There have been lots of comments this week about how difficult it is to win at New England, how it will be a real test, and so on. To put this theory to the test, I compared New England's home and away record against the home and away record for every 12+ win team in the league since 2013 (last 15 seasons) Since 2003 the Patriots have been 102-18 at home and 87-33 away. An average season has been 12.6 wins, with 6.8 home wins and 5.8 away wins. Pretty impressive eh? Losing nearly twice as many away games as home games looks a bit suspicious though. Let's not look at that in isolation however. In the same period there have been 57 other teams who have won 12 or more games in a season. Those teams have gone 388-68 at home and 333-123 away The average* of those teams is 12.6 wins, with 6.8 home wins and 5.8 away wins. What this means is that it is no more difficult to beat the Patriots at home than it is to beat any other good team. Ipso facto, if the Pats are an average team this year it will be no more difficult to beat them at home than it is to beat any other average team. If they happen to be a bad team then it will be no more difficult to beat them at home than any other bad team. There is no special Foxboro benefit to the Patsies. I know as fans we like to to think of our stadiums as having a special benefit for our team, for example the September heat in Miami, the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in December, the crowd noise in Seattle, the altitude in Mile High Stadium. Maybe there is a benefit for other stadiums, I haven't looked into it, but there is nothing out of the ordinary about the Pat's winning record at home. It is exactly what you would expect for a team with their record away from home. As an aside this is a hole in the argument that the Pat's engage in systemic cheating. If the Pats are cheating systemically you would expect that benefit to be most pronounced at home where they can engage in sporting espionage more freely than they can on the road. The fact that the Patriot's record is so close to the average leads to 4 possible conclusions. 1) They don't actually cheat 2) They cheat but it it is a complete waste of time and effort and gives them zero advantage. 3) Every other teams cheats and they are no better or worse at cheating than the average franchise. 4) They are just as efficient as cheating in away venues where they cannot control the environment as they are as cheating at home where they have total control over the environment. *If you increase the decimal places you get 12.649 wins, 6.807 home wins and 5.842 away wins for the non Patriots 12+ winning teams. The Patriots numbers don't expand by increasing the decimal places.
Good job Pauly! I remember showing something like that myself pointing out there really isn't any statistical evidence of the Pats cheating, except for the abnormal fumbling stats since 2007. However, regarding winning in Foxboro not being anything special, it certainly is for the Dolphins. As I pointed out in that "Week Four Stats: New England" thread, we're 2-15 at Foxboro since 2001 with our last win in 2008 (a decade ago!). So while it's true that on average NE is no better at home relative to other strong teams, it's not true that it's equally easy for a specific team (i.e., the Dolphins) to win at NE. Yes it will be real test for us come Sunday, and somewhat historic I should add if we win.
The Pats have won 85% at home since 2003. Extrapolating that rate over 17 seasons would give them an expected record of 14.45 - 2.55 against an NFL average team, which translates as 14-2-1 as the closest possible record. So the 15-2 rate against the phins is completely expected as the most likely actual record would be 14-3 or 15-2 considering the low rate of ties in the NFL
Your entire argument is based on one flaw- that the Patriots have been an awesome team for the last 15 seasons. How are we 4-1 in our house the past 5 years yet 0-5 in their house? Statically speaking, we've been a better road team in those five years everywhere but NE, Buffalo and Baltimore. It's amazing that 31 other teams have had the exact same problem. I'm not doubting your research- I'm doubting the actual basis that the Pats are/were something special to begin with. We heard some Jets players mentioning that they figured out play calls in week 1 and look what happened- they absolutely destroyed their opponent. Wouldn't the Pats gain an equal advantage with one of the nation's best lip readers in their press box? I mean, come on...just Google Ernie Adams and his job description for the Pats. Wouldn't that also explain how the Pats have won so many playoff games (AT HOME) and then got destroyed in the Super Bowl (AT A NEUTRAL FIELD)? I'm guessing if you took our painfully average Dolphins teams from the past 15 years and put them all in the Super Bowl as many times as NE, we'd have just as many wins on any given Sunday.
That is true, but keep in mind that includes 2008 when we went 11-5 as well as the early 2000's when we were actually a good team (meaning that when teams are approximately evenly matched the odds change.. to about 58% win probability for the home team). We've gone 0-9 at Foxboro since then! In comparison the Jets have gone 5-12 at Foxboro during the same period. The Bills? Well they've been bottom feeders forever but even they have won 2 of their last 4 at New England (though they've lost practically every time before that lol). Point is, in recent history we've done really bad up there so yeah it would be special.
I put 4 hypotheses out. If we discount number 1 (no cheating) We are left with (2) It a WOFTAM. I don’t see Bill Belichek doing anything for that long if it gives him no benefit. (3) Everyone cheats and the Pats are average cheaters. If Belichek was devoted to cheating I’d like to think he’d be better at it than average (4) If you wanted to you could put cameras and microphones everywhere within your facility and they’d be undetectable, not just hidden camera/microphones but parabolic listening devices, drones that can operate beyond the visible eye, surveillance built into the architecture, extra radio channels going to the player’s helmets. If you were doing that and it gave you a benefit then your home record would be better than expected compared to your away record. This is stuff that would come out in a large sample of games. The problem with looking at 5 or 6 games is that the sample is too small to give you a reliable indication. When you look at the big picture the Patriots numbers are straight in line with what you would expect. If we look at the numbers as percentages. Patriots over 240 games split home and away 78.75% win rate overall 85.00% win rate at home 72.50% win rate away Other 12+ win teams 912 games split home and away 79.06% win rate 85.09% win rate at home 73.03% win rate away. The numbers don’t exclude that the Patriots cheat, but IMO the most likely explanations are (1) no cheating or (4) they are just as good at cheating away as at home. I know if I was running an NFL team and actively cheating in the NFL I’d be able to do a much better job at home than away.
They've been caught cheating over and over again, and no...I'm not talking about deflategate. Multiple teams have complained multiple times, and Mr. Kraft has admitted as much. Bellichek promised to stop, said it was a misunderstanding, etc....this was a decade ago. Yet they've retained Ernie Adams and continue their charades. This isn't a theory- it's been public knowledge for years now. Your assumption is that the Patriots have been an elite team for the past 15 years, even though they've had revolving doors at practically every position on the field (except QB). That assumption does nothing to explain how they've had one of the top D's even though they never seem to retain top talent. It doesn't explain how they fumble extraordinarily less than every team in the history of the game. There's a ton of stuff not explained by your stats because it compares a great team to a cheating team. Can cheaters do as well as elite non-cheaters? Sure....we don't need a hypothesis for that. As I said earlier, we just saw a really bad Jets team destroy an opponent by capturing signal calls. The Jets stink- yet they dominated. And the Jets didn't go to half the lengths as New England has with Ernie Adams. For instance, they don't have a library of other team's playbooks and they don't bug hotel rooms, locker rooms, etc. They also don't sign players to 7-day contracts JUST for direct intel. And of course, the Jets didn't deflate footballs either....yet they are a bad team that dominated. What could an average team do with those advantages if they retained home field advantage throughout the playoffs? I'm not trying to bust your balls here, but it drives me nuts when people say they didn't cheat or that cheating didn't help. This stuff is documented coming from Kraft's and Belichek's mouth. And 10 years ago, Goodell promised that he'd deal out serious consequences for cheaters from then on out (the Pats got a complete pass at the time, which pissed a lot of other owners off). Here's what is not in those reports though, several teams have complained since then about equipment suddenly not working on critical downs. They've brought up having to bring bug scanning devices to Gillette since it was such a common problem. And Goodell hasn't done anything about it- even when the Pats cheated their way to the Super Bowl a few years back after getting caught yet again (this time I'm talking about Deflategate & no huddle illegal formations/eligible receivers). Yes, they lost a draft pick- but what team wouldn't forfeit their 1st rounder for a Super Bowl appearance? That wasn't exactly the fierce punishment we were promised. Stats can never show how effective cheating is though because you have no idea how good the Pats actually were. All we have is comparison to teams that haven't cheated.....that's not really proof of anything. It's like comparing apples to oranges, saying they're both equally sweet, so both must be organic. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Keyfin I understand and I am aware of all what you have said. If other team's equipment failures at Foxboro were part of systemic cheating plan then, logically you would expect the Pats to have a better home record than their away record would suggest. I mean there's no point in cheating if it doesn't give you an advantage. Maybe other teams notice it more because it's the Pats and they suspect the Pats of cheating. If it happens in Cleveland no one cares because, well the Brown's record is what it is. I know other teams regularly sweep for bugs at Gillette stadium, and I hope the phins do it too. But if the Pats were bugging the other teams they aren't getting an advantage from it, as measured by their win rate vis-a-vis how other teams performs. They are less than 1% away from what the other comparable teams do in their home-away-overall win% I really wanted to find something that I could point to and say that it was fishy. The public perception that Gillette stadium is some kind of kryptonite to other teams is a well established belief. The simple fact is that if they are cheating at Gillette and gaining a benefit from that cheating they would have to deliberately losing games to match the overall trend. As I said the numbers don't preclude cheating, but they are more consistent with not cheating than cheating. Maybe their cheating is just as effective at home as it is away, but that doesn't fit the meetings rooms being bugged and causing equipment to fail storylines.
The patriots have a great home winning percentage mostly due to their team being so good for that long... that stadium doesnt get ridiculously loud... its not Kansas City..
On any given Sunday any team can beat any team. This is the nfl for crying out load. With that being said, the Patriots have been the dominant team in the nfl for years and with that contributes to a defeatist mindset. “Oh great, the Patriots at Foxborogh. “. Well, you’v already lost that game. These are not the Patriots of old and while I still hold reservations about this game, it’s not inconceivable that we can indeed win this game.
I think what Key is saying, is that you're separating that Pats being elite from the cheating as if they are two separate things and not directly related to each other. Your premise boils down to the Pats don't win more games at home than any other elite team, but you're only considering them elite because of the games they've won. But what if they've won those games through cheating? If, based on talent and the coaching carousel, the Pats are only an average team, but cheated their way to elite level wins, then that throws off your conclusions, no?
The simple fact of the matter is it's damn near statistically impossible for a team to maintain the level of dominance the Patriots have in their home stadium with so many different rosters without factoring in some drastic competitive advantage other teams don't have. That advantage is Ernie Adams and his foolproof method of signal stealing at home and whatever other shenanigans the Patriots concoct in their home digs.
No. You're basing all of this on 12.6 win a season teams. What if the Pats, without cheating, are only an 8 win a season team?
It’s a mental hurdle which is sometimes tougher than anything physical. You have to fight back that here we go again feeling when things don’t go perfect. Sure we can beat them physically let’s see how this team reacts mentally.
But if the Pats are cheating, then the numbers are artificial to begin with. You're looking at it like cheating = 100% wins, 100% of the time. And since they lose one at home every now and then, you see it as proof that the cheating doesn't change anything or it doesn't work. But we can't know that. I don't want to argue with you- we both have our own opinions. All I'll add is that four teams filed informal complaints as recently as the start of the 2017 season (that I personally know of). Prior complaints about other stuff is what ultimately led to Deflategate, and some team execs were upset when the other stuff got ignored. But it was still talked about while Goodell refused to take an "official complaint" that would be part of an official transcript. Again, this was supposed to be handled behind closed doors....and I think it actually was at some point last year. If you look at the way Miami destroyed NE last season, I think the message there was that pressure on Brady can overcome even the best intel. The Pats were still 13-3, of course, and still made it to the Super Bowl. But something changed inside that organization when Belichek gave away his QB of the future and a lot of players wanted out of the system. I think a lot of what they were doing has been scaled back this season and they're not the same on a level playing field.
In years past this team has had a slow start. This year they actually believe in the system and have fewer me players. Leadership, belef, and team go a long way. That being said losing to them on the rd wouldn't be the end of the world. However winning would be huge and they know it. Have to play mistake free football.
I'm just going to say it. Baring any injuries, We Will Win This Game. It's going to happen. We are clearly the better team, there's no question. They are slow on defense and lack play making receivers outside of Gronk and Gordon (if he plays). I know they get two guys back on Defense this week but have you seen? Our O tackles are both ranked in the top 20 thus far this year. All things staying the same, we will win this game. And next week chaos will be the rule of the day in the sports media world as they try to explain it all. This is going to be fun!
I'm praying...I'm hoping...I'm wishing.... But until this team actually wins games like the one coming up I can't believe that they will win. I hope this is the season where real Miami Dolphins football returns. It's been waaaaaaaaaaaay too long. And I hope we beat the Pats 100-0. My prediction: Pats: 24 Dolphins: 10 If the Dolphins can pull it out I will be far more optimistic for the rest of the season. But I refuse to get my heart broken AGAIN due to a team that got lucky a few games and then comes crashing back down to Earth.
Well, Even if we lose I'm not gonna be heartbroken, not this year, and we can chock it up to the Pats being the Pats. We sill still have a one game lead in the division regardless.
Yeah, winning in Foxboro would make a HUGE difference. But for me it's more winning those "must-win" games near the end of the season that is the threshold we have to cross. We've seen past Dolphins teams collapse right when it's most important. And that's true even when every game counts equally.. the pressure isn't the same in must-win situations. So I'll be as happy as everyone (or most everyone? .. sometimes you can't quite tell lol) if we beat the Pats on Sunday, but if we beat them and we still fail to make the playoffs.. OMG. Same ole Dolphins. Looking at how this team is playing though, especially with their close games record under Gase, such a collapse does seem less and less likely.
Found this interesting: NE has lost 7 out of 17 game #4's since 2001, which is well above expected. Their 76.8% win% over that time would suggest they should win 13 and lose 4, not lose 7. Out of curiosity I checked whether those 7 losses were statistically significant but they're not (for that you need just above 8 losses lol.. and it's BARELY still not statistically significant if we beat them and it's 8 losses out of 18 games). Anyway, don't take this stat seriously but I thought that was interesting. For whatever reason NE hasn't done as well in game #4.
I’m basing it on averaging 5.8 away wins a season. Teams that win away at that rate away from home can be expected to average 6.8 wins at home a season. If team X is systemically cheating at home in a way you cannot cheat away from home - extra radio channels to the QB, bugging meeting rooms, stealing game plans et al. then the logical expectation is that team X would be better at home than their away record would indicate. It doesn’t matter what their overall record is, you want to compare home and away. Then if a team’s home record is better than expected you have to exclude other factors such as exceptionally loud stadiums, altitude, higher than usual heat, colder than usual, idiosyncratic wind patterns as affecting the home win%. The Patriots home win% is less than 1% away from the expected win% based in how other teams perform away from home. Now I remember reading somewhere that teams generally average 1 win per season more at home than away, I don’t have the tools to check if that is correct or not. However if that is true it further reinforces the point that the Patriots home record is in line with their away record. Basically because their home record is almost identical to what league averages predict it precludes the Patriots getting any benefit from cheating at their home stadium. It doesn’t preclude the Patriots from cheating and if you want to believe the Patriots do cheat then you are left with 2 possibilities. (1) They cheat just as effectively away as at home (2) the extra effort they put into cheating at home is a wasted effort and they gain no benefit from it. In a previous career I investigated insurance fraud. Most people who commit insurance fraud get caught because they get greedy. If you steal $1 a week the insurance company won’t notice and it costs them more to stop you than to pay it. Then you start stealing $10 a week. A very diligent employee might discover it and if you get caught you can offer an innocent explanation and avoid prosecution. If you don’t get caught then you start stealing $100 a week. You might be able to keep this up for a while, especially if it’s hidden among some other larger numbers. If you get caught you can offer a plausible explanation and avoid prosecution but you’ll be forced to repay what you’ve stolen. Then if you’re not caught you’ll start stealing $1,000 a week. This puts you on the radar of the insurance company quickly (assuming base level competence at the insurance sompany) and they will hunt you down and do their best to put you in jail. People who cheat and get away with it always escalate their level of cheating. They’re getting a reward and no negative reinforcement so it’s human nature to push it further. They start thinking they’re smarter than the person they’re cheating, they start getting comfortable and make careless mistakes, they start boasting to their friends. Now a lot of people successfully cheat insurance companies- but from my experience that’s mainly due to boneheaded lack of care on the part of insurance company employees. Getting back to the NFL and the Pats, my expectation is that if the Pats were doing anything dodgy at home that benefited them they would keep doing it and that would show up in their record.
Part of the cheating the Patriots were caught doing was stealing signals electronically while at their stadium. The benefit from that would not come in that game but in their next game against that opponent.
Obviously at home the Patriots have referee help, helmets stay on at all times, they have CIA agents bugging the opposition headsets, and if the opposition is about to win?? They will pay someone to accuse the opposing QB of rape 36 years prior. Those guy's pull out all the stops!!
I've been through enough of these debates I'm staying out of this one (not sure anyone's going to change their mind anyway). However, just for info, there is a sample size effect on your stats which doesn't affect your argument at all, but it's worth pointing out. For the 120 home games and 120 away games you looked at, the 95% confidence interval for 6.8 wins (talking about NE now) is from 6.2 wins to 7.2 wins. In other words, if the population stat (i.e., those 57 other teams.. though really you need to include NE in this too) lies within the 6.2 to 7.2 interval it's not a "statistically significant" difference – it can still be explained by random variation alone. Just saying because whether "less than 1% away" is meaningful or not depends on sample size. The 95% confidence interval for away wins (for NE) is from 5.1 to 6.1 wins. And if you're interested in which method is used to calculate the confidence intervals it's something called the Wilson method for binomial confidence intervals. Anyway, have fun with the debate lol.. but I'm just pointing this out because there is a way to take sample size into account.
Dude.. it's Russian interference! Don't tell me you didn't know about the Putin-Belichick connection! (with Ernie Adams the go-between!)
Completely off topic, but I'm a computer nerd that used to really enjoy building systems. I go into my local shop one day where I'm friends with the owner (and sometimes worked there for free just to help him out). He's building this $10k+ system with hydro-coolers, next generation fans and five top of the line video cards...and I ask him, who the heck would want a system like this? It turned out that it was back at the start of Bitcoin and it was a mining rig for a very wealthy individual. That's not the good part though. The owner tells me that I should meet this guy ask ask him his background...he's being kind of squirrely about the details. So I happen to run into the guy a few days later at the shop, we chat for a little bit then ask him what he does for a living. He says he's a retired computer hacker- no hesitation at all. So I ask him for details, and he proceeds to tell me that he stole over $50M across the course of 4 years in the late 80's/early 90's....all $400 or less at a time. In a nutshell, he lived out of his car for almost 10 months a year, driving cross country and hacking into local servers of major corporations. Once he had access, he's hit their network and grab $100-200 randomly....always at an odd number like $147.68. His program would look for a recent transaction amount in that range and duplicate it just once, then he'd head on to another city and another access point for 56k dial-up. Then he'd wait a month and do the same thing all over again, from a different location and on every account he managed to hack. $100-200 per company, every month, for four long years. He said he's probably stayed in every city in America above a few thousand population. Anyway, seven years after the fact, he turned himself in. He admitted to over 1,000 misdemeanors that had already passed the statute of limitations, then offered to show each victim how he did it. And guess what? They paid him to help strengthen their networks since there was no online security or major firewalls in the 90's. This guy was one of the first criminals turned corporate heroes and he made 10's of millions more in consulting.
Hey guys.. check this out: We win on Sunday and there will be symmetry in NE's game #4 records from 2001-2018 LOLOL 2001: Miami wins game #4 against NE 2002: NE loss 2003: NE loss 2004: NE win 2005: NE loss .. now come 8 straight NE wins from 2006 to 2013 .. then: 2014: NE loss 2015: NE win 2016: NE loss 2017: NE loss 2018 ???????? Miami again It's a sign! lol
I didn’t say this earlier because it’s kind of misleading for people who don’t use stats and probabilities very much, but it’s actually more suspicious to be right on the average than to be a bit above or below. It’s a common mistake when people try to fake a random pattern, but there’s a whole line of research that shows that the human brain basically cannot fake a random pattern.
Those are two different things. Yes, humans have trouble being random, but most natural distributions (including most for human behavior) are normal distributions so the most common occurrence is the mean. That's not true in this case though as you can see by those confidence intervals being skewed relative to the mean. In this case the most common occurrence is the median. All depends on the distribution.
Yeah, that's why I told the story...because of what you said. The guy told me that people would steal $5k at a time and then be in jail a month later. He'd take $122.67 and he was never even a suspect.
Speaking of "cheating"...Sean McVay must have invented some bionic device and inserted in Jared Goff's right arm. I haven't seen a QB performance like this in a LONG time.
Kind of depressing really...our offense isn't even CLOSE, like lite years away from as good as either of these teams. We are scrappy though, we find ways to win, so there is that.
I love how the kicker for the Rams is named "Ficken". Where are the German speakers here lol (look under "Verb"): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ficken#German
From 1978-2017 excluding the strike shortened 1982 season, so all 16-game seasons in NFL history, 8-8 teams have won 59.26% of their home games and 40.74% of their away games. That translates to 4.74 home wins and 3.26 away wins.
On average an 8-8 teams should be around 4.5 home wins and 3.5 away wins - that is assuming that on average home records are one win better than away records. In practice what it means is that 8-8 teams will spread anywhere from 8/0 home/away wins through to 0/8 home/away, but that the most common splits will be 4/4 and 5/3. It’s a little easier with odd win totals. For example 13 win teams most commonly spike at 7/6 with other combinations getting progressively less common the further you go from 7/6.
