What. A. Time. We are in October and talking about the San Francisco 49ers appearing in the Super Bowl. Premature? Of course. Will that stop us from talking about it? Absolutely not. ESPN’s FPI produced the ten most likely Super Bowl matchups, and the Niners were listed in two of those. Here is their explanation for the exercise.
So which teams have the best chance to make the Super Bowl? That’s where the Football Power Index (FPI) comes in. To produce the 10 most likely Super Bowl LIV matchups, FPI uses its strength ratings for each team to simulate the season 20,000 times, so the likelihood is determined by not only how good teams are now but how easy their paths are the rest of the way.