Donna Kelce will be a proud mother when Super Bowl LVII kicks off, as both her sons will be playing in it, albeit on opposite sides. Jason and Travis Kelce will become the first brothers to play in a Super Bowl for opposing teams when the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. Their mother thinks the odds for something like that are “astronomical.”
When asked how she felt about both her sons playing in the Super Bowl, Donna Kelce told USA TODAY Sports that it was “like having a lottery ticket and punching it.” But what are the odds of that happening? Are they really as long as lotto odds?
The Odds Are Quite Good
Two university professors did the math and concluded that the odds were far more realistic than Donna Kelce imagined. They were still pretty long, mind you, but were nowhere near the lotto-type odds Mrs Kelce thought she had.
Gary Lorden from the California Institute of Technology said the odds were in the 40-to-1 region. Sheldon Jacobson from the University of Illinois claimed the odds depended on several variables and were somewhere between 25-to-1 and 75-to-1.
Jacobson, a computer science professor, said he was surprised the odds weren’t higher. However, with so many brother pairs out there, he said it added up quickly. The data says that since 1967, in the Super Bowl era, there have been 323 sets of brothers that have played in the NFL.
The Real Odds Are about 60-to-1
According to Jacobson, under “ideal conditions” i.e. one of the brothers playing in the NFC and the other in the AFC, as well as the teams having the same chances of getting to the Super Bowl, the odds were 25-to-1.
That’s the best-case scenario. However, adapting the data to the chances the Chiefs and Eagles were given to reach the Super Bowl gives odds of 60-to-1 to a maximum of 75-to-1.
According to Jacobson, odds of 60-to-1 are right on the money, as in 57 years of the Super Bowl era, this is the first time we see two brothers going at each other in the big game.
Lorden, on the other hand, thinks that at odds of 40-to-1, we can expect brother vs brother Super Bowl showdowns every 25 years. Those odds, he said, were not that remarkable.
Would You Bet on a Kelce Super Bowl Rematch?
But how about a Super Bowl rematch – what are the chances of that happening? The Kelce brothers have been joking about this recently, but experts say that’s “highly unlikely.”
First of all, teams would have to meet in back-to-back Super Bowls. That has happened only once when the Buffalo Bills played against the Dallas Cowboys in 1993 and the year after. The brothers would also have to stay injury-free. Lastly, Jason Kelce has already dropped some hints about retiring after the Super Bowl which makes betting on a brotherly rematch the longest of long shots.
