MentalPerformanceIndex.com for Football

Following Broadway Joe's remarkable guarantee and delivery in the 1969 game that many still called the biggest upset in football history, fans and reporters were still not convinced the AFL belonged. Many thought it would would take the AFL 10 years to catch up to the NFL even with the new common draft. This thinking immediately ceased in New Orleans. The NFL finally were forced to accept the now powerful AFL as an equal thanks to the Chiefs. The leagues would merge to form one league with separate conferences (AFC and NFC) after this game.

This game made it look as if the Vikings had spent too much time at Pat O'Briens drinking Hurricanes and too little time in the film room! It was not even close. The Chiefs built a 16-0 halftime lead behind quarterback Len Dawson's needle threading and a defense that sent the Vikings ships back to Scandinavia!

Dawson became the fourth quarterback in a row to be awarded the Super MVP. He was sharp physically and mentally. He completed 12 of 17 passes and found Otis Taylor on a 46-yard touchdown pass to clinch the game. The late coach Hank Stram was often seen pacing the sidelines like a young kid who had won the lottery. He won more than that on this day of glory for the heartland of America.

The biggest storyline was the way the Kansas City defensive line obliterated Minnesota's rushing attack to 67 yards, collected three interceptions and forced two recovered fumbles. The biggest Super Bowl crowd ever (80,562) witnessed this game which finally legitimized the word "super."

An MPI analysis shows that this was the most lopsided Super Bowl victory yet. The overall quality of play was not as good as previous three games mostly due to how poorly the Vikings played!

Kansas City prevailed in all 7 MPI categories and destroyed the Vikings .549 to .409 on the MPI total score. They should have won by a much larger margin than 23-7.

The Chiefs' defensive advantage (.587 to .370) shows that Minnesota had no offense all day. On offense, poor quarterback Joe Kapp always looked confused. Quite impressive was the way the Chief's defense performed in pressure moments (.650), whereas the Minnesota defense was absent when it counted (.222). The Vikings' total pressure score (.233) shows that this team even found rare ways to mess up when it mattered! Kansas City (.596), by contrast, brought home the bacon in the clutch.

After this game, the old NFL mystique vanished. A new and exciting era dawned for professional football. Television contracts improved, and the league merger produced a wonderful product. For many fans on this day, football officially replaced baseball as America's favorite sport. The scary part was that this was all long before "the steel curtain," "the perfect season," or "the drive!" Like the United States after the Civil War ended, the NFL was just getting started and the Super Bowl would before long become the top entertainment event in the world. I hope you keep tuning in!

The MPI or Mental Performance Index is the first system of scoring developed in sports which includes in the scoring key mental factors such as pressure management, reduction of mental errors and focused execution. It was developed by licensed clinical and sport performance psychologist Dr. John F. Murray in 2002 to show the extreme importance of mental factors in sports. It is much more accurate than the final score and other statistics in showing how one team performed relative to another team. It has almost perfectly estimated the relative performance of the teams before each of the past 5 Super Bowls. Dr. Murray's MPI forecast has also beaten the official Super Bowl spread 4 out of 5 times now. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, and the forecast has also appeared in hundreds of articles. Why all the focus, energy and interest in this topic? Because it so clearly demonstrates the importance of mental factors in sports. For more information about the MPI or Dr. Murray's services, please call 561-596-9898 or send an email to: johnfmurray@mindspring.com