Through Wednesdayâs play, 2015 games have averaged about two hours and 56 minutes, according to Baseball Prospectus. If that holds, it will be the first season since 2011 with an average game length under three hours. Last seasonâs games averaged three hours and eight minutes, an all-time high. The 12-minute difference may not seem like much on a game-to-game basis, but over the course of a 162-game season, it means more than 32 fewer hours of gameplay per team â and 32 fewer hours in front of the TV for dedicated fans.
Since 2001, New England had made the playoffs twelve times, reaching the Super Bowl, incredibly, in half of those seasons. The Patriots have won the Super bowl four times over this fourteen-year span, which made me wonder: how many Super Bowls *should* the Patriots have won? This could be measured in a few ways.
Dating back to his ascendant playoff showing in 2001, Tom Brady, now 39 years old, has won five Super Bowls quarterbacking the Patriots. Entering Sunday, it was four. But Brady led the Patriots to an unbelievable comeback win over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Brady led the Pats to wins in Super Bowls XXXVI (2002), XXXVIII (2004), XXXIX (2005), XLIX (2015) and LI (2017), winning MVP four of five times (his receiver Deion Branch won the other in XXXIX). The quarterback holds nearly every major Super Bowl record for a quarterback.