Debunking the "AFC East Sucks" Fallacy - More Dumb Numbers (stats)

[Ring 6]

The Patriots since 2001 have a 25-9 record in the playoffs. That's a .735 record.

Their post season winning percentage is so high that unless they win the SB it goes down.

 

[PF_SU]

Their post season winning percentage is so high that unless they win the SB it goes down.

This counts for all teams with a winning record in the playoffs who have a first-round bye though. Since the only way to finish a playoff run with a record of better than .500 is to win the Super Bowl

 

[fourhour]

Damn, another class I skipped!

I liked geography. Anybody got any geography posts they can link me to?

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

You can also break down the record of the Patriots vs, each division, with Brady at QB.

I did this a month or so ago through Brady's split stats at profootballreference.com

Bottom line: Over a pretty substantial sample size (now 16 seasons) the Patriots have beaten members of 4 of the other 7 divisions at a higher rate than they have beaten members of their own division.

 

[Nikolai]

This counts for all teams with a winning record in the playoffs who have a first-round bye though. Since the only way to finish a playoff run with a record of better than .500 is to win the Super Bowl

Almost right. That would hold true if you are talking about an over 0.500 team in the Conference Championship. Once you make the Super Bowl, the worst your percentage for that offseason could be is 0.667. The TFB/BB Pats are the only team with a higher than 0.667 playoff record and no team in NFL history has a higher percentage than 0.667. So, it does hold true that we would be the only team (the TFB/BB Pats explicitly, not that Pats as a whole) that could get to the Super Bowl, lose, and suffer a drop in playoff winning percentage.

You can also break down the record of the Patriots vs, each division, with Brady at QB.

I did this a month or so ago through Brady's split stats at profootballreference.com

Bottom line: Over a pretty substantial sample size (now 16 seasons) the Patriots have beaten members of 4 of the other 7 divisions at a higher rate than they have beaten members of their own division.

I'd love to see this.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

I'd love to see this.

Regular season records, current through all of the 2017 season

Patriots with Brady vs.

AFC East 76-20: 79.2%
AFC North 25-5: 83.3%
AFC West 21-12: 64%
AFC South 24-5: 83%
NFC East 13-3: 81%
NFC North 14-2: 87.5%
NFC West 10-5: 67%
NFC South 12-4: 75%


So the AFC West has been the toughest, because of a 7-6 record vs. Denver.

Put the Patriots in the AFC North or South or in the NFC North or East, things get UGLIER for Patriots haters, not better.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Another angle on this...

Brady vs. the current AFC East in the regular season (2 victories vs. Indy are omitted from the one year that they were in the division)

NY Jets - 25-7
Miami - 21-10
Buffalo - 28-3

Those 74 wins are 37.8% of Brady's total 196 regular season victories.

Roethlisberger vs the AFC North in the regular season:

Browns - 22-2
Bengals - 21-7
Baltimore - 12-9

Those 55 wins represent 40.7% of Roethlisberger's total 135 regular season victories.

So by another measure, Ben Roethlisberger is getting more of a benefit than is TB12 by playing in a "weak" division.

 

[brdmaverick]

Damn, another class I skipped!

I liked geography. Anybody got any geography posts they can link me to?

In that case, maybe you'd like to talk about a three way divisional trade for geography purposes..................

AFC East gets Baltimore

AFC South gets Miami

AFC North gets Indianapolis

Of course, I know there are a bunch of fans that like having an annual trip to Miami for the weather.

 

[Nikolai]

In that case, maybe you'd like to talk about a three way divisional trade for geography purposes..................

AFC East gets Baltimore

AFC South gets Miami

AFC North gets Indianapolis

Of course, I know there are a bunch of fans that like having an annual trip to Miami for the weather.

NFC East gets Carolina

NFC South gets Dallas

EDIT - Miami might have won a few division titles in the AFC South.

 

[WhoaDirty]

I worked on this based on a comment I read on reddit (and addressed there in less detail), which apparently came from some utterance during a MNF broadcast about how the Patriots have feasted on the AFC East, paving the way for their success. Like the cheating accusation or the "luck" insinuation, this is another attempt to try and minimize the Pats success. Or at least, that's what I initially thought. But then, unlike trying to analyze luck, or beating on the dead horse of the assorted "gates" thrown our way, I knew I could analyze these numbers.

Bottom line: The AFC East is the best division in football since 2002. The Patriots "feast on the AFC East" less than other top teams feast on their own divisions.

For more detail, read on:

First, does the AFC East suck? This was easy to figure out, even if time consuming. I pulled the records of each team from every season dating back to the 2002 realignment and subtracted their division record to get their record outside the division.

Winning percentages by division against teams outside the division:

• AFC East: 0.545
• NFC East: 0.523
• NFC South: 0.519
• AFC North: 0.505
• AFC West: 0.498
• NFC North: 0.488
• AFC South: 0.480
• NFC West: 0.447

There is a pretty clear winner here with the AFC East holding a relatively comfortable 0.022 lead over the NFC East. The surprising bit is how strong the NFC South appears. It's not an illusion. More to come.

To further address the issue, I decided to see which teams had the best records outside the division:

• New England: 0.769
• Pittsburgh: 0.616 (not even close)
• Indianapolis: 0.594
• Denver: 0.581
• Green Bay: 0.575

As I noted, the gap between New England and Pittsburgh in this regard is staggering. The numbers speak for themselves. It certainly seems the Pats don't need to feast on the division to separate themselves. The question then becomes, do they happen to feast on the division anyway?

I addressed this by seeing what percentage of total wins came from the division among the top 5 teams since 2002:

• Indianapolis: 42.1%
• Green Bay: 41.4%
• Pittsburgh: 41.0%
• Denver: 38.0%
• New England: 37.9%

Indianapolis and Green Bay in particular abuse their divisions. Given that they are two of the weakest divisions in football, it's not too surprising that both the Colts and Packers historically beat up and feasted on their own divisions. Not only do that Pats win a lower percentage of games within the division among top teams since 2002, they are actually also behind the 49ers (42.5%?!?!), Seahawks (40.4%), Ravens (38.2%), Chiefs (38.0%), Eagles (38.0%), and Panthers (38.0%).

Side note: The Falcons have the highest extra-division winning percentage (0.566) in the NFC South but are 28th since 2002 in winning against their own division. The Saints have the second highest percentage (0.550) and are 19th. That, combined with having the third highest win percentage against the NFL speaks to how tough the NFC South actually is.

MYTH DEBUNKED

Nice work! I was arguing with people on twitter and ran the numbers last week for the AFC back to 2008.

As a random OT note, did you notice the abnormally high number of ties the Bengals had? They were the only team in the AFC to have ties in the last decade, with 3 total, when no other team in the AFC had one.

 

[Wax Frog]

The reason they say the afc east sucks is to rationalize their reason fo the pats being good. The same reason they said we deflated ball, they can’t accept we are just a good team without making crap up.

In other words, they hate us 'cause they anus <sic>

 

[1960Pats]

The AFC South was kind of terrible in the Colts hey day...

I'm convinced that the NYFL set up the AFCS to give PEDton a free ride to the SB. Unfortunately for them Tom Brady got in the way.

 

[Ring 6]

This counts for all teams with a winning record in the playoffs who have a first-round bye though. Since the only way to finish a playoff run with a record of better than .500 is to win the Super Bowl

No. Go to and lose SB is 2-1

 

[The Brandon Five]

No. Go to and lose SB is 2-1

Or 3-1 (if you played in WC round).

 

[Doctor DDS]

The narrative should be about the division being non competitive vs being bad. Almost every other division rotates who is at top and it creates the false impression that there are more good teams. If the Pats had gone 10-6 or 11-5 and dropped more games to the AFCE there would have been more playoff teams within the division.

 

[brdmaverick]

I know it's not a 1 for 1 type argument, but I think one of the things that propels the distinction that the AFC East competition is a 'walkover' is the lack quality quarterbacks in the division.

Since divisional realignment, Brady's biggest adversary of a QB must have been Chad Pennington. Favre and Cutler played one year in the division well past their prime.

That seems to be an 'AFC thing' for the most part as most divisions in NFC have been QB rich during that same timeframe.

 

[Nikolai]

Nice work! I was arguing with people on twitter and ran the numbers last week for the AFC back to 2008.

As a random OT note, did you notice the abnormally high number of ties the Bengals had? They were the only team in the AFC to have ties in the last decade, with 3 total, when no other team in the AFC had one.

Yeah, that was very odd. The Steelers had one in 2002 or 2003(?) but aside from that, only the Bengals have done it. And they are almost an even 0.500 outside the division at 79-78-3.

There were a lot of little anomalies in there.

 

[neali]

The Patriots since 2001 have a 25-9 record in the playoffs. That's a .735 record.

In other words, the Pat's winning percentage in the playoffs over the last 17 years is higher than the the second best team's winning percentage in the regular season. Mind boggling.

 

[brdmaverick]

In other words, the Pat's winning percentage in the playoffs over the last 17 years is higher than the the second best team's winning percentage in the regular season. Mind boggling.

Oh boy, when you put it like that I'm sure it will open up the floodgates for more spygate and/or deflategate talk.