In the Super Bowl, thirty-two teams hope to win, 16 make the playoffs, and only one wins it all. Out of 1,696 total players, only one can be the most valuable. The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the NFL, where 2 teams compete against each other to win it all. Teams are separated by conferences, the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference, with 16 teams in both. The MVP, Most Valuable Player, is an award given out to a specific player in reward for playing lights out throughout the season. We asked Rocklin High School (RHS) to decide who wins the Super Bowl, and MVP award. This is who they picked.
World History teacher Mr. Spears said this regarding the Super Bowl. “Okay, here’s my prediction: I’m going with the Niners, Awesome. In the AFC I’m gonna go with… even though they lost week 1, I’m going with the Buffalo Bills.” Last year, both of these teams came just short of a Super Bowl appearance. The 49ers lost the NFC championship, the game before the Super Bowl, to the Philadelphia Eagles. While the Bills lost in the divisional playoff game, 2 games before the Super Bowl, to the Cincinnati Bengals. For the past few years, both teams have been strong competitors, yet neither has won the Super Bowl recently.
Sophomore and Seattle Seahawks fan, Caden Vance says, “The 49ers and Bengals is my choice… The Bengals last season got to the AFC Championship and the 49ers have an unstoppable defense.” For many years the 49ers ability to stop other offenses from scoring has been their biggest strength. Now, with a combination of a dominating offense, and an unstoppable defense many RHS students chose the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl.
In fact, from 22 answers from students and staff around RHS, the 49ers earned a 40 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, out-scoring any other team by 36 percent. Living in Rocklin, the 49ers are a common team to be a fan of. Did bias get the best of Rocklin, or is it finally the 49ers year?
These Super Bowl teams are so good, due to their players. Every year, professional analysts all vote on one player to be considered the most valuable of all. For the past 10 NFL seasons, the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award has been given to only Quarterbacks (QB), the player who directs the offense’s play. Out of the 65 MVPs in NFL history, a QB has won the award 70 percent of the time. Former Packers QB Brett Farve won the award back-to-back-to-back times from 1995-97. While many people may think a favor towards Quarterbacks makes the award unfair, former NFL player J.J Watt argued, “The honest truth is that it’s physically impossible for any one player to be more “valuable” than the quarterback. They touch the ball every single play. A QB should always win MVP.”
While both sides have valid arguments, this award will likely always be QB biased. Although, when sophomore and JV football player Mateo Nunez was asked about his MVP winner, he answered with a rather surprising answer. “I think Jake Moody will win it.” Jake Moody is a kicker for the 49ers which is why this answer is surprising since history shows that kickers are one of the most replaceable and expendable positions in the NFL.
A kicker has won the award only one time in NFL history. In 1982 kicker Mark Moseley won the award, however, the 1982 season was filled with disruption. A 57 day break occurred in the middle of the season, and strikes were being held constantly. Moseley didn’t even receive a trophy or official letter to show off his MVP award. The only thing Moseley received was his face on the cover of The Washington Post. Currently, Jake Moody has had a great start to his season, and only time will tell if he can make history by winning the award. At the end of the day, bias, injury, and any given Sunday, make predicting the NFL one of the hardest things a human can do correctly.
