New Super Bowl stat: Jobless rate

No wonder the Eagles rarely make it to the Super Bowl. Philadelphia's job record is worse than the team.

RiseSmart, an outplacement technology company in California, posits that the results of the Super Bowl game can readily be predicted by looking at the jobless rates of the two competing cities. The one with the lowest rate usually wins the title.

It's been that way 21 out of the last 26 contests - which is as far back as RiseSmart tracked the data.

"Could it be a coincidence? Of course - but it is certainly an interesting correlation," wrote Sanjay Sathe, CEO of RiseSmart. "Who's to say that a city's economic prosperity, as measured by jobless rates, doesn't have at least some effect on fan support, team morale, and other factors that could influence the game's outcome?"

Let's look at the numbers: The Baltimore metropolitan area, home of the victorious Ravens, had an unemployment rate of 7 percent in December. San Francisco: 7.3 in December.

Philadelphia's rate was a staggering 8.4 percent in December - this is for the entire metropolitan area.

It doesn't look as if fired head coach Andy Reid needed much outplacement help. The Kansas City Chiefs snatched him up. If Sathe's theory is correct, Reid should be super successful there. In December, the Kansas City metro area had an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent.