Hawks playing teams after their Bye

[mykc14]

I think I remember us discussing this when the schedule came out, but the Hawks play 4 teams after their Bye weeks, which is obviously a lot as there are only like 7 possible weeks you could possible play somebody coming off of a bye. Further more they play 1 team who gets an extra rest because they were play on a Thursday night for a total of 5 games played against teams who have extra rest, or longer to game plan for the Hawks. Compare that to a team like the Cardinals who only play 1 game against a team with extra days of rest, and that was us. The bad part is that we have only played 2 of those games so far (Panthers and Cards) and obviously have lost both. In the end you have to play whose on your schedule when their on your schedule and our schedule is just a little tougher this year, although sometimes those extra days off are a disadvantage. What do you guys think? IMO it would have been nice to play the Cards and Panthers without them having an extra week to scheme against us.

http://www.footballperspective.com/wash ... -schedule/

[Stream Hawk]

And Pittsburgh after their bye. Whatever, we cannot complain about the schedule; that's the last of our problems. This team must rise up now and get their act together or else the naysayers are correct. It's like we've become the 2012 hawks that had trouble finishing. The difference is that team had huge upside and went on a serious roll until their they ran out of gas.

Not sure that can happen with this team, especially considering the issues we've seen from Russell's inaccuracies, lack of offensive line, horrific defensive backfield collapses.It's like they ran out of gas ALL SEASON! WTF?

[RiverDog]

It's a red herring, mykc. From 2009 to 2014, the winning percentage of teams coming off a bye is 52.2%.

http://www.cheatsheetwarroom.com/fantas ... k29l8-FOM8

That's not a significant enough difference for us to get our briefs in a wad over. There's more important things for us to worry about. If it were 60%+, then I could see it. But not when there's barely a 2% difference. Prior to this season, both the Cards and the Panthers are 1-4 coming out of their byes, Pittsburgh 4-1, and Dallas was 2-3, or overall the teams we are facing coming out of byes are a collective 8-12, so I can't see where catching any team other than perhaps Pittsburgh is going to be a disadvantage for us if you put any weight into that argument.

Besides, if you're going to make an argument, you'd have to tell me what the average is for teams that have games after their opponent's bye week. Is it two? Three? In addition, you pretty much have to subtract the Cards game as we, too, were coming out of our bye, so really you're only talking about 3 games against teams coming out of their byes when we had a normal week.

The league might have tossed Pittsburgh and Carolina a bone by giving them a bye prior to facing us because they're east coast teams and we're the longest road trip on their schedule and I know that they give teams that play in London the following week off, but I suspect our situation is just an anomaly. There are a huge number of factors that go into developing a schedule.

[NorthHawk]

If they were all 10am road games, then I would be concerned but they're not.

[mykc14]

RD, I have seen those stats before and also remember how the Hawks seem to come out flat after bye from time to time, also that link you provided only looks at teams after their BYE weeks I wonder what that number would look like if it included all games after a long rest (i.e. Thursday night games). It might not change much but would be interesting to see. I also agree with you guys that the schedule isn't why the Hawks are 4-5. At the same time this, IMO, points to the larger problem within the NFL scheduling and the inequity that sometimes exists. Speaking of those 10AM kickoffs we have all seen how the NFL actually made a rule about teams traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast on back to back weeks, but there is no rule for the West Coast teams traveling east. IMO there should be more of an attempt to have equality within the schedule. Again, the Hawks need to play better but it does seem a bit unfair to have teams playing multiple teams off longer rests and other teams not having to play any or only 1.

[RiverDog]

RD, I have seen those stats before and also remember how the Hawks seem to come out flat after bye from time to time, also that link you provided only looks at teams after their BYE weeks I wonder what that number would look like if it included all games after a long rest (i.e. Thursday night games). It might not change much but would be interesting to see. I also agree with you guys that the schedule isn't why the Hawks are 4-5. At the same time this, IMO, points to the larger problem within the NFL scheduling and the inequity that sometimes exists. Speaking of those 10AM kickoffs we have all seen how the NFL actually made a rule about teams traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast on back to back weeks, but there is no rule for the West Coast teams traveling east. IMO there should be more of an attempt to have equality within the schedule. Again, the Hawks need to play better but it does seem a bit unfair to have teams playing multiple teams off longer rests and other teams not having to play any or only 1.

First of all, how do we know if an inequity exists and if so, by how much? We essentially only faced 3 teams coming off our bye three times this season, is that about average or is it way over the norm? We need to define the problem before we go about solving it.

Secondly, if there's no substantial proof of teams coming off a 14 day layoff after 160 post bye week games that have been played over the past 5 years, do you really think a 10 day layoff would show significantly different results? I really don't think it's worth the time and effort when the teams themselves aren't complaining.

As far as the east coast teams being given preferential treatment when they travel to the west coast, that problem was easier to fix than it would have been for our complaints about the early starts when we travel back east. As in all things with the NFL, I'm sure that their game slotting has to do with viewership than anything else. I do know that they will not put teams in the same TV market, like Giants-Jets, in the same time slot for obvious reasons. But beyond that, I'm not sure how they determine who plays when, but I think it's a fair assumption that they'll get more viewers in the east coast at the 1:00pm ET vs. 4:00 pm ET as there are by far more games shown in the earlier time slot. Besides, as in the bye week thing, I don't hear our coaches complaining, only the fans.

[NorthHawk]

Fans should be the biggest concern. If a percentage are occupied at 10am on Sunday's then the advertisers could conceivably demand a lower cost in the local 10am market for lesser viewers. I don't know how they don't see that.
The answer is to have no team start games before 1pm for each teams local time. It's an easy fix if they really wanted it.

[mykc14]

First of all, how do we know if an inequity exists and if so, by how much? We essentially only faced 3 teams coming off our bye three times this season, is that about average or is it way over the norm? We need to define the problem before we go about solving it.

Secondly, if there's no substantial proof of teams coming off a 14 day layoff after 160 post bye week games that have been played over the past 5 years, do you really think a 10 day layoff would show significantly different results? I really don't think it's worth the time and effort when the teams themselves aren't complaining.

As far as the east coast teams being given preferential treatment when they travel to the west coast, that problem was easier to fix than it would have been for our complaints about the early starts when we travel back east. As in all things with the NFL, I'm sure that their game slotting has to do with viewership than anything else. I do know that they will not put teams in the same TV market, like Giants-Jets, in the same time slot for obvious reasons. But beyond that, I'm not sure how they determine who plays when, but I think it's a fair assumption that they'll get more viewers in the east coast at the 1:00pm ET vs. 4:00 pm ET as there are by far more games shown in the earlier time slot. Besides, as in the bye week thing, I don't hear our coaches complaining, only the fans.

I would say that an inequality definitely exists as the Hawks play 4 teams coming off of their Bye. 1 Team (Washington) plays 3 teams. 4 Teams play 2 Teams coming off of their bye. On the other side of the coin, a whopping 9 teams play 0 teams coming off of their bye.30 of 32 teams play at least half as many games against teams coming off of their byes as the Hawks. I found 2 other years as I was looking through that article, through links, and found that the Hawks had the 2nd and 3rd most games against teams with extra rest those years (2012 and 2013).

As far as the 10 day rest vs. 14 day rest I don't know if it is an advantage or not, but I know that I would rather play a team good team with those extra days of rest. There is no real tangible reason why having more rest (14 days) wouldn't give you some sort of an advantage. There are a lot of 'maybes.' Maybe the extra days off get teams out of their rhythm. Maybe it takes a half a game to get back to 'game-speed' after the layoff, I don't know but there has to at some level be an advantage to extra days off and it could be that 14 days is too much and 10 allows for the extra game planning but not the loss in rhythm. It also could be nothing and there is absolutely no advantage to having those days off. Personally, I like when the Hawks have a little extra time to heal up and game plan for their next opponent because it seems like a slight advantage to me.

There are a lot things that we don't hear coaching complaining about but that doesn't mean that they aren't. After reading about the whole 'spygate' thing it seems like a lot of teams were complaining about what the Pats were doing but we didn't really hear anything about it. Let my ask you this: Do you think it is fair that the NFL says East coast teams traveling to the West coast on back to back weeks creates a competitive disadvantage for those East coast teams but does not offer that West coast teams would be at the same type of competitive disadvantage?

[RiverDog]

I would say that an inequality definitely exists as the Hawks play 4 teams coming off of their Bye. 1 Team (Washington) plays 3 teams. 4 Teams play 2 Teams coming off of their bye. On the other side of the coin, a whopping 9 teams play 0 teams coming off of their bye.30 of 32 teams play at least half as many games against teams coming off of their byes as the Hawks. I found 2 other years as I was looking through that article, through links, and found that the Hawks had the 2nd and 3rd most games against teams with extra rest those years (2012 and 2013).

As far as the 10 day rest vs. 14 day rest I don't know if it is an advantage or not, but I know that I would rather play a team good team with those extra days of rest. There is no real tangible reason why having more rest (14 days) wouldn't give you some sort of an advantage. There are a lot of 'maybes.' Maybe the extra days off get teams out of their rhythm. Maybe it takes a half a game to get back to 'game-speed' after the layoff, I don't know but there has to at some level be an advantage to extra days off and it could be that 14 days is too much and 10 allows for the extra game planning but not the loss in rhythm. It also could be nothing and there is absolutely no advantage to having those days off. Personally, I like when the Hawks have a little extra time to heal up and game plan for their next opponent because it seems like a slight advantage to me.

There are a lot things that we don't hear coaching complaining about but that doesn't mean that they aren't. After reading about the whole 'spygate' thing it seems like a lot of teams were complaining about what the Pats were doing but we didn't really hear anything about it. Let my ask you this: Do you think it is fair that the NFL says East coast teams traveling to the West coast on back to back weeks creates a competitive disadvantage for those East coast teams but does not offer that West coast teams would be at the same type of competitive disadvantage?

Like I mentioned earlier, you really can't count the Arizona game as facing a team coming off a bye as we were coming off one ourselves, so that puts our number down to 3, and if you are going to want me to believe in your theory, you're going to have to come up with some empirical data that proves that there's a performance difference. The link I posted earlier goes back 5 years, times 32 teams is 160 games. A 52% winning percentage doesn't seem much more than you would expect from plain old random coin tosses, every once in awhile, heads is going to come up a little more often than tails. The NFL has enough variables they have to account for when they come up with a master schedule without worrying about red herring issues like facing teams coming off of bye weeks.

Coaches discussing scandals between each other differ from debates about NFL rules and procedures. I can see how a lot of fellow coaches were reluctant to complain about one of their own, afraid to make accusations without hard facts, yet still whisper about it to one another. It's sort of like talking about your boss's wife cheating. You'd rather someone else go public about it. On the other hand, teams have been traveling from the PT to ET for decades. If it were truly that big of a deal to teams, it would have surfaced in more circles other than a couple of fan bases. Pete said once that he addresses it by coming out a day earlier, but even that seems like overkill to me. Again, if you can show me some hard evidence, I'm more likely to buy in. But that one's going to be a little more complicated as unlike coming off a bye, the travel issue obviously only happens in road games, so you will have to factor in overall road winning percentage vs. games on the east coast, plus you're going to have to account for the fact that the NFC East and AFC East have had some pretty lousy teams over the past few years compared to other divisions in other time zones. The bye week thing is easier to prove or disprove because it's completely random relative to who the opponent is.

If they made west coast teams travel to the east coast on back-to-back weekends, then you would have a point. But they don't. They should have worded the process differently, something like no back-to-back trips crossing 3 time zones for any team then it would have sounded more equitable. But I do agree that they caved in to the Steelers and Giants and owe us a favor. Damn Steelers haven't had to come to our house for a long, long time. I don't think Worthlessburger ever has played out here.

[mykc14]

I want to make it clear that I don't know if there is an actual benefit to teams coming off of the bye or extra days reps. I just started the thread to show there was a disparity between our number of games against teams coming off of the bye and the rest of the league, and there clearly is. 30 teams have at least half of the number of games against teams coming off of their byes as us and 9 have none of those games. There is some evidence to suggest that teams do benefit from the extra time:

https://www.sportsinsights.com/blog/is- ... off-a-bye/

It's a gambling website and I actually just stumbled upon it as I was looking for NFL scheduling stuff. Anyway, I don't know that there is a benefit to the extra time off, but it sure seems like they could be more equal.

Your point about us and the Cards having a bye at the same time is valid, but I could also argue our benefit of playing a team after our bye is gone because that team also has the same amount of time off so any slight advantage gained was also lost.

[RiverDog]

I want to make it clear that I don't know if there is an actual benefit to teams coming off of the bye or extra days reps. I just started the thread to show there was a disparity between our number of games against teams coming off of the bye and the rest of the league, and there clearly is. 30 teams have at least half of the number of games against teams coming off of their byes as us and 9 have none of those games. There is some evidence to suggest that teams do benefit from the extra time:

https://www.sportsinsights.com/blog/is- ... off-a-bye/

It's a gambling website and I actually just stumbled upon it as I was looking for NFL scheduling stuff. Anyway, I don't know that there is a benefit to the extra time off, but it sure seems like they could be more equal.

Your point about us and the Cards having a bye at the same time is valid, but I could also argue our benefit of playing a team after our bye is gone because that team also has the same amount of time off so any slight advantage gained was also lost.

That's a record beating the spread, and as we all know, establishing a point spread is not an accurate reflection of the quality differences between the two teams. All a bookie is trying to do when he sets a point spread is to set it so he will attract an even amount of bets on each team and equalize his payout risk, so in a perfect world, they pay out 50% of the total bets. They make their money on the 10% they take off the winning payout. So if you have 10,000 idiot Cowboy fans throwing down $100 on the Cowboys to beat the Patriots even though Romo is out and they're starting some random backup, the bookie has to adjust the spread to encourage more money on the Pats.

That 'evidence' obviously doesn't trump the result of 160 games played over the past 5 years, which screens out all that noise.

Sorry, mykc. You haven't convinced me.

[mykc14]

Sorry, mykc. You haven't convinced me.

Thats ok I don't think I have convinced myself either.

[RiverDog]

Thats ok I don't think I have convinced myself either.

LOL! It was a good topic, though, and I enjoy debating you vs. someone like Anthony who wouldn't admit to something like that if his life depended on it.