What can we decipher from the past 2 SB winners?
1. Pass rush is king.
More specifically, a FOUR man pass-rush. Lovie got a lot of things wrong, but he was absolutely correct in emphasizing the importance of a 4-man pass rush. Lovie developed them well. T-Harris, ‘Wale, Alex Brown, Izzy, Mark Anderson [briefly]. Worked well with Peppers.
Sure, he was fallible here [heelllo Shea, Flatbread, Jarron Gilbert, Jared Allen…], but Lovie’s instincts were correct:
A dangerous 4-man pass-rush can carry teams.
I won’t present some exhaustive 3-parter proving this as it seems somewhat self-evident, but let’s examine the past two SB winners:
On top of that, SEA also stuffed the run:
Needless to say, a strong front four, especially up the gut, seems almost mandatory to win in the modern NFL. It just makes life way easier for the back seven; a strong front-four allows for some mistakes, more creativity, more disguises, more aggression, and it almost doesn’t matter who the opposing QBs are.
Maye was terrible!
However, Stafford had a legit MVP ’25 Season, and SEA handled him THRICE. Eagles utterly destroyed Mahomes’ Chiefs that went 17-3 that year.
Imagine if Dayo didn’t suck, and if Poles traded for Jeffery Simmons. Just those two factors may have launched the Bears to a true SB run despite all the other deficiencies, injuries and inexperience.
Needless to say, this will be priority #1 for Poles, but building a ferocious four ain’t easy. He’s gotta hit some grandslams like SEA and Philly.
Lesson #2. Don’t pay HBs.
Notice I didn’t say “Ignore HBs.” Philly traded for Barkley, and he carried them to the SB. SEA drafted not one, but TWO HBs in the 2nd round, one of which [Walker] became SB MVP.
However, nearly every SB winning team didn’t PAY HBs much.
Marshawn Lynch seems to be the only one even over 5% of the cap. Many of the others are good trivia questions: Damien Williams, Blount, CJ Anderson, Bradshaw, Starks, Thomas…Pacheco himself is a 7th rounder.
So it appears the way to go for SB winners is to find bargain HBs who basically “over-perform” or – just stay healthy and effective.
Makes one wonder if Poles is thinking the same when calculating Swift’s contract. It’s no secret Poles was eyeing a HB maybe as early as the 1st RD in last year’s draft.
If Poles decides to stick with Swift for one more year, it won’t be catastrophic as the Bears did run well for most of the year, but seemed to struggle more late season. Who can forget all those failed short yard downs in the playoffs?
SB Lesson 3. Health and TOs matter.
Darnold had a good year, but his playoff-run wasn’t exactly Flaccoesque. SEA didn’t want to repeat the mistake the ’24 Vikings made with him down the stretch. It sure helped that he only really had to square-off against one other real QB [Stafford], and that ended up being a 4-point game. The 9ers were a MASH unit, and as such, got destroyed 41-6, while in the AFC the Donks’ season ended when Bo hurt his ankle.
Meanwhile, Maye was such a TO machine that even Smoking Jay had to be like, “Woah, scro, tuck it every once in a while!”
OT.
Maybe Winter Olympics aren’t as boring as I imagined.
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