Groundhog Day and Super Bowl LIV: Predictions and the plan of God

Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow yesterday morning around 7:25 a.m. EST and did not see his shadow. This means that we will have an early spring.

Except that, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Phil has been right only 40 percent of the time over the last ten years.

Perhaps a robot could do Phil’s job more effectively. That’s the suggestion of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is concerned for Phil’s health and wellbeing.

Whether Phil should stay in the forecasting business or not, it is worth noting that since his first prediction in 1887, he has forecast an early spring only nineteen times before yesterday.

Unfortunately for Phil, the country was far less focused yesterday on his shadow (or lack thereof) than on the pending Super Bowl. As you know, the favored Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 31 to 20.

The fact that the favorite won was a bit surprising,
actually. The underdog has won twenty-three of the past fifty-three Super
Bowls, including five straight from 2012 through 2016.

So, if you’re looking for a way to predict future Super
Bowls, it may be that Punxsutawney Phil can help.

The Super Bowl has fallen on Groundhog Day only once before,
in 2014. That year, Phil predicted a long winter, and the underdog Seattle
Seahawks won big, 43 to 8 over the favored Denver Broncos. This might suggest
that since Phil predicted an early spring yesterday, the favored Chiefs should
have won, which they did.

So, we may have discovered a pattern upon which to base
future Super Bowl predictions: when Phil predicts a long winter, pick the
underdog; when he predicts an early spring, pick the favorite.

Except that we have only two such predictions to base our pattern upon.

And there’s another problem: if the Super Bowl continues to fall on the first Sunday in February as currently scheduled (the NFL has released dates only through…