The Second Most Boring Super Bowl

By the numbers

A few years ago, Mike Tanier put together a “boring index” using three simple ingredients: three-and-outs, penalties, and plays of 20+ yards. The intuition is straightforward. Three-and-outs and penalties kill flow; big plays inject excitement. I liked the idea, but I thought the index could be expanded to capture how close the game was.

I group the components into two buckets. First, boring proxies: punts (I added these too, pretty boring), three-and-outs, and penalties. All three are possession-killers. They stop action, limit information, and drain momentum. Second, excitement proxies: plays of 20+ yards, lead changes, and tie scores.

Big plays create sudden shifts; lead changes and ties capture competitive uncertainty.

Each variable is standardized (so they’re on the same scale) and then summed into a single index. Higher values mean more boring. Applying this to the past 20 Super Bowls produces the table below.

When we sort by the index, yesterday’s game comes in second. It had a high number of punts and three-and-outs, and the game state was pretty non-competitive.

The most boring Super Bowl by a wide margin was Broncos–Panthers (so boring I have zero recollection of it) following the 2015 season: a massive blowout featuring relentless punts, constant penalties, and almost no offensive dynamism. Yesterday’s game wasn’t quite that bad—but it’s firmly in the same family.