Super Bowl LVIII Hangover: How Will Championship Fallout Impact Canadian NFL Betting in February?
The Super Bowl hangover is a slump that losing and sometimes even winning Super Bowl teams often seem to experience the following season. People blame things like high expectations, exhaustion, roster changes, and sometimes just the letdown of losing after the biggest game of the season exhausts players the following year.
The fallout impact on teams and players is usually psychological. An NFL team can spend an entire season winning their conference, getting through the division playoff to reach the AFC or NFC Championship, and then losing. The hangover effect can worsen if a team gets to the final and loses. As the old saying goes, no one remembers second place.
Even Winners Can Suffer a Superbowl Hangover
There are also times when the Superbowl winners underperform the following season. The perfect example of this is the Los Angeles Rams. After winning the Super Bowl LVI and beating the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2021/22 season, the squad failed to qualify for the 2022/23 season’s playoffs after finishing third in the NFC West. The team was aging and in dire need of a rebuild, which is still in process.
In this year’s 2023/24 season, the team made it into the playoffs as an NFC wildcard team and only narrowly missed out on making it to the NFC Championship with a 1-point loss versus Detroit. There will likely be no hangover threat for Canadian betting fans for the LA Rams as the rebuild appears to be working, and the wildcard team is usually expected to lose. Yet, a 1-point loss, such a narrow margin, could still mean the LA Rams suffer a hangover from their Superbowl bid.
How Canadian Bettors Think About the Hangover
Many hardcore NFL fans in Canada follow trends like the hangover when betting each season. If a team makes the Super Bowl, some bettors get nervous about them having a decline the next year. Others see it as a chance to make money betting against them. The LA Rams explained above is the perfect example.
Does the Hangover Theory Work?
It would have worked with the LA Rams, yet last year’s 2022/23 Super Bowl LVII winners, the Kansas City Chiefs, are flying again in the 2023/24 season. The team qualified for the playoffs and beat the wild card team, the Miami Dolphins, with a convincing victory, winning 26 to 7. The next step is the Division playoff versus the Buffalo Bills, who also win convincingly versus Pittsburgh Steelers, another wild card team.
If Kansas gets through this game and makes it through the AFC Championship, then into the Superbowl final, and wins, Kansas City is highly likely to suffer from a hangover effect. Yet, this is unlikely as the team has finished first in the AFC West 8 years running. On the other hand, 2 Super Bowl wins in 2 seasons could mean Canadian bettors may feel a hangover is due.
The only way this theory could be disproved is that the last team to win 2 consecutive Super Bowls was the New England Patriots. The season after, the team still came 1st in the AFC East, only to lose in the division playoffs versus the wildcard team.
As you can see so far, the fallout from the Super Bowl hangover effect has many angles!
Guessing the Impact of Last Night’s Game
Now that Super Bowl LVIII is almost over, bettors will be digging into factors that might predict whether the hangover effect will happen next season and how it will affect next season’s NFL odds:
- Do the teams have major new players or coaches coming in?
- History says the loser could start the season slowly in 2024/25, indicating the possibility of a Super Bowl LVIII hangover.
- Did the point spreads set by oddsmakers shift to account for a hangover?
- Which teams do Canadian fans seem more focused on for next season?
- What are the pundits saying about hangover chances?
All these factors will come into play when sports books begin the season. And Canadian American football fans will look closely for bargains when the NFL odds are back on the table before the 2024/25 season.
Savvy Bettors Will be Looking for All the Cluse of a Hangover
Using the clues above, savvy bettors may be able to spot early value bets if they think a hangover is or isn’t coming for the Super Bowl teams. One key point to note is how young the most recent Superbowl finalist team is and whether, in the next draft, only a few positions need filling to maintain or improve the team’s strength. However, if key players leave this year’s Superbowl winning team, we could see the hangover effect fall into place.
After Tom Brady left the New England Patriots after the team won 6 Super Bowls and was runner-up for 3 with the player as their quarterback, they have since dropped to 2nd, 3rd, then 4th place finishes in the AFC East division over the past 3 seasons. Their best quarterback leaving and a hangover from such an amazing run is something Canadian bettors will be looking for with other NFL teams.
Is the Superbowl Hangover Real?
It is real. That is, as long as all the correct pieces of the jig saw fit into place. It is a lot like horse racing. The morning starts bright and dry by race time, it is wet and gloomy. Suddenly, the favorite changes to a horse that runs better in the wet. It’s not a hangover effect but a great example of how sports bettors use stats.
If you want an example closer to the ‘hangover fallout effect,’ you can apply the same principle to Premier League football. Liverpool was the dominant team and played every possible game in the 2021/22 season, winning 2 cups, finishing second in the league, and being runners-up in the Champions League final. After this, the hangover effect of winning so many trophies and playing so many games over the 3 previous years, plus an aging team, and the mighty Reds didn’t even make it into the Champions League the next season.
Canadians will look for similar patterns in February in the NFL after this year’s Super Bowl LVIII .
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