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How Improbable Was the Patriots Comeback Super Bowl Win?

We have seen the basic statistics. The Seattle Seahawks were undefeated with Russell Wilson under center when leading by double-digits entering the fourth quarter. The league’s No. 1 overall defense had given up more than 10 points in a quarter just one time since Week 9 entering the Super Bowl.

Defying any logic, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were able to pull off one of the most surprising fourth quarter performances in the history of the Super Bowl. They tallied 14 unanswered points in the final stanza to pull off the 28-24 victory.

Looking at the probability of each team winning this game at certain points in the contest, New England’s chances were on life support multiple times throughout the night (h/t Business Insider). 

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Following Seattle’s final score of the game—a touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to Doug Baldwin to put the team up by 10 with less than five minutes left in the third quarter—things weren’t looking good for the Patriots.

A few minutes later, Brady and company were faced with a 3rd-and-14 from inside their own 30 with less than 11 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. At that point, Predictionmachine.com gave the Patriots a 3.3 percent chance of winning the game.

Running 50,000 simulations after every play from that point on—as you can see in the graph above—New England’s chances of winning remained on life support for a majority of the final quarter.

That changed a tad after Brady connected with Danny Amendola on a four-yard touchdown to pull the Patriots within three points. And then when Brady connected with Julian Edelman for the final score of the game with 2:02 remaining in the fourth quarter, New England had a 90.2 percent chance of victory.

When Seattle took the ball down to New England’s one-yard line with 30 seconds remaining, the then defending champs stood a 64 percent chance of winning the game.

Well, we already know how that turned out.

Taking into account the opponent it was going up against as well as the 10-point fourth quarter deficit, New England’s comeback might have been the greatest in the history of the big game. After all, it had just a three percent chance of winning the game with less than 11 minutes remaining in regulation.

Simply put, this is something we may never again see. That’s how rare it was.

Photo: USA Today

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