Tough division games

[brdmaverick]

100% agree. That mindset IMHO started to take hold in segments of the fan base with the 2007 season, and has remained. It is ridiculous and unrealistic.

Right, I think I'm guilty of that as well and try to remind myself that winning is winning.

Plus (now I'm going to sound like Kordell Stewart, but) in football the better team doesn't always win. Penalties and turnovers on fluke bounces, tips, etc can be an equalizer. So yes, losses are going to happen from time to time (sometimes it's just not your day/night).

 

[brdmaverick]

When you don't blow out a divisional opponent people shrug their shoulders and say "division game".

When you don't blow out an inferior non-divisional opponents people shrug their shoulders and say "trap game".

When you lose a game people pull their hair and say "the sky is falling".

When you blow out a divisional team or any other inferior opponent people shoulders and say "well, that's what we're supposed to do".

On those rare weekends when the stars align in which we.....

1.) Win
2.) While facing a team considered in the top 5 of the league

....then for a rare moment we can finally be happy and satisfied

 

[Patjew]

I felt confident yet super uncomfortable at halftime of the Jets game, if that makes any sense. That game was not at all in the bag at that point, and yet I expected our generally better team to pull it out.

 

[Tunescribe]

We hear comments all the time about tough division games. Are they? The Patriots are 12-1 in their last 13 division games. Brady lifetime is 79-20 in division games.

Tougher than they need to be sometimes. But, except for a few random years here and there, the division has largely been an absolute joke through all of Brady's tenure. That's not different this season.

It's not that the division games aren't tough or that the division is a "joke." It's that Brady and BB have dominated through hard work, continuity and superior ability. The division suddenly will become more competitive when those two are gone.

 

[Ring 6]

It's not that the division games aren't tough or that the division is a "joke." It's that Brady and BB have dominated through hard work, continuity and superior ability. The division suddenly will become more competitive when those two are gone.

100% agree.
I’m not saying we don’t have to show up, it’s a week off, we don’t have to play hard and any win comes easy, but given that we prepare and play hard, the results show we have owned these teams, win with a mind boggling frequency and usually win handily.
Winning 75%+ of the time consistently in the nfl is almost unheard of. People around here are acting like we struggle with that division because every game isn’t 35-0 at half time.

 

[TomPatriot]

A few stats:

1. Since 2001 (I think) we have only swept the division twice. We went 4-2 seven times.

2. We have almost the same winning percentage inside the division (.777) as we do outside (.766) -- this link compiles that 2002-2016 but my guess is it's similar if you include the most recent two years:



3. Since 2013 we are 12-0 against the AFC North including 2 playoff games.

4. In the Brady era, the AFC East has been the best division in football by winning percentage. That of course is because the Patriots are in this division. But if you remove the Pats, and then (to make it fair) you remove the top team from every other division, and calculate the winning percentage of the bottom three teams, the AFC East is fifth out of eight. Not great, but not horrible.

5. The Dolphins and Jets have been right around .500 outside of their division (2002-2016), which makes them perfectly average. The Bills of course have been much worse, but every other division also has had a horrible team in that span, and if you rank the worst team in each division against each other, the Bills are actually the best!

Conclusions:

The Patriots would still have the same amount of success regardless of what division they are in. The theory of them having a huge advantage by playing in the AFC East is a myth.

The AFC East looks much worse by virtue of having to play the Patriots all the time. They also probably tailor their roster composition around trying to beat the Patriots, which is probably a suboptimal strategy.

The only good stat as a counterargument is the number of wildcard appearances per division, where I think the AFC East is last. This suggests that although the rest of our division isn't horrible (given the .500 record outside of the division), there also haven't been too many great teams to challenge us from time to time. The other divisions seem to cycle through each team going from great to horrible, while ours just stay consistently mediocre.

Post of the month. Dave Leonhardt and his “Pats are only successful because the division sucks” can pound sand, as the lads say.

 

[Triumph]

You are making my point.
You listed 3 games that were among the 13 I referred to.
Again football games are 60 minutes long.

Wrong

 

[Triumph]

You are making my point.
You listed 3 games that were among the 13 I referred to.
Again football games are 60 minutes long.

Scoreboards do not factor in averages and only reality.

To hear you tell it, I can lay money on the Pats to win and comfortably give 10 points. The "average" score has been 30 - 13 in the last 13 division games. I would have lost all 5 games that I used as examples.

I know the truth that division opponents show up and play the Pats tough.

 

[1960Pats]

This thread has been great. It was like watching the video below. @AndyJohnson is the guy at about the 1 minute mark without a shirt...

 

[Ring 6]

Wrong

Those were literal facts.

 

[Ring 6]

Scoreboards do not factor in averages and only reality.

To hear you tell it, I can lay money on the Pats to win and comfortably give 10 points. The "average" score has been 30 - 13 in the last 13 division games. I would have lost all 5 games that I used as examples.

Wrong because those 5 games you listed were not all amongvthrbmast 13.
Had you laid 10 you would have won 7 lost 5 and pushed 1. Laying TEN.
Do you not understand what am average is?

I know the truth that division opponents show up and play the Pats tough.

If you think playing a team tough is losing to them 12 out of 13 scoring more than 17 points one time and 10 or less 7 of the 13 while allowing 30 ppg then you do not understand tough.

Here are the points scored by Afce opponents against the patriots in the last 13 meetings.
0 0 3 3 6 10 10 13 13 14 14 17 27
That is the antithesis of tough ( especially while the patriots averaged 30ppg)

I understand you have a perception that these division games were tough. But being an adult involves that when you see your perception ripping to shreds you are grown up enough to acknowledge it.
12-1
17 point margin of victory
13 ppg allowed (that’s about .6 more than the 85 bears allowed as a reference)
30 ppg (that’s 1-3 ppg more than the last 2 patriot Sb champs as a reference)

All you got is “I believe”

 

[Angelpats]

Don’t care what anyone says. I’ll take winning a divisional game any way we can get it. Last thing I want is any of them Sneaking into the playoffs.

 

[Crazy Patriot Guy]

You should tell the team that if they let you within 500 yards of the place. Judging by everything they've said publicly, both in the lead up to and in the wake of the game, they didn't think it was an "easy" win.

True, but to be fair, I don't remember the Pats players saying the 59-0 beat down of Tennessee back in 2009 was an easy win either. That doesn't mean it wasn't.

 

[sb1]

Wrong because those 5 games you listed were not all amongvthrbmast 13.
Had you laid 10 you would have won 7 lost 5 and pushed 1. Laying TEN.
Do you not understand what am average is?


If you think playing a team tough is losing to them 12 out of 13 scoring more than 17 points one time and 10 or less 7 of the 13 while allowing 30 ppg then you do not understand tough.

Here are the points scored by Afce opponents against the patriots in the last 13 meetings.
0 0 3 3 6 10 10 13 13 14 14 17 27
That is the antithesis of tough ( especially while the patriots averaged 30ppg)

I understand you have a perception that these division games were tough. But being an adult involves that when you see your perception ripping to shreds you are grown up enough to acknowledge it.
12-1
17 point margin of victory
13 ppg allowed (that’s about .6 more than the 85 bears allowed as a reference)
30 ppg (that’s 1-3 ppg more than the last 2 patriot Sb champs as a reference)

All you got is “I believe”

Jets vs. Patriots - Game Recap - January 16, 2011 - ESPN

This is a good reason to want no part of an AFC East team in the playoffs. Doubtful anyone will qualify but just saying.

 

[Ring 6]

True, but to be fair, I don't remember the Pats players saying the 59-0 beat down of Tennessee back in 2009 was an easy win either. That doesn't mean it wasn't.

They are never going to say a win was easy. And a player saying that implies a lot more than the simple fact that would handily.

 

[Ring 6]

Jets vs. Patriots - Game Recap - January 16, 2011 - ESPN

This is a good reason to want no part of an AFC East team in the playoffs. Doubtful anyone will qualify but just saying.

Right because we should never have any loss to anyone ever.

 

[sb1]

Right because we should never have any loss to anyone ever.

AFC East teams have all the more motivation to knock off the top dog and that makes for a tough matchup in the playoffs anytime.

 

[Ring 6]

AFC East teams have all the more motivation to knock off the top dog and that makes for a tough matchup in the playoffs anytime.

No.
Any playoff team has motivation.
Motivation doesn’t win playoff games.

 

[Kontradiction]

They are never going to say a win was easy. And a player saying that implies a lot more than the simple fact that would handily.

Especially not about these contests... because those weren't easy wins. Anyone that has played a sport competitively anytime recently knows this. I've been in a ton of football or hoops games where it was tight throughout and we pulled away in the end. That doesn't mean the contest was easy. It just means that the score doesn't tell the entire story. Hell, even the coach went out of the day to detail how the win was "tough as usual"...

Bill Belichick 11/25: 'As usual tough game against the Jets'

So yeah, you should definitely go and tell the team to their faces how easy that win was for them. Same with the Buffalo game. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it.

 

[maust]

Hell, even the coach went out of the day to detail how the win was "tough as usual"...

Bill Belichick 11/25: 'As usual tough game against the Jets'

So yeah, you should definitely go and tell the team to their faces how easy that win was for them. Same with the Buffalo game. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it.

Well clearly you aren't viewing this correctly. Seriously, how can you trust your own lyin eyes and the statements of the greatest football coach of our time in the face of pronouncements to the contrary from the God of Fallacious Arguments?
Especially since victory has already been declared.