Steelers, Redskins, Raiders or Cowboys? New 10-Month Study at MentalPerformanceIndex.com to Reveal the Most Dominant Team in Super Bowl History; Weekly Game Reports Begin Sunday February 25 with the 1967 Clash Between Packers and Chiefs
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Just when you thought football season was over ... think again. Dr. John F. Murray, the Palm Beach based clinical and sport performance psychologist (aka the "Football Freud" by the Washington Post), will use his Mental Performance Index (MPI) to analyze every play in Super Bowl history over 41 consecutive weeks, and determine the winner of the "Super Bowl of Super Bowls" at the conclusion of his study. Starting with the Green Bay vs. Kansas City game of 1967, one game report a week will be provided at: http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com. Reports will be presented in chronological order every Sunday with one game a week. Analyses will reveal the most dominant team ever, and how the 82 teams compared in multiple other categories on the MPI including best pressure performing team, best offense, best defense, best special teams unit and more. Palm Beach, FL (PRWEB) February 20, 2007 -- The inventor of the Mental Performance Index(TM) (MPI(TM)), Dr. John F. Murray, who has accurately forecast team performance in the past five Super Bowls in the national media (including mental factors in scoring) is embarking on a new 41-week study to determine the winner of the "Super Bowl of Super Bowls." His data will determine which team was the most dominant in the 41 year history of the Super Bowl.
Beginning Sunday February 25, Dr. Murray will present statistics and game summaries at http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com with one game report every Sunday for 41straight weeks. "What is exciting about this study is not only that the MPI is more accurate than the final score in rating team performance, but that it standardizes scoring on a scale of .000 to 1.000 so that any team can be compared against any other team in history," said Murray.
Debates rage every year about which team was the best in history. "Whether the most dominant Super Bowl team was the perfect-season Miami Dolphins of 1972, Bradshaw's Steelers, Montana's Forty-Niners, Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys or the Brady's Patriots of recent years will be crystal clear in this study," said Murray. "It should also be fun for the diehard football fan who cannot wait for the Fall and wants to know if his team was the best ever." Dr. Murray's Super Bowl forecast for 2007 reached near perfection, and the pre-game report was published in a headline front page story of the Palm Beach Daily News at: http://www.smarttennis.com/pbdailynewsfrontpage020407.htm. As forecast, the Colts won easily and performed better than the Bears in all 7 MPI categories and especially in pressure situations. Dr. Murray has long asserted that coaches minimize the importance of the mental game at their own peril by not evaluating mental performance or training mental skills as seriously as they should. "This applies to all sports really," said Murray, "and the established accuracy of the MPI is a great way to showcase the importance of psychological factors in performance." For the past five years of the NFL playoffs, the 45-year-old Ph.D. has entered data into his computer program by assigning points on each play for "focused execution," "pressure management," and "reduction of mental errors." Scoring at .600 on the MPI is excellent," said Murray, but that is still a long way from perfection." As NFL coach Herman Edwards once said, "On every play somebody screws up." Many good football coaches encourage their teams to place their focus on one play at a time. The MPI measures how well a team does this. Its power comes from the number of plays in a game (approximately 150) and the inclusion of mental factors in the scoring. While MPI scores almost always predict to game outcome, the scores show which teams are performing better, in precisely which specific areas, and regardless of which team won. This gives coaches great insight before their upcoming games. They are able to more clearly see not only how their own team is performing, but to anticipate the fine differences, strengths and weaknesses of their opponents in a scoring system that standardizes performance like a baseball batting average. The MPI accurately forecast the blowout upset win by Tampa Bay over Oakland four years ago (in Arizona Republic), and forecast "extremely close games" the next two years, beating the official spread each of the first 3 years it was used and broadcast in the national media. Last year, in its 4th public use, the MPI accurately forecast that Seattle would perform better on offense and defense and worse on special teams than the Pittsburgh Steelers. The MPI indeed showed that Seattle would perform better, but for the first time in the 4 Super Bowls, the lower performing team on the MPI won the game primarily due to three rare big plays that altered the outcome. There was also some heavy criticism about the referees. This shows that sometimes even the best data available will occasionally not predict outcome ... even while predicting to performance as the MPI has done each of the previous four years. Since the Colts won by more than the official spread of 7.5 points, the MPI forecast has beaten the official spread 4 of the first 5 years. The MPI has been featured by ESPN The Magazine (December, 2002) and Murray has appeared on hundreds of radio and television stations to discuss the MPI and sport psychology. Last year, Dr. Murray discussed the MPI on ESPN Canada, ABC television in West Palm Beach and CBS television in Sacramento. Previous appearances include Westwood One national radio, ESPN Radio affiliates (e.g., Dallas, TX and Blacksburg, VA), Ron Jacober's award winning "Sports on Sunday Morning" on KMOX in St. Louis, Mo., numerous radio programs in Canada, and Bloomberg Radio. He made multiple media appearances leading up to the game this year and his system was featured in the Los Angels Times and on the front page of the Palm Beach Daily News (http://www.smarttennis.com/pbdailynewsfrontpage020407.htm) among many others. Murray provides lectures, mental coaching, and sport psychology services to athletes and teams in many sports and he has worked with NFL players. He authored "Smart Tennis: How to Play and Win the Mental Game," endorsed by Lindsay Davenport, and Vincent Spadea credited Murray for helping him overcome the longest losing streak in tennis history. Dr. Murray just returned from the Australian Open where he was the official coach of Vincent Spadea who got his first win in eight years of this tournament. The weekly MPI reports on every play and game in Super Bowl history will be available beginning on February 25 at the website: http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com Dr. Murray is available for interviews. John F. Murray, PhD
Licensed Clinical and Sport Performance Psychologist
340 Royal Poinciana Way Suite 339J
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Telephone: 561-596-9898
Web: http://www.JohnFMurray.com ###
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