Super Bowl curse

The Super Bowl Curse is a phrase referring to three types: Super Bowl participants that follow up with lower-than-expected performance the following year; teams that do not repeat as World Champions; and host teams of the Super Bowl that do not play the game on their own home turf.

Also called a Super Bowl hangover, it has been used, for example, to explain both why losing teams may post below-average winning percentages in the following year and why Super Bowl champions seldom return to the Super Bowl the following year. The term has been used since at least 1992, when The Washington Post commented that "[t]he Super Bowl Curse has thrown everything it's got at the Washington Redskins. The Jinx that has bedeviled defending champs for 15 years has never been in better form". The phenomenon is attributed by football commentator and former NFL manager Charley Casserly to such elements as "a shorter offseason, contract issues, [and] more demand for your players' time". Casserly also notes that "once the season starts, you become the biggest game on everybody's schedule." The curse comes in many forms.

There are three types of the Super Bowl Curse:

The Winners' Curse

While the first five Super Bowl winners of the 2000s posted above average winning percentages the year following their Super Bowl appearance, the losers of the same games posted below average winning percentages in the follow-up year. The Super Bowl curse is also said to apply to winners of the game, as since 1993 few winning teams have followed up their Super Bowl successes with a second Super Bowl appearance (Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots won; Green Bay Packers lost) or even advanced to a conference title game in the subsequent season (Dallas Cowboys). In the Super Bowl era two teams have lost the Super Bowl, then won it the following season. The first was the Dallas Cowboys, who lost Super Bowl V to the Baltimore Colts, but came back in 1971 and defeated the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI. The Dolphins repeated the feat in 1972 when they rallied to go a perfect 17-0, capping the season with a win over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.

Losing teams mentioned in connection to the curse

Super Bowl losing teams who went on to poor follow-up performance include:

• Atlanta Falcons. (Super Bowl XXXIII). 1998 season: 14-2; 1999 season: 5-11
• New York Giants. (Super Bowl XXXV). 2000 season: 12-4; 2001 season: 7-9.
• St. Louis Rams. (Super Bowl XXXVI). 2001 season: 14-2; 2002 season: 7-9.
• Oakland Raiders. (Super Bowl XXXVII). 2002 season: 11-5; 2003 season: 4-12
• Carolina Panthers. (Super Bowl XXXVIII) 2003 season: 11-5; 2004 season: 7-9.
• Philadelphia Eagles. (Super Bowl XXXIX) 2004 season: 13-3; 2005 season: 6-10.
• Chicago Bears. (Super Bowl XLI) 2006 season: 13-3; 2007 season: 7-9.

Exceptions

There have been several exceptions since this curse supposedly began in 1977.

• Buffalo Bills. (Super Bowl XXV). 1990 season: 13-3. In the 1991 season, they went 13-3 again, and made it to Super Bowl XXVI, where they lost to the Washington Redskins. In the 1992 season they slipped to 11-5, but after what came to be known as the The Comeback, they won the AFC Wildcard spot, and went on to play in Super Bowl XXVII, where they lost to the Dallas Cowboys. The following season, 1993, they improved their record to 12-4, and after winning the AFC East division, qualified for their fourth straight Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XXVIII.

• Tennessee Titans. (Super Bowl XXXIV). 1999 season: 13-3. In the 2000 season, the Titans went 13-3 again, clinching home-field advantage. They lost in the divisional playoffs, however, to the Baltimore Ravens. (Coincidentally, exactly the same thing happened in the 2008-09 playoffs, with the same record, playoff losing round, and the team to which they lost.)

• Seattle Seahawks. (Super Bowl XL). 2005 season: 13-3. In the 2006 season, they slipped to 9-7, but won the NFC West division. They lost in the divisional playoffs to the Chicago Bears.

• Arizona Cardinals. (Super Bowl XLIII). 2008 season: 9-7. In the 2009 season they improved to 10-6 and won the NFC West for the second consecutive season. They lost in the divisional playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.

• Indianapolis Colts. (Super Bowl XLIV). 2009 season: 14-2. In the 2010 season they went 10-6 and won the AFC South for the seventh time in eight years, however it was the first time in 9 years that the Colts had finished a season with less than 12 wins. They lost in the wild card playoffs to the New York Jets. The following season however, without Peyton Manning, they did experience a significant drop. They started the season 0-13, and finished 2-14, the first time out of the playoffs since 2001.

• New England Patriots. (Super Bowl XLII). 2007 season: 16-0. After having the first perfect season in the 16-game schedule, in the 2008 season they went 11-5 and missed the playoffs barely by losing tiebreakers with Miami in their division and Baltimore for the wild card. The "Super Bowl curse" took a different road, since their starting quarterback, Tom Brady, suffered a season ending injury in the opening game of the season.

The Non-Repeat Curse

This type of the curse has affected defending Super Bowl Champions since 2005. The New York Giants are the current World Champions and in the 2012 season will attempt to become the first repeat champions since the 2004 New England Patriots.

The Home Field Curse

The third type of the curse is one that affects the host team of the Super Bowl. No team has ever played the big game in its own home stadium. The closest have been the San Francisco 49ers who played Super Bowl XIX in Stanford Stadium, rather than Candlestick Park, and the Los Angeles Rams who played Super Bowl XIV in the Rose Bowl, rather than the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Besides those two, the only other Super Bowl venue that was not the home stadium to an NFL team at the time was Rice Stadium in Houston: the Houston Oilers had played there previously, but moved to the Astrodome several years prior to Super Bowl VIII. The Orange Bowl was the only AFL stadium to host a Super Bowl and the only stadium to host consecutive Super Bowls, hosting Super Bowl II and III.

The Indianapolis Colts, for example, were in an unprecedented situation at the end of the 2011 season as the first host team of a Super Bowl to, as aforementioned, have the worst record in the NFL for their particular season and not even make the playoffs.

Generally, the host team of a Super Bowl has a VIP section in the stadium during the game.

Further reading

• "Credit Belichick for beating Super Bowl curse". The Sacramento Bee: pp. C3. October 25, 2006. 
• Freeman, Mike (December 12, 1991). "Fans cry: Off with Giants' Head (Coach)!". The Washington Post. 
• Green Jr., Ron (November 5, 2004). "Lost-the-Super-Bowl blues afflict Panthers, Raiders". The Charlotte Observer: pp. 2C. 
• "Less and more than rumored Miami and the Super Bowl curse". Sarasota Herald Tribune. January 30, 1999. 
• Penner, Mike (August 27, 2006). "Curses are reality to fantasy leaguers". Los Angeles Times: pp. D.2. 

External links

• Maske, Mark (June 15, 2006). "Seahawks hope to buck Super Bowl curse". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/06/14/BL2006061401032_pf.html.