Know when to pick chalk

I recently wrote about wild card weekend in the NFL, when 3 of the 4 games ended as upsets.  Well, another weekend has passed, and this time all four favored teams won.  What a shock.

The reasons why are obvious, but not to some of the professional prognosticators at ESPN.  Virtually EVERY SINGLE PERSON that I saw forecasting the Rams/Cowboys game picked the Cowboys.  Why?  Oh, they’d talk about how the Rams really don’t have a home field advantage (as if crowd noise explained home field advantage), they were a different team after the Amari Cooper trade, and the match up favored the Cowboys.  But the bottom line was that a 10-6 team that won the weakest of the NFC’s divisions were “hot” because they eked out a two-point victory at home over a mediocre Seahawks team, so of course they should be favored over a 13-3 team that broke countless scoring records during the season.  I suspect an additional factor was that most ESPN talking heads think of the Cowboys as an “elite” franchise even though they have a nearly .500 record over the past several years and haven’t actually WON anything in over 20 years.

Why do upsets dominate wild card weekend, but not the following week?  Let us count the ways.

First, there is a smaller spread of talent on wild card weekend.  The very fact that you have to play on wild card weekend means you weren’t that good during the regular season.  The really good teams get a week off, but usually there are around ten or twelve teams with so-so records vying for the 8 slots on wild card weekend.  There is a ceiling of how good a team can be to play on wild card weekend, but there is no floor; heck, the 7-9 Seahawks qualified one year.  With a smaller gap between the top dogs and the underdogs, some upsets are inevitable.

Second, the teams playing on wild card weekend are playing on an equal basis in one respect; they all played the weekend before.  However, the teams that got a bye on wild card weekend get to have a week off, allowing their players to rest and recover after an arduous football season.  A wild card win might build momentum, but having a rested team counts for a lot more.

The bye week also gives the coaches of those teams additional time to prepare. In cases like Bill Belichick, that extra prep time is deadly.  What Hannibal Smith said in The A-Team Movie fits perfectly: “Give me a minute, I'm good. Give me an hour, I'm great. Give me six months, I'm unbeatable.”  Give Bill Belichick two weeks and you’re toast.

The third reason for fewer upsets the weekend after wild card weekend is that some studies have indicated that home field advantage is more significant for better teams, such as those that avoided having to play on wild card weekend.  Whatever the reason for home field advantage (and as I indicated above, crowd noise is probably only one of a myriad of factors involved) good teams seem to do a better job of taking advantage of them.  Good teams that play outdoors in cold climates are better suited for icy, slippery conditions; teams that play at high altitudes are conditioned to play more effectively with less oxygen; teams that play on turf in domes can take more advantage of the speed and the crowd noises.

By the way, referees used to throw flags and penalize teams for Unsportsmanlike Conduct if the home fans made so much noise the opponents couldn't hear the play calls.  Why don't they do that any more?

It was completely predictable that wild card weekend would see three upsets in four games, while the next round saw four of four favored teams win.  Not that they were all slam dunks; the Saints/Eagles game could have gone the other way but for some fortunate bounces for the Saints.  But many of the sages at ESPN predicted that the Colts would beat Kansas City (based largely on KC’s pathetic history, the resurgent career of Andrew Luck, and the feeble performance of rookie QBs in the wild card round), or the Chargers would beat New England (because Brady’s not the same QB he used to be), or Dallas would beat the Rams (see my first paragraph).  Some even predicted the Eagles would beat the highly favored Saints because of, and I quote, “magic.”

So keep this in mind for future NFL playoffs: look for the upset on wild card weekend, but for the Divisional Round stick with the chalk.