As we officially ready for the Super Bowl, a question popped up that felt worth digging into: how often does the best team actually win the Super Bowl?
It’s a debate that comes up every year, whether it’s about offseason winners, strength of schedule, or advanced analytics. Everyone has an opinion on who the best team is, but figuring out whether being the best actually leads to championships is much harder.
So I looked at the last 25 seasons using three different ways of defining the “best team”: regular season wins, DVOA leaders, and All-Pro selections. Each category measures something different, and each gives us a percentage that connects being the best team with actually winning it all.
The results were definitely surprising. And while there is never a perfect answer to a subjective question like this, the data gives us a strong framework for settling one of the NFL’s favorite bar debates.
Wins
The most obvious place to start is regular season wins. The team with the most wins each year is the top seed and, on paper, the favorite to win the Super Bowl.
Looking at the raw numbers, the team with the best regular season record has won the Super Bowl 7 times in the last 25 years. A 28% hit rate actually sounds pretty good, considering how many teams make the playoffs.
But there is an important wrinkle.
Five of those seven championships came in seasons where multiple teams shared the best record. In 2002, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2022, more than one team finished with the same top mark. In years like 2014, when five teams went 12-4, calling any single one of them “the best team” becomes pretty shaky.
If you only count seasons where one team clearly finished alone at the top, the number drops to just two championships in 25 years. Both were New England, in 2003 and 2016.
So depending on how strict you want to be, the success rate for the outright regular season best team ranges from 8% to 28%.
Either way, it is far lower than most people would expect.
DVOA
Before getting into the results, it helps to define what DVOA actually is.
DVOA stands for Defense Adjusted Value Over Average. It evaluates every single play in a season and adjusts for down, distance, opponent, and field position. It is one of the most comprehensive advanced metrics available for measuring true team performance.
In theory, this should be the gold standard for identifying the best team.
In reality, it has not worked out that way.
In the past 25 seasons, only three DVOA leaders went on to win the Super Bowl. That is a hit rate of just 12%. Even more interesting, the most recent team to pull it off was the 2013 Seahawks.
Despite being the best team by DVOA, Seattle was actually considered the underdog in that Super Bowl. They then went on to dominate Denver 43-8 in one of the most lopsided Super Bowls ever played.
When you consider how detailed DVOA is, it is surprising that more top teams have not converted that advantage into championships. For what it is worth, the Seahawks again lead the league in DVOA this season, so history could finally repeat itself.
AP All-Pro Players
After looking at team results and advanced metrics, the next logical step is star power.
Every year, the Associated Press selects All-Pro teams made up of the league’s best players at each position. For this analysis, only AP All-Pro selections were used, since Pro Bowl voting has become meaningless.
In the last 25 seasons, only three Super Bowl winners also led the league in total All-Pro selections. That number mirrors DVOA almost exactly.
Even more striking, four teams during this span had eight or more All-Pro players in a season. None of them won the Super Bowl.
The only team that finished alone at the top in All-Pro selections and won the Super Bowl was the 2016 Patriots. So, safe to say All-Pro nods aren’t a great predictor of champions.
So How Often Does the Best Team Win?
If you combine all three categories, there are 75 total chances for a “best team” to win the Super Bowl.
Only 13 of those 75 resulted in a championship.
That works out to just over 17%.
Even that number is generous. Many of those wins overlap across categories, and several came in years where multiple teams were eligible for “best team” status.
No matter how you slice it, being the best team during the regular season leads to a Super Bowl title less than one time in five.
In other words, the Super Bowl is not necessarily about who was best for four months. It is about who gets hot, healthy, and lucky at exactly the right time.
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