So, I got to thinking about Super Bowl 51 the other day. You know, that wild game between the Patriots and the Falcons. The one with the massive comeback. I thought to myself, “I wonder what the actual numbers said, how it all unfolded statistically.” It wasn’t for any big project, just plain old curiosity, and maybe to settle a small argument I had with a pal of mine.
My buddy, see, he was going on about “game feel” and “championship DNA.” Me, I’m usually more of a “show me the data” kind of guy. So, I decided to dive in. First, I had to find the stats. Wasn’t too hard, a quick search and I pulled up the main box score stuff and some play-by-play summaries. We’re talking total yards, passing, rushing, turnovers, time of possession – the usual suspects.
I started by just looking at the first half. And boy, the Falcons’ numbers were pretty! Their offense was just clicking, moving the ball, scoring. It was all there in black and white. You could see why they were up 28-3. No arguments there. I jotted down some key figures, comparing them quarter by quarter.
Then I moved on to the second half, especially that fourth quarter and overtime. This is where I really wanted to see the shift. And yeah, you could see the Patriots’ offensive numbers climbing. More first downs for them, longer drives. And crucially, the Falcons’ offense just sort of… stalled. Fewer yards, punts. That big fumble by Atlanta – that was a huge data point, obviously. A clear turnover, stuck out like a sore thumb in the stats list.
But here’s the thing that got me thinking. It reminded me of this old shed I tried to clear out last spring. I went in there all methodical. Sorted tools into one pile, old paint cans into another, junk into a third. I made a plan. But then I hit this one corner, just a jumbled mess of wires, unknown objects, and stuff I couldn’t even identify. My neat plan kinda went out the window for that bit. I just had to wrestle with it, and it felt like it took forever, way longer than the organized parts.
Looking at those Super Bowl stats, especially the comeback part, felt a bit like that messy corner of the shed. The numbers told me what happened – New England scored, Atlanta didn’t. Penalties started to go against Atlanta. Time of possession swung massively. But the feel of that momentum shift, the psychology of one team collapsing while the other just caught fire, the stats alone didn’t quite paint the full picture for me. How do you quantify a team suddenly looking like they forgot how to play, or the other team looking like they couldn’t miss?
So, after spending a good bit of time with those numbers, I kind of concluded that stats are awesome, they tell you a lot, but they aren’t the whole shebang. Especially in a game with such a crazy emotional swing. My pal, with his talk about “game feel,” well, he wasn’t entirely off base. There’s just stuff that happens on the field, in the players’ heads, that doesn’t neatly fit into a box score column.
It was a pretty interesting exercise, though. I definitely got a better appreciation for how to read the flow of a game through its stats, but also a reminder that sometimes, the story is bigger than the numbers. I ended up telling my buddy, “Alright, the stats show when it turned, but the ‘why’ is still a bit of magic and a bit of a meltdown.” Still, it was fun to poke around in that data. Made me want to rewatch the game, actually, just to see it all again with those numbers in the back of my head.
