New England vs. Seattle

In 48 Super Bowls, there have been 14 scoreless quarters in 13 games. That equates to a scoreless quarter occurring 27.1% of the time (13/48). So, based on those numbers, fair odds based on a NO bet here is -270. The oddsmakers are setting this line at -335 so there's no value right? Wrong! Of course, that's not the whole story. Things have changed dramatically and the oddsmakers haven't taken notice! The early Super Bowls were more defensive than the current era. Today's NFL is about scoring! The first 20 Super Bowls averaged 41.9 points per game while the last 24 have averaged 50.11 per game. That's a 19.6% increase in points per game. And that increase in scoring, of course, reduces the chances of a scoreless quarter. So we would expect to see fewer of these occurring as time goes on, and that's exactly what we see. Seven of the first eleven Super Bowls (64%) had a scoreless quarter. That leaves only six games with a scoreless quarter in the last 37 Super Bowls (16.2%)! If we assume the modern era rate of 83.8% of games without a scoreless quarter, the fair odds on a NO bet are -515. So at -335 we are getting a tremendous overlay. Take the NO on this bet and expect to win this one four out of every five Super Bowls!