Is PATS game suddenly more important? Check this stat out from NFL.com

mmmm....pie

Conversely, and just as importantly, if the Pats don't win the opener, their odds of making the playoffs are cut in half, and their odds of winning the division go down to a "paltry 14%."

Yup....

The answer is No.

Miami started 2-0 last year and had no real shot at the playoffs by mid-season.

The year the Pats won their first SB, they started 0-2 and 1-3 (including getting crushed by the Dolphins in game 4). Their 2nd SB winning year they lost to the Bills, 31-0. The Bills did not make the playoffs.

It has zero bearing. It does not "reduce" the odds.

One of the reasons for this fact is simply that a number of bad teams will lose their first game and go on to having losing seasons.

These kinds of statistics really have very little meaning. Obviously, if a team gets in the hole at 0-3 that is tough to overcome. But, even then, that stat is misguided in its use. One of the reasons, as with losing the first game, that teams that start 0-2 or 0-3 don't make the playoffs is that they are just bad teams and also lose their confidence. But, a team that is actually very good and has the talent/coaching, can start 0-2 and win it all.

"cdz12250 wrote:

Conversely, and just as importantly, if the Pats don't win the opener, their odds of making the playoffs are cut in half, and their odds of winning the division go down to a "paltry 14%."

According to the stats, yes. But I think we know that the PATS would be in the 24 percentile. My question is, if we go 0-1, are we confident we can say, "oh, it doesn't matter, we're gonna be in that 24%"

I guarantee you if we go 0-2, a thread with the same percentages will be posted as done so in the past, and then will it be any more relevant?

This game is much more important than worrying about making the playoffs. If the Dolphins win, Sparano starts buying some extra time. He loses close, things stay the same. They get blown out, the heat gets turned up several notches on the Sparano hot seat. That's the nuts & bolts of this game.

"Da 'Fins wrote:

The answer is No.

Miami started 2-0 last year and had no real shot at the playoffs by mid-season.

The year the Pats won their first SB, they started 0-2 and 1-3 (including getting crushed by the Dolphins in game 4). Their 2nd SB winning year they lost to the Bills, 31-0. The Bills did not make the playoffs.

It has zero bearing. It does not "reduce" the odds.

One of the reasons for this fact is simply that a number of bad teams will lose their first game and go on to having losing seasons.

These kinds of statistics really have very little meaning. Obviously, if a team gets in the hole at 0-3 that is tough to overcome. But, even then, that stat is misguided in it's use - one of the reasons, as with losing the first game, that teams that start 0-2 or 0-3 don't make the playoffs is that they are just bad teams and also lose their confidence. But, a team that is actually very good and has the talent/coaching, can start 0-2 and win it all.

Ultimately I agree, stats are stats, I just posted what is historically the case as I found it interesting. Percentages are percentages and to be taken with a grain of salt, BUT, at the end of the day, they are formed impartially and DO reflect on history.

"DolfanJake wrote:

This game is much more important than worrying about making the playoffs. If the Dolphins win, Sparano starts buying some extra time. He loses close, things stay the same. They get blown out, the heat gets turned up several notches on the Sparano hot seat. That's the nuts & bolts of this game.

I don't think this is the case considering we are playing a perennial super bowl favorite. If we lost to CLE, CAR, or SF, then yes, I'd say that would be the case.

"JimToss wrote:

Stats are so remarkably misleading.

When you actually look at it, teams who start 1-0 are 30% more likely to make the playoffs then teams who do not.

54% (Week 1 winning teams who made playoffs) - 24% (Week 1 losing teams who made playoffs) = 30%

If you ask me it basically says, 30% of the matchups are between two good playoff contending teams.

Yep these stats are from 1990 on. About the time networks started paying big bucks. The opening week is about ratings.

That said if we win this week and beat a division opponent, Im sure our odds of winning this division increase dramatically.

Everyone is 0-0. Each game is important as one another.

"Tone_E wrote:

I don't think this is the case considering we are playing a perennial super bowl favorite. If we lost to CLE, CAR, or SF, then yes, I'd say that would be the case.

I disagree. This is the team you have to compare yourself with. This regime has had 4 years to build, and now its time to show the results. You have to be able to compete this year, or its time to get the next set of coaches & FO people in here. Simple as that. Ross can't continue to bleed season tickets like he did this off season. Changes WILL HAPPEN if they don't win this year.

It all starts with this very important game. Like I said in another thread this week, this I believe is the most important game Sparano has coached in since he has been here, even more important than the 2008 win in NY over Favre & the Jets for the AFCE crown.

Time to win Sparano, GO FINS!

"Da 'Fins wrote:

The answer is No.

Miami started 2-0 last year and had no real shot at the playoffs by mid-season.

The year the Pats won their first SB, they started 0-2 and 1-3 (including getting crushed by the Dolphins in game 4). Their 2nd SB winning year they lost to the Bills, 31-0. The Bills did not make the playoffs.

It has zero bearing. It does not "reduce" the odds.

One of the reasons for this fact is simply that a number of bad teams will lose their first game and go on to having losing seasons.

These kinds of statistics really have very little meaning. Obviously, if a team gets in the hole at 0-3 that is tough to overcome. But, even then, that stat is misguided in its use. One of the reasons, as with losing the first game, that teams that start 0-2 or 0-3 don't make the playoffs is that they are just bad teams and also lose their confidence. But, a team that is actually very good and has the talent/coaching, can start 0-2 and win it all.

Dolphins had a pretty good shot by mid-season. If memory serves me right, they controlled their playoff destiny.

"Dol-Fan Dupree wrote:

Dolphins had a pretty good shot by mid-season. If memory serves me right, they controlled their playoff destiny.

Yes they did, and then promptly went out and lost to 3 of the traditional door mats of the league. To top it off, ALL AT HOME. :pity:

I'd be more curious to know what percentage of teams that lose their first DIVISION game go on to miss the playoffs. The potential meaningfulness of a "first game" statistic is muddied by the strength (or irrelevance) of the opponent. Take for example last night's game. Do you think the Saints aren't going to make the playoffs? Of course they will, in a likelihood, and therefore push this statistic toward the null hypothesis. But I'll bet there's a little more relevance in looking at a team's first DIVISION game as a predictor for playoff appearance.

The other stat I saw during the game last night was that in each of the last 11 seaons the super bowl winner has won their first game of the season.

So, Let's Win It

No. Because this game is important no matter what, that did not make it any more important.

The playoffs stat is just a dumb way to look at "good teams" vs "bad teams". I dont think this game is critical in terms of playoffs.

This game is critical in terms of building confidence and coming out strong. Those stats in the OP are a logical fallacy more than anything else. 0-2 teams miss the playoffs because theyre bad, not because they started 0-2...just as many others have said here.

"DolfanJake wrote:

Yes they did, and then promptly went out and lost to 3 of the traditional door mats of the league. To top it off, ALL AT HOME. :pity:

yes and that part is all true as well.

I've got an advertisement covering up the second pie chart, so I'll comment on the Teams going 1-0 chart. It's really a coin flip at 54/46 making the playoffs. That's nothing earth shattering and I'd guess the same. The importance of this game is that it's a division game and if we have hopes of winning a division, you've got to win your home division games.

"Da 'Fins wrote:

The answer is No.

Miami started 2-0 last year and had no real shot at the playoffs by mid-season.

The year the Pats won their first SB, they started 0-2 and 1-3 (including getting crushed by the Dolphins in game 4). Their 2nd SB winning year they lost to the Bills, 31-0. The Bills did not make the playoffs.

It has zero bearing. It does not "reduce" the odds.

One of the reasons for this fact is simply that a number of bad teams will lose their first game and go on to having losing seasons.

These kinds of statistics really have very little meaning. Obviously, if a team gets in the hole at 0-3 that is tough to overcome. But, even then, that stat is misguided in its use. One of the reasons, as with losing the first game, that teams that start 0-2 or 0-3 don't make the playoffs is that they are just bad teams and also lose their confidence. But, a team that is actually very good and has the talent/coaching, can start 0-2 and win it all.

A couple of nitpicks with this analysis.

First off you bring up that the Dolphins started 2-0 last year. But clearly the study shows that starting 1-0 doesn't really increase your odds over-much. We're talking 54% to 46% on 1-0 teams. So that to me is an irrelevant point to bring up.

It's a good point bringing up the Patriots' having started 0-3 in the 2001 Super Bowl year, and 0-1 in the 2003 Super Bowl year. But those are just 2 data points, and citing them opens up whoever did the study to cite the 244 teams (out of 321) that started 0-1 since 1990 and did NOT make the playoffs. Obviously the study shows that 77 teams started 0-1 and did in fact end up making the playoffs, and you've gone ahead and named 2 of them.

You're kind of engaging in a chicken-or-egg argument when you bring up that teams that go 0-1 do so because they're bad teams and they also miss the playoffs because they're bad teams and therefore that is the basis for correlation. I'm not sure anyone attempted to bridge the gap between correlation and causation, at least not explicitly. It being important to win the first game of the season is not saying that losing the game will CAUSE you to miss the playoffs. Nobody's made that connection that I've seen, not the original poster nor the link he provided. Rather, how it should be taken is...it's important for you to show that you're not the type of team that loses its first game of the season.

I agree with you that the HIGH correlation between teams starting 0-1 and teams missing the playoffs probably has to do with bad teams being likely to go 0-1, and also likely to miss the playoffs. However, that doesn't really detract from the value of the study or the value of Week 1 as an identifier of who those bad teams are likely to be.

For instance, if you were to do the exact same study on all the teams that lost their Week 2 game...what do you suppose the results would show? Do you think that 76% of the 321 or so teams that lost their Week 2 games would miss the playoffs? Or do you think that percentage would lower significantly?

I personally would hypothesize that it would lower significantly.

"rdhstlr23 wrote:

I've got an advertisement covering up the second pie chart, so I'll comment on the Teams going 1-0 chart. It's really a coin flip at 54/46 making the playoffs. That's nothing earth shattering and I'd guess the same. The importance of this game is that it's a division game and if we have hopes of winning a division, you've got to win your home division games.

Unfortunately the advertisement covered up the crux of the argument being made by the study.

The point is that of the 321 teams that started out the season 0-1 since 1990, only 77 of them (24%) went on to make the playoffs after that 0-1 start.

People are kind of viewing this all wrong. Yes there's an element of the loss itself standing as a barrier to playoff entry. It takes away some of your margin for error. But I don't think that's a very significant factor.

More what it shows is that Week 1 tends to be an effective acid test for identifying teams that (for whatever reason) will not go to the playoffs. So those saying "it doesn't matter", I would disagree with that. It does matter. It matters because if the Dolphins lose this week, there will still be a lot of fans around here insisting we're a playoff team, and according to this historical study there's a pretty strong likelihood that those fans will be wrong.

Info like this always makes me chuckle....it would be like posting a poll/pie chart from 1990 to 2008 that says following 1-15 season, no team had ever went 11-5, won their division, and made the playoffs the following season.

thus the pie chart would say since 1990, dont go 1-15, you have a 0% chance to do it.

Reality, simply means this, we have 16 games....the relative goal is to win 10 to 11 to have a fair and honest shot to make the playoffs and then the fun starts all over again once playoff tourney starts.

dont care when and where they come..just rack up Wins.

"ckparrothead wrote:

It matters because if the Dolphins lose this week, there will still be a lot of fans around here insisting we're a playoff team, and according to this historical study there's a pretty strong likelihood that those fans will be wrong.

Those fans would be right to argue that the remaining 15 games meant more to insisting the Dolphins could still be a playoff team, then the week 1 game.

Half the teams every year start 0-1.