Through Wednesdayâs play, 2015 games have averaged about two hours and 56 minutes, according to Baseball Prospectus. If that holds, it will be the first season since 2011 with an average game length under three hours. Last seasonâs games averaged three hours and eight minutes, an all-time high. The 12-minute difference may not seem like much on a game-to-game basis, but over the course of a 162-game season, it means more than 32 fewer hours of gameplay per team â and 32 fewer hours in front of the TV for dedicated fans.
Since 2001, New England had made the playoffs twelve times, reaching the Super Bowl, incredibly, in half of those seasons. The Patriots have won the Super bowl four times over this fourteen-year span, which made me wonder: how many Super Bowls *should* the Patriots have won? This could be measured in a few ways.
The following season, New England faced a murdererâs row of Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, and the Patriots were favored by just 1, 3, and 7 points, for a cumulative championship probability of 21.5%. So in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2014, the Patriots should have been expected to win 0.754 Super Bowls. Instead, the team won 4.000. Thatâs pretty good. But what about the other eight years? The two other Super Bowl years are the easiest to analyze. In 2011, the Patriots had a 33.9% chance of winning it all: New England was a 13.5-point favorite against the Tim Tebow Broncos, a 7-point favorite against the Ravens, and a 3-point favorite against the Giants.