. In this situation, the ‘hometown’ teams are mainly Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. The survey asked high school students in Lebanon County who would win the Super Bowl.
ESPN.com has a power poll. This poll basically shows what teams are doing very well, what teams are very weak, and what teams fall in the middle of the pack. This power poll can help people see who is playing the best regardless of record. These listings are subjective because they are the opinions of analysts. The polls can also shift quickly because of injury and other issues. The record of the Patriots, for example, began at 2-0. However, their power poll rating dropped dramatically because of the season ending injury to Tom Brady. Likewise, teams that have a poor record currently can still find themselves high in the power poll ranks because they have the player talent and ability to keep up with the best teams. One such team would be the Chargers, who are relatively high in the rankings even after a poor 0-2 start. People know that they are better than their record was showing, so they still had respect even without a win under their belts.
The top five teams in the power poll this week are the Cowboys, Giants, Eagles, Titans, Steelers, respectively. These are the teams that are at the top of their game and have the ability to control any game. The Chargers are 9th even with their poor record. There are eight teams below them who have better records. This poll puts things in perspective because it shows what teams are expected to do well even with poor starts. When compared with the team’s record, this can be a great tool to pick who is going to continue to do well as the season goes on. The official NFL website (nfl.com) also is a great resource with many articles and tons of video footage of games and highlight reels. These allow people to see for themselves how good they think the teams actually are, instead of taking an ESPN commentators word for it.
With all of these things considered, I would expect the Eagles and Steelers to get numbers of picks to win the Super Bowl. I would also expect teams that got off to fast starts to be high on the list. These teams would include the Cowboys and the Packers. The Packers had a poor showing this past week, but during the first two weeks they were quite impressive. Because Lebanon is generally considered Eagles country, I would expect votes for the Cowboys to be lower than they would in many parts of the United States. The Eagles and Cowboys are rivals, so even if an Eagles fan knows the Cowboys are good and have a good shot at winning, they will be reluctant to pick them as winners because of the intense rivalry.
The results were relatively unsurprising. The Steelers, Eagles and Cowboys had the highest scores, with Green Bay, the Giants, and the Chargers scoring the next level of votes. The Steelers and the Eagles were fairly obviously going to be on top. Both teams are in state and are playing pretty well at the moment. Miami registered some votes even though they are not a great team. A large part of that is the thumping they gave to the Patriots this past week. The Steelers ended up with the highest number of votes, although a majority of their votes came before this past week’s loss to the Eagles. The Eagles were the second highest team, and a bunch of their votes came after beating the Steelers. Early on in the survey they were not receiving many votes, probably because of their devastating loss to the rival Cowboys. The Cowboys were third highest even though in many parts of the country they would have received the highest number of votes.
The Giants are the defending Super Bowl Champs, and they stand undefeated at this point so they received the next highest number of votes. The Packers got votes early after a great week by their new starting quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, but their votes dropped off after the loss last Sunday night against Dallas. They also had a star player get a serious injury, so if the survey were to be redone at this point I would anticipate an even larger drop off in votes. The Chargers got a decent amount of votes even with a poor record. They lost two close games that they should have won, including one game lost from an officiating controversy. Not many people are counting them out of the race yet, even with a poor start. The statistics would show that they are still a dangerous team that can win on any given Sunday. The Titans are the surprise of the year so far, standing undefeated at 3-0. Many people are still used to them being a shabby team, so their votes were low for an undefeated team. A big surprise to me was the absence of many votes towards the Colts. They were an incredibly talented team a few years ago, but now find themselves hard-pressed to capture a victory.
The results for this type of survey would change on a week to week basis, so it is difficult to clearly find the answer to the question. Because the survey was local, it is difficult to capture an unbiased vote. However, the question was addressed to high school students in Lebanon County, and the majority of the students seem to feel that the state teams are going to do quite well this year, along with the NFC East Division (the Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants are all a part of the NFC East). Could there be an interstate Super Bowl? We can only sit back and observe in order to see how accurate the votes were.