The playoff bye week, are you for or against it?

[furley]

In other words, would you prefer to have a format for the playoffs where all six teams from both conferences will play. Or, is the current format more ideal.

If this season's playoffs proceeded minus the bye week, you would've had the same match-ups except Indianapolis would host Kansas City.


Pro

Rest. Additional days to practice.

Con

Lost of momentum. Overconfidence.


Again, maybe, it's time to omit the bye week in the playoffs.

 

[Hardboiled]

The Patriots had some people banged up so it should have helped. I suspect overconfidence came from the previous beating given to the Jets.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

OVER CONFIDENCE MY ARSSE..... this loss was on the 2 people that carry the pats thru thick and thin and are no longer invinceable.. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady... Belichick coached scared and Brady played timid.... sorrry that is what loss this game... those 2 should have beat the inferior jets and the sucky coach and qb ,but for not they played up to the competition....

 

[A.C Vegas]

the sad thing is a bounce here a bounce there things are diffrent.

It's not like the team go blown out 45-3 it was 28-21 and came down to an onside kicks at the end even with an off day from some of the players.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

the sad thing is a bounce here a bounce there things are diffrent.

It's not like the team go blown out 45-3 it was 28-21 and came down to an onside kicks at the end even with an off day from some of the players.

Stop it.... this team was BLOWN OUT TONIGHT.... no fire from the qb, panic from the coach, no hurrry from the o , no response from the d... alll a big let down.....

 

[TriplecHamp]

the sad thing is a bounce here a bounce there things are diffrent.

It's not like the team go blown out 45-3 it was 28-21 and came down to an onside kicks at the end even with an off day from some of the players.

The Pats got beat, the played poorly and were outcoached. Its come to the point where you just never know what Patriots team is going to show up. The Browns game, the Packers game, this game, the ravens game...I really can't put my finger on one thing that caused it as much as I want to, there should be a few shakeups this offseason and hopefully we add some vets and impact players through the draft and we will see what happens next season. The Pats didn't really look like a 14-2 team throughout the season, the showed flashes of brilliance at times but I was never truly sold that this team was elite.

 

[PatsCelticsSox]

Stop it.... this team was BLOWN OUT TONIGHT.... no fire from the qb, panic from the coach, no hurrry from the o , no response from the d... alll a big let down.....

You sound like an idiot.

 

[tests]

i still cant believe we didnt expose the mismatches and match up problems that our rookie tight ends gronks and hernandez pose. wtf

 

[jmt57]

In other words, would you prefer to have a format for the playoffs where all six teams from both conferences will play. Or, is the current format more ideal.

If this season's playoffs proceeded minus the bye week, you would've had the same match-ups except Indianapolis would host Kansas City.


Pro

Rest. Additional days to practice.

Con

Lost of momentum. Overconfidence.


Again, maybe, it's time to omit the bye week in the playoffs.

Read this. This is interesting. I don't know how long ago this link was first posted, but the data is still relevant information. Evidently, the odds weren't entirely in New England's favor being the first seed in the playoffs to begin with.




How much does the home field mean? - NFC South Blog - ESPN

The flaw with the espn theory is that they are comparing the probability of the #1 seed to the combined probabilities of the #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6 seeds.

Just because the #1 seed does not win more than 50% of the time, that does not equate to the #1 seed being a bad thing. A #1 seed could have the highest probability of winning and yet at the same time also have a less than 50% chance of winning.

The 'evidence' is that 8.3% of the Super Bowl winners since 2002 have been #1 seeds. With twelve teams in the playoffs, each seed has about an 8.3% chance of randomly winning; that percentage is neither high nor low. Therefore being a #1 seed is neither bad nor good; it is average.

Those same stats show that 50% of the #1 seeds have made it to the Super Bowl in that same time frame. Using random 'flip of a coin' analysis, any specific seed should have made it that far just 16.6% of the time. In other words, being a #1 seed is a very favorable position to be in.

So while 8.3% may equal 8.3%, 50% is much greater than 16.6%; the theory that being a #1 seed is meaningless, or is a bad thing just does not hold true - even when two #1 seeds don't advance.



As for the OP's question about all teams playing (i.e., no byes), there are really only two ways to accomplish that:

- expand the playoffs to 16 teams - which means four more mediocre teams

- reduce the playoffs to 8 teams - which means eliminating teams like the Packers, Ravens and Jets

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

Home field advantage might be one of the biggest overinflated things that fans wish for every season.....HFA does not guarantee a thing if you don't have a great game plan for that particular game.

It's becoming a very common trend that these hot teams playing in the wild card games are moving deep into the playoffs while the so called 'rested' teams are progressively going down.

2 #6 seeds in the championship games proves that will likely continue more often than not years from now