When two teams go to the Super Bowl, the toughest challenge they face the following season is living up to the success of the past season. Expectations from playoff teams are always high at the beginning of a new season, mostly because of their recent success from the prior year, as their successful season is still fresh in the public's mind. Therefore, these teams are viewed in a positive light and the bookmakers will inflate their season total wins.

Keeping that in mind, let's review the past 11 NFL seasons and see how the Super Bowl winners and losers have done the following year. Since 1995, the Super Bowl winner made the playoffs the following year 8 out of 11 times for 72.7% with the average season total of wins being 11.75 games. However, it's a different scenario for the Super Bowl loser, as they've only advanced 5 out of 11 times and those other 6 teams who didn't make the playoffs, their average season wins the following year was 6.0 games.

Now, from a weekly ATS betting perspective and keeping in mind perception being the bookmaker's friend, the betting public will always have "last week" syndrome when betting football. Most novice bettors tend to look back to the last weekend when doing their weekly picks and an experience handicapper will take last week's results with a grain of salt and focus on the current situation at hand. In fact, when looking at those 22 teams who went to the Super Bowl from 1995 to 2006, the public's perception has been that since they went to the Super Bowl last year, they should have a good season and cover the spread most weeks. However, as you can see from the chart below, only 6 teams out of 22 had a successful ATS season the following year with the OVER/UNDER edge going towards the UNDER.

In summary, if you look at the teams who've been successful the following season after going to the Super Bowl, you can clearly see those were teams of destiny with Hall of fame QB's. Therefore, this brings us to the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears for the upcoming 2007 season. Manning is clearly a Hall of Fame QB and with the consistency the Indianapolis Colts have displayed in the past, it would be tough to bet the UNDER in their total season wins. However, my top recommendation for the 2007 season is to bet the UNDER on the total season wins for the Chicago Bears. The Bears relied heavily on their defense last season and were beneficiaries of a soft schedule in my opinion. But that won't be the case this season; they will have a tough challenge right out of the gate, which could lead them to a 0-3 start. With that said, I look for the bears to have a 7-9 SU season in '07 and would recommend betting the UNDER on their total season wins when the numbers come out.

Enjoy the '07 campaign.