A Closer Look At How The Ravens Almost Blew An Insurmountable Lead

At halftime of Super Bowl 47, the Ravens held a 21-6 lead. And while a 15-point lead may not seem insurmountable, Win Probability (WP) shows us that the Ravens actually had a 96% chance of winning the game at that point.

Below is a look at the Win Probability for the Ravens during the Super Bowl as calculated by the folks at AdvancedNFLStats.com. In short, WP is a model that uses the "score, time, down, distance, and field position [on every play] to estimate how likely each team will go on to win the game."

As we can see, the Ravens already had a nearly insurmountable lead even before Jacoby Jones returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown. But the 49ers slowly ate away at the lead and the WP. And when the 49ers had first-and-goal at the 7-yard line with less than two minutes remaining, it was actually the 49ers that had a better chance of winning the game as the Ravens' WP dipped to 46%. But the Ravens held and went on to win...