Too soon to think about Super Bowl LIV? Nonsense. Through four weeks of the NFL season, the 2019 playoff picture is slowly starting to clear up. Championship favorites are emerging, and it's the teams you might guess -- sort of. The New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs and ... San Francisco 49ers are the lone unbeatens left.
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.
Here are the 10 most likely matchups that occurred in those 20,000 simulations:
1. Patriots vs. Cowboys
FPI chance to happen: 8%
Number to know: Tom Brady will grab most of the headlines in this matchup, but Dak Prescott leads the league in Total QBR at 86.6, six spots ahead of Brady (65.6). Plus, Dallas leads the league in pass block win rate -- an ESPN metric powered by NFL Next Gen Stats -- meaning Prescott is getting better pass protection than any other quarterback.
What makes this an interesting matchup: Last season, Bill Belichick took down a coaching prodigy in Super Bowl LIII. This time, will 31-year-old Kellen Moore, the Cowboys' offensive coordinator, be able to scheme up his nouveau offense to overcome an all-time great coaching opponent?
