Team Name as Predictor of Super Bowl Victory

The author posits that the type of name taken by a professional football team indicates chances of success in the Super Bowl. Based on a highly scientific and empirical methodology, the author demonstrates naming a football team for an animal limits opportunity to win an NFL title.

Introduction

Team nicknames have always been of interest to the author.

In football, fans root for teams with names such as "The Bears," "The Giants," or "The Raiders." In baseball, a much more genteel sport, there are names such as "The Cubs," "The Red/White Sox," or "The Twins." The NBA and NHL have an entirely different taxonomy with such nicknames as "Wild," "Magic," and "Avalanche."

Sometimes the nickname tells us about who the team is or where they're from - "The Patriots" - sometimes they don't - "The Raiders." In that regard, I'm not sure the Raiders know where they're from, is it Oakland or Los Angeles?

Methodology

At any rate there seems to be two broad areas from which football teams take their names - People/Professions and Animals. There is a smaller set of "other," but since I'm interpreting the first two categories rather broadly, there is only one member of that group - The Jets - and as such we could give that the grouping of "Machines."

For sure there are some problems with this overly broad categories: "Steelers" aren't exactly people nor profession - although the name does harken back to Pittsburgh's history as a steel making city and "Steeler" could best be related to the steel worker profession; there are more than one kind of animal represented - certainly the only thing that links a "Falcon" with a "Bear" is the fact they are animals, not humans. To become more specific invites issues, too.

There was a struggle to categorize the San Diego Chargers - initially classified as "people," however upon outside suggestion, it was suggested that a Charger was a medieval war horse. Upon review of the possible meanings of the name, and the team logo, it was determined "animal" the best possible classification.

We could break down the "People" category into "People" and "Profession," but what of "Giants" or "Vikings?" Is "Viking" a profession or an ethnic attribute? Creating a taxonomy for the "animal" teams becomes even more complicated.

Since the People/Animal/Other system results in roughly the same number in each category: 17 people/professions, 14 animals (1 other) it seems logical.

Broken down by conference, the numbers are roughly equal as well: 9 AFC People/8 NFC People; 6 AFC Animals,/8 NFC Animals. Good enough. Let's work with that. This is important because the Super Bowl matches up the AFC and NFC Champions, so it's important that there be a roughly equivalent number of each type such that there be a roughly equivalent opportunity for teams with names of each type to be able to advance.

So who has the edge in Super Bowl Matchups?

Of the 41 games already played the match ups look like this:

23 Animal vs. Person
15 Person vs. Person
2 Animal vs. Animal
1 Animal vs. Other

Of the 23 Animal vs. Person Super Bowl Matchups, 16 times the team named for people or a profession prevailed over the animal kingdom (for a .695 winning percentage); 7 times the animals prevailed.

The one time a team named for something other than either a person or an animal - the 1969 match up of the Jets and Colts, the machine defeated the animal.

CONCLUSION

From this we can conclude nothing - afterall, is there REALLY anyone going to argue that the nickname by which a team goes has any bearing on how well that team plays or that a correlation is anything other than a measure of strength between variables - BUT IF WE WERE to draw conclusions, we could say that naming your team after an animal is a bad idea.

Of the 84 possible slots in Super Bowl history (including Super Bowl XLII), only 28 have been taken by "animals" and only 9 times has the animal won. Super Bowl XLII matches up two teams under the "people" category.

Therefore the chances of a Super Bowl victory for teams nicknamed for animals must not be particularly good.

More investigation needs to be done on regular season match ups and overall records of these teams to determine if the lack of animal representation in the Super Bowl is statistically significant.

Background Information
The team name breakdown is as follows

People/Profession:

Patriots

Bills *

Steelers

Browns

Titans

Texans

49ers

Chiefs

Raiders

Cowboys

Giants

Redskins

Packers

Vikings

Buccaneers

Saints *

Animals:

Dolphins

Bengals

Colts

Jaguars

Broncos

Eagles

Lions

Bears

Panthers

Falcons

Seahawks

Cardinals

Rams

Chargers

Ravens

Other:

Jets

* It's not entirely clear that these two teams should be categorized in this fashion although, my rationale is that "Buffalo Bill Cody" was a person and the Bills seem to be playing off that person's name; and that Saints would have had to have had some earthly, human incarnation at some point. If pushed, this data could be reanalyzed re-categorizing these teams as "other."

There are 15 teams that have never won a Super Bowl: 6 teams named for people; 9 named for animals.

There are 6 teams that have never played in a Super Bowl: 3 of each.