Nevin's Data "Points"

Will your 401(k) be bumped up by a Buccaneers victory—or chipped by the Chiefs? That’s what adherents of the so-called Super Bowl Theory would likely conclude, after all. The theory is that when a team from the old National Football League wins the Super Bowl, the S&P 500 will rise, and when a team from the old American Football League prevails, stock prices will fall. It’s a “theory” that has been found to be correct nearly 80% of the time—for 40 of the 54 Super Bowls, in fact.  Not that it hasn’t had its shortcomings. One need look back no further than last year’s win by the AFC’s Kansas City Chiefs (yes,  these  Kansas City Chiefs) over the NFC Champion San Francisco 49ers to refute the applicability (or did your 401(k) miss that 18.4% rise in the S&P 500?). Or how about the year before that when the AFC’s New England Patriots (who once were the AFL’s Boston Patriots) bested the NFC champion Los Angeles Rams (the S&P 500 was up more...

It may just be because I’ve got a birthday this week, but it would be hard to miss all the “fuss” about age and retirement during the NFL playoffs, a topic that now seems sure to carry on into the Super Bowl. This past weekend we got to see two “old” quarterbacks fight it out for the NFC title—Tom Brady (43) and Aaron Rodgers (37)—and two young quarterbacks—Josh Allen (24) and Patrick Mahomes (25) lead their teams in the AFC championship. The inevitable comparisons will surely now carry into Super Bowl 55, as Brady becomes the oldest quarterback to reach that pinnacle (he was already tied with Peyton Manning for that status) and Mahomes (already) one of the youngest. (Ben Roethlisberger, at 23, holds the distinction of being the youngest, having wrested it in 2006 from… Tom Brady.)  Their ages notwithstanding, this past weekend it seems fair to say that Brady played with the skill and energy of a younger man (even a younger version of himself), while Mahomes demonstrated the m...