JMarr

That's exactly why I think HFA is pretty damn important. No way Brady Belichick and co. let an equal or inferior team beat them in Foxboro this year. None. [And I understand the whole underdog thing, but this team resembles the '01 '04 teams....almost none.]

I might have overstated the 'difficulty of winning on the road' angle, but I don't want any part of Denver or Houston in their houses come playoff time. And the thought, however remote, of a playoff game against the Colts in their sonic thunderdome makes me want to break stuff, in addition to giving me nightmares. Thoughts of the 2006 AFCCG and other Indy fiascos might not ever go away I guess.

Bottom line, I'm pretty sure Belichick is keeping the possibility to HFA very much in mind in preparing for the second half of the season.

PatsWickedPissah

What was he thinking in preparing for the 1st half?

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This is known as "bad luck." RAH

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Yehoodi

trying to get the team in position to be able to make a run at the HFA in the second half of the season . . .

Yehoodi

Agreed . .. surely we won some away games, but in 2004 we were simply a better team and were going to win where ever we played. And the '01 we were on a mission, plus some rare scores on SP, if we get those we can win on the road this year . . . and sure we lost a few home games, but again, Balt was the better team and we weren't that good in 2009 and in 2010 the JESTs wanted to win at ALL costs even taking at least three dives . . .

So it can understand the reason for those game . .. however this, and I agree with you, I do not want to take the pony road on the show and end up like 2005 or 2006, not to mention the fact that the refs might want to get frisky with the flags if we are playing in hou/Den/balt. the NFL might want a new face in the SB from the AFC and if they want to get frisky with the flags I want see them try to pull it off in front of our crowd. . .

Can we win on the road sure, but I don't want any extra things in the way that road games can bring, frisky refs or the extended travel of back to back roads games, in the past this has hurt us. . .

PatsFanSince74

Once again, I agree, as I said earlier, that it's better to have a bye than not to have a bye. So, I'm not arguing about that.

I am, however, not sure what you mean when you say "...just because something happens a certain way doesn't necessarily mean we should draw too many conclusions from it, unless there is solid football logic behind things happening the way they did and a likeliness [sic] to history repeating itself."

You take one case, the 2007 Pats v. Giants, and extrapolate from it, while I am looking at ten instances and saying that the weight of the evidence suggests something different. Sure, I'd rather, on paper, have gone into the 2008 SB with the Pats rather than the Giants. But if the point here is to look ahead to a, by definition, unknowable future, I'm only suggesting that that doesn't really matter.

All we have is how things have transpired in the past as we evaluate the future. And, the past, defined as the last ten years, says that a bye, for the last decade, has meant a 50-50 chance of winning the SB. That's not an opinion; that's simply a fact. As a result, I'm just not sure that the "competitive advantage" is that "clear" when a bye gives you a 50-50 chance.

The psychological advantages are clear. I'm just saying that the evidence suggests that when the game is played, that doesn't matter as much.

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aluminum seats

I think Patsylicious' point was 10 games is a small sample size to conclude that having to win one fewer game doesn't matter. Statistically, if the sample were thousands of games, I'm guessing it wouldn't be 50-50.

On another note, I hate the use of [sic]. Always seems obnoxious to me.

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PatsFanSince74

On your first paragraph. Sure. I hope so too. But, I also thought there was "no way" the Cardinals would beat them in Foxboro "this year." So, yeah. I guess so.

I'm usually not "argumentative" out here and typically let a debate go after a few pages, but I'll stick to my guns on this one.

I just have confidence that the Pats will be good enough and tough enough if they have to do so to beat a good team on the road in a difficult venue in the postseason.

Sticking with the last ten SB's, this is the road some of the winners have traveled: Tampa Bay 2002 beat Philly in the old Vet, a pretty tough place to play; our Pats beat Pittsburgh in Heinz Field in sub zero wind chill, 2004; next year the Steelers' road to the Lombardi went through Cincinnati (OK, not that big a deal), Indy and Denver at the old Mile High, but the latter two are on your list; in 06, Indy had to beat the Ravens in Baltimore; in 07, the Giants had to win at Tampa Bay, Dallas and Lambeau; in 10, the Pack won in Philly, Atlanta and Chicago; and, of course, the Giants did it again last year, winning in Lambeau and SFO.

I think our guys will be able to hold their own if they have to wherever they have to.

As I have said many times in this thread, I'd rather have a Bye and ideally HFA, but I'm just not jumping off a cliff if it doesn't happen.

As for what the hoodmaster is "keeping in mind," you're guess is as good as mine, but, based on everything we've seen of him, I'd imagine that his primary focus is on beating his next opponent and winning the Division, in that order. I just doubt he wastes a lot of time in early November fretting over whether he's going to have to win on the road in January.

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PatsFanSince74

If. If. If. If we could normalize the weather, we wouldn't have winter. If we ran this week's election 1,000 times we might have a different outcome. If the storm pattern that gave rise to Hurricane Sandy went through a thousand iterations, maybe the storm wouldn't have been as devastating to my area as it was.

I think ten years is a reasonable data series given that the SB has only been contested in this Playoff configuration since 1990 and ten years, therefore, represents nearly half of the universe of available observations.

Sorry that you thought my use of "sic" to point out an inaccuracy was "obnoxious." I don't. But, to each his/her own.

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Deus Irae

Well, there are 12 spots available for the playoffs. Eight of those spots don't get a bye, which means that the teams without a bye outnumber those with a bye by a ratio of 2-1.

So, whether you attribute it to competitive advantage, talent, God's will, random luck or something else, using your sample percentage (50%), there's a higher success rate for teams who get the bye.

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