MentalPerformanceIndex.com for Football

The Silver and Black Legend Begins in 1977

The Pittsburgh Steelers tried to win their third consecutive Super Bowl in 1976, finishing 10-4 and crushing Baltimore 40-14 in the playoffs. Unfortunate for them, both of their star running backs, Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, were injured before the AFC championship game.

Injuries are so important in football. As an aside, I chose to study football injuries for my PhD dissertation on the University of Florida football team the same year the Gators won their first national title in 1996. If not for those two Steelers injuries, the Pitsburgh legend would have risen even further and might today be on par with the Yankees in baseball. But the injury Gods were not smiling on the Steelers this year, and controversy is a lot more fun anyway!

The Oakland Raiders were an almost perfect 13-1 in 1976, but had barely escaped their nemesis, The Patriots, in the playoffs. The Pats were the only team to have beaten Oakland that year and would have won again if not for an extremely controversial roughing the passer call on quarterback Kenny Stabler with 10 seconds left in the game! Imagine a Patriots team with an even bigger place in history than they already have after all the Tom Brady success recently.

Without a strong running machine to rely on, Bradshaw was constantly harried by the Silver and Black defense and Oakland dethroned the champs 24-7 in the AFC title game. Kenny Stabler’s often ugly, but always well-timed passes worked to perfection.

Over in the NFC, Minnesota rolled through the regular season again with an 11-2-1 record, and backed it up by destroying the Redskins and Rams in the playoffs. Still, many doubters said the Vikings could never win the big one. That pressure was hard to imagine on this team, and the Vikings came into the Super Bowl a 4 point underdog. The AFC was by now perceived as much better than the NFC. How times had changed since the merger!

So here we stood on January 9, 1997. The hungry and frustrated Vikings on one side of the field led by their aging but talented legendary quarterback. On the other side stood a mean, rough, nasty, unkempt, and young group of assassins led by big hitting Jack Tatum and the clever left hander who just knew how to win, named Kenny Stabler.

The game was not even close after the first quarter. It looked like it might be the Vikings' day after they blocked a punt deep in Raiders territory, but their generosity prevailed as they fumbled right back on the Oakland 3 to defuse the threat. Don’t big games always seem to hinge on turnovers? Oakland then drove 90 yards and kicked a field goal for a 3-0 lead. Great ball control, huge runs by Clarence Davis and Carl Garrett, and the hands of Hall of Fame receiver Fred Biletnikoff helped the team drive for an eventual touchdown pass to Dave Casper and the Raiders took charge 10-0. Ahmed Rashad next dropped a perfect Fran Tarkenton pass and the Vikings were sent to warmer climates when the Raiders made it 16-0 following another great catch by Biletnikoff.

Oakland’s run game dominated the day as the Vikings looked increasingly drained and despondent. Bud Grant tasted but never drank from the cup of glory for the 4^th time in a row. Fran Tarkenton was a portrait of desperation with his head hung low and sitting on a ball at games end. With a 19-7 lead, the Raiders slammed the coffin firmly shut on the Vikings with another long pass to Fred Biletnikoff and this catch today provides him a nice MVP trophy for his family to admire for the next thousand years. Oakland scored and went on to win 32-14.

An MPI analysis shows that Oakland’s offense (.604 to .438) and persistent pressure defense (.825 to .225) won this game easily as the Raiders dominated in 6/7 MPI categories. Steady ball control rushing combined with timely and accurate “snake Stabler” passing poisoned the Nordic sailors. The Raiders raided the Vikings on the total MPI score .551 to .453, so the outcome of this game was as predicted by their performance. To add salt to the wound, even Oakland’s defense outperformed Minnesota’s offense .519 to .459 and Oakland prevailed in pressure offense and total pressure situations. Minnesota’s only salvation came on special teams (.488 to .478 superior) but that wasn’t even an impressive outing.

The Silver and Black legend grew after this game in the minds of football fans worldwide. Before this Super Bowl, Oakland was just an excellent and dangerous franchise, but never a great one in the mold of Lombardi’s Packers, Shula’s Dolphins or Noll’s Steelers. Now we all know the legend of John Madden, and perhaps even more than those other coaches owing to modern day video games and creative NFL broadcasting. The Raiders joined the elite and would later brand the “just win” motto introduced by ever colorful and innovative owner Al Davis.

The Vikings suffered the same fate as the much later Buffalo Bills as an excellent franchise that could never find a killer's instinct. They have still not returned to the Super Bowl 30 years later. It’s really kind of sad that this only talent and success cannot be acknowledged, but American's only love champions. This same holds in many other sports. Second place is just not good enough. The Vikings and Bills won a combined eight conference championships, and played in eight Super Bowls, but who remembers them? I do. So let's give a hand to the almost champions Fran Tarkenton and Jim Kelly!

1976 belonged to Oakland Raiders. Congrats Raiders.

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