Sports analysts and fans love to debate the importance of momentum. Whether discussing hitting in baseball, shooting in basketball or passing in football, people love to talk about "streaks" and how certain players and teams seem to sometimes find a rhythym that makes them appear nearly unstoppable. At the same time, others have argued that there's no such thing as momentum in sports, and have some pretty compelling data to prove it. As with many sports debates, the discussion about momentum is one of anecdotes vs. data. On one had, you have a plethora of academic papers and statistical analyses saying that momentum doesn't really exist. And on the other hand, you have last night's Blackout Bowl.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to most of you that I side with the stats geeks on the whole momentum debate. When you dig into the data, it's pretty clear that hot streaks are bound to happen based on the principles of statistics, and that just because a QB has completed 10 consecutive passes (for example) doesn't mean that he's "hot" and thus more likely to complete his next one. I often refer to a simplified, yet relevant, example based on flipping a coin: Imagine everyone in the world flipped a coin, with anyone who flipped a heads moving on to the next round while everyone who flipped a tails was eliminated, until only one person was left. Eventually, someone would be the last person standing - it would take around 33 consecutive heads to do it - and be proclaimed the Coin Flipping Champion of the World. Obviously, this person isn't "good" at flipping heads - it's just statistical probability that, out of six billion people, someone would flip 33 straight heads. The same can be said of momentum in sports.
One of the reasons that even ultra-rational people like myself love sports, though, is the way that certain games can make you question what you know to be the truth. Last night, the Ravens were rolling over the 49ers and seemed en route to a Super Bowl blowout when the Mercedes-Benz Superdome lost power. After a 34 minute delay, the Ravens looked tight, tentative and tired while San Francisco seemed recharged, almost pulling off one of the most stunning come-from-behind victories in Super Bowl history. There's no logical reason to think that the blackout would have slowed Baltimore's momentum or benefitted the Niners more than the Ravens, and yet while watching the game I couldn't help but think that maybe "fate" had knocked the power out and given Colin Kaepernick and Co. a chance to get back into the game.
Of course, the analyst in me recognized that, after a terrible first half, the game was due for some regression to the mean - allowing the 49ers to climb back into the contest and do to Baltimore exactly what the Ravens had done to San Francisco for the first 35 minutes of playing time. Whereas every big play went Baltimore's way in the first two-plus quarters - from some big passes to Jacoby Jones' 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown - San Francisco was bound to pull off a few huge moments of its own in the second half. The fact that the turnaround coincided precisely with the loss of power in the Superdome was purely coincidence, and luckily the Ravens held on and spared us all from weeks of having to hear about how a power surge in New Orleans decided the Super Bowl for Baltimore and San Francisco.
As a rational person, this is what I'm forcing myself to believe. Although I will admit that last night's Super Bowl momentum shift was pretty bizarre, and thus maybe makes the momentum debate worth having for just a little while longer.
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