By Super system analysis, this one bears watching
You may be betting on the coin toss, or beer vs. car vs. movie vs. computer for the first commercial, or whether Prince goes with the old school buttless chaps, but John Dewan will not be joining you.
"Nope," the South Side native said. "I don't make any wagers."
But ...
"If I were a betting man, I would bet on the Bears," he said.
That is not the Englewood in the 52-year-old Dewan's blood talking. That is the actuary.
Actually, it's the chatter of a stats guru sprung from the actuary, sprung from the kid who was known as "Bowie Dewan" while presiding as commissioner (like the big leagues' Bowie Kuhn) over his front-porch Strat-O-Matic league.
That kid eventually stumbled across a guy named Bill James, joining him in a project that ultimately revolutionized statistics tracking in baseball. After serving as executive director of James' Project Scoresheet and later as president and CEO of STATS, Inc., Dewan founded Baseball Info Solutions, the gold standard for numbers-crunching in the national pastime.
Oh, and along the way, he came up with a system for picking the Super Bowl.
"It was done for fun," Dewan said. "Just to see if we could come up with a system that could do it. It's working pretty good."
Pretty good? The system Dewan and former STATS, Inc. colleague Jim Hensler came up with has picked the winner in 14 of the last 16 Super Bowls.
A word of warning:
"I don't rule out that there's a huge luck element and we got lucky for that time frame," Dewan said.
That said, Dewan's system compares Super Bowl opponents in 12 statistical categories. The team that is superior in each stat individually wins at least 55 percent of the time. The team that is superior in the majority of those stats has won the aforementioned 14 of the last 16.
The Bears take nine of Dewan's factors, the Colts two, and the teams tie in one. The last eight predictors, all of which alone have at least a 60 percent rate of picking winners, go to the Bears.
We're not talking about arcane numbers understood only by those who can operate a slide rule and an abacus while simultaneously writing SQL database queries. Dewan's system is based on, among other equally uncomplicated numbers, points allowed, regular-season record, opponent total yards per game and turnover differential.
"We tried to keep the system as simple as possible," Dewan said. "It's 12 very common, everyday stats that people know."
Which isn't to say there are no surprises.
"The one that was the most interesting to us was the stat passing yardage -- offensive passing yardage -- was an inverse predictor," Dewan said. "It's the fewer passing yards you have during the course of the season indicates more likelihood to win the Super Bowl. It comes down to the team that relies less on the passing game is the team that wins the Super Bowl more often."
Dewan being a numbers man, he even keeps stats on his stats. For example, in past Super Bowls where teams won nine of his 12 predictors, those teams are 15-3.
And because the Bears beat the Colts in point differential (points scored minus points allowed) by 105 points, Dewan checked the record of Super Bowl teams who won that predictor by 50 points or better. Those teams are 11-0.
So forget about the fact that most Vegas sports books have Indianapolis favored by about a touchdown. Forget about Accuscore, a game-simulation system that claims 62 percent accuracy and gives the Colts a 60 percent chance of winning Sunday.
"I lean toward the Bears simply because of their defense," Dewan said. "Sight unseen, based on my knowledge of this system and from watching the Super Bowls, I would generally say the team with the better defense is going to win the Super Bowl."
I'd say bet on it. Just don't expect Dewan to join you.
Phil Arvia can be reached at
parvia@dailysouthtown.com
or (708) 633-5949.