The Worst Kind of Loss

[Fritz]

After this weekend of playoff games, it struck me that the most painful loss (for a fan, anyway) might be the one that teams like Tennessee and New York suffered this past weekend.

Your team plays well all season long. They work their butts off, so they can have a bye week to heal up. It's the reward for playing at a high level for most all of the season. The very reason you want to have a gaudy record - it gives you, supposedly, an advantage. You get to rest up all those tired and injured players, and conjure up some awesome new plays to try. Your team's record seems evidence of its superiority - they ought to win, right?

AND your team gets the coveted week off...they prepare, they rest..and here comes your opponent, who has a worse record than your team did and had to play last week. No rest for the weary.

And then your team loses. And your season's over. One and out. So your big ol' 13-3 or 12-4 record was for naught.

To me, that's the most painful kind of playoff loss.

[packers11]

Agreed... Last year was awfully painful...

and 4th and 26... Well... I won't even go there...

[Fritz]

Right, but as bad as those were, neither came in that particular situation I described.

I mean, they hurt, but think of the expectations in Tennessee and New York, and how they were dashed after one measly game, after their teams got a bye week.

[TravisWilliams23]

I agree Fritz. That's why last year when the Giants knocked off Dallas
at Dallas I was double pleased. GB got the home field and the 'Boys
got to stay home and watch.

As good as Tennessee's record was this year, I never really felt they were
the team to beat. Hell, GB took them into OT during the season and
we're not even a 500 team.

The Giants and Eli really missed Plaxico. The man might have shit for brains
but he sure could play ball. They really weren't the same team when after
the shooting incident happened.

[Jimx29]

i'll still take 13-3 and one pass way from the SB any day of the week

[Gunakor]

As good as Tennessee's record was this year, I never really felt they were
the team to beat. Hell, GB took them into OT during the season and
we're not even a 500 team.

I contend that this team is an above .500 team that finished with a below .500 record. My reasoning behind that belief is the same as yours - we took Tennessee to OT at their place. We also took Carolina to the wire, beat Indianapolis, split with the Vikings... We played very well against many playoff teams this year.

[Pugger]

I wonder if having a week off is all its cracked up to be. Aren't football players and coaches creatures of habit? Maybe they do better if they DON'T take a week off, especially if they've been playing well.

[Fritz]

I wonder about this, Pugs. It'd be interesting to see a study done of teams with byes - their record the weekend they play the first game versus the record of teams that have to play the week before. And it could be done over time to see if the patterns change.

[sheepshead]

I wonder if having a week off is all its cracked up to be. Aren't football players and coaches creatures of habit? Maybe they do better if they DON'T take a week off, especially if they've been playing well.

With parody so prevalent these days, this could be a great point. We need a stat guy to find us a spread sheet. When we had a clear dominant team it didn't matter as much.

[hoosier]

I wonder about this, Pugs. It'd be interesting to see a study done of teams with byes - their record the weekend they play the first game versus the record of teams that have to play the week before. And it could be done over time to see if the patterns change.

The NFL first implemented the bye week in 1993. Since then, according to one site, teams coming off their bye week have a combined record of 173-150-6. I have no idea what the cumulative previous records of their opponents are, but with that big a sampling I would imagine it's pretty close to .500. Among the teams with the best post-bye records are Philly, Denver, Minnesota, Dallas; among the worst are Atlana, Cincinnati and--worst of all--Seattle. I would have thought that a Holmgren-coached team would benefit more from extra preparation. Packers are 5-5.

http://www.repole.com/sun4cast/samples/nflbyerec.html