Super Bowl 50

Is the Super Bowl MVP strictly a fan vote?

 

I had the same thought on Stewart, but then found myself thinking that no RB has won it since Terrell Davis and seven of the last 10 MVPs have been QBs, even when they didn't deserve it.

 

The 1991 Redskins are a team everyone forgets for whatever reason (probably because they didn't have a transcendent QB and because they came right between the 49ers and Cowboys mini-dynasties). Nevertheless, they led the league in scoring, were second in fewest points allowed and set a record for point differential (16.3).

One of their losses was by 3 points to Dallas, and the other was by 2 at Philly in Week 17 when they were resting all their starters. They then won all three playoff games by double-digits.

 

Which corresponds directly to the letting fans into the vote, which I believe began in either Super Bowl XXXV or XXXVI.

 

I'm almost surprised there's no line for Kuechly scoring the first TD.

 

Add the 1983 Redskins to that group. They won the Super Bowl the year before in the strike season, where everyone played nine games. They got hot in the playoffs and routed Detroit, Minnesota and Dallas before beating Miami in the Super Bpowl.
The '83 team was 14-2, led the NFL in scoring with 541 points (33.8 per game), was +43 in turnovers and scored 30 or more points in 10 games. Their two losses were both by one point (and both on Monday night), to Dallas and the Packers. They beat LA 51-7 in the first round of the playoffs and led the 49ers 24-0 in the NFC championship and had to hold on to win 24-21. The 38-9 loss in the Super Bowl to the Raiders was one of the strange aberrations of the game's history.

 

The game has changed so much. The 86 Giants, a defensive team to be sure, but not as much as the '85 Bears, Simms went 9 for 19 in the Divisional Playoff and the Giants won 49-0 against the 49ers. Knocking Montana out, a K.O. And Simms went 7 for 14 in the NFC Championship game, shutting out the Redskins 17-0.

You don't get that anymore. As with the 91 Skins, if you don't have a HOF QB, the consensus is that you weren't a historic team.

 

Everybody seems to pick that Bears team as the best ever - I think someone needs to explain this? Do they have the most Hall of Famers? Do they have the most guys ever selected All Pro? Why is everyone so in love with what was really a fairly one-dimensional team.

Several of those 49ers teams from that era were better, at least two Steelers teams were better and the Jimmy Johnson Cowboys were better.

 

Better year in and year out over a span of seasons, Zag, but for one year, those Bears were awesome.

 

That wasn't a one-dimensional team at all. They finished second in the NFL in points and seventh in total offense (despite being third from the bottom in pass attempts). And they killed all the other good teams in the league.

 

PJs by Versace.

 

I could not pull off that look. Hell, I'm not ever sure he can pull it off. That's godawful.