GameDay

I am not much of an X and O person, but some people (non Pats fans) are pretty good at it and also good at sensing a team state of psyche. These folks think that the Pats are ready to return to form for the coming "home sweet home" game.

As already discussed by many here, it was not as much because of the game strategy as the players' fatigue (dropsies, unforced errors) and one-on-one battles (per Rodney Harrison) that nearly cost the Pats the Ravens game.

BB let the team have a day off perhaps because he saw little mental mistakes in assignments. It could have been mostly the physical inability to carry out the assignments, like drops, whiffs, or miss tackles, etc. Some are curable with therapy like rest. Others, like old age and slow legs cannot.

But playing at home after such a physically & emotionally draining game can be a big lift. There is no reason to expect the Pats to be that bad again, nor to expect them overachieving like in the Wash and Buffalo games. To me, that's what I call returning to the norm (like a 38-20 win). (How often is TB's completion 48% or less?)

But here is the point. Stat-wise, home teams won by ~2.05 points over the last 7 seasons. (There is one in 10 million chances that this were due to random and not having anything to do with home advantage). In other words, this translates into a psychological and physical edge with 12% more chance of winning for the home team.

More than that, not all underdogs are the same. My colleagues are very much into home underdogs that they sense ready to bite hard. The Ravens game was their perfect bet to win big.

The Pats is unfortunately not an underdog, but they think they will have the psychological edge like one. I for one, sense somehow that the Pats are better road warriors than at home (like last yr). But right now, the $ is jumping on the Steelers, and the line has dropped from 13 pts to 10.5, a whopping 2.5 pts drop. If it drops to 9.5, these people will be ready to jump on the Pats.

It's funny that the Pats is a relative "underdog" under this circumstance. So good that when they are not favored sufficiently, they are perceived as the "underdog". If they had been favored by >10 pts against a 9-3 team last year, wouldn't we have been very content?

5 Rings for Brady!!

Interesting post as always.

I will be content if we win by 1 point!