It's Not the Bye, It's the Team

Every year, when one, two, or three of the road teams wins in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs, there is talk that earning a bye isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that he bye does more to hurt a team’s momentum entering the playoffs than it does to give them an advantage. This is nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. The bye is not the problem. In most cases, the home team that loses coming off a bye is a team that probably should not have earned a bye. The problem is the schedule. Let me show you:

Here is the relevant statistic regarding teams earning playoff byes: from 1990, when the 12-team playoff format was introduced, to 2001, home teams (bye teams) in the divisional round were 39-9. Since 2002, such teams are only 22-14.

When the Houston Texans entered the league in 2002, the NFL altered its scheduling formula. Prior to 2002, when there were three divisions in each conference, a team’s place in a season’s final standings affected four of the next season’s games. Since 2002, one season’s finish only affects two of the following season’s games. A two game difference may seem small, but it is actually a rather drastic change to go from having a team’s finish affect 25% of the schedule to only affecting 12.5% of it.

The current setup of four divisions in each conference means that the majority of teams play fewer division games each season than they did under the old format. During the 28-team era (1976-1994, the AFC Central and NFC West each had only four teams. Each team in those divisions played only six division games each season. The other 20 teams in the NFL played 8 division games each year. When Carolina and Jacksonville joined the league in 1995, each of the NFL’s six divisions had five teams. From 1995-2001, every team in the league played 8 division games a year. That’s half of the schedule.

When you add the division games to the games affected by the standings, that is 75% of a teams’s schedule. The remaining four games were inter-conference games. Then, as now, each NFC division played four games against an AFC division.

To be more specific about it, every single one of a team’s intra-conference nondivision games were determined by the standings. A first place team in the NFC East, for instance, would play 8 division games, 4 games against AFC team, and a single game against each of the first and second place teams from the NFC West and NFC Central. A fourth place team in the AFC West would play its 8 intra-division games, 4 inter-conference games, and single games against the third and fourth place teams from the AFC East and AFC Central. In addition, the fifth place teams would play a true last place schedule.

The current format is drastically different. The biggest difference from the old format is that each team plays two entire divisions: one from its own conference and one from the other conference. With four teams in each division, there are only six division games on each team’s schedule. There are still the four inter-conference games. After adding the four intra-conference games against an entire division, that leaves only two remaining games on the schedule. These two games are determined by the standings. Each team plays each of the teams in its own conference that finished with a like standing in the other divisions. In 2011, for example, the third place team from the NFC East, the Dallas Cowboys, will play the entire NFC West as well as the Lions and Buccaneers, the third place teams from the NFC North and the NFC South, respectively.

It is my contention that this change in scheduling format leads to inflated records, deflated records, and teams earning byes when they aren’t quite as good as teams that play in the Wild Card round. When one division is unusually strong or unusually weak, the divisions they play face schedules that are overly easy or difficult. Teams that finish in first place no longer face a true, daunting first place schedule; teams that finish in the basement don’t face an easier path the following year. Schedule difficulty now is all dependent upon the cycle of which divisions a team plays in a given year.

In 2011, Tampa Bay will be a better team than they were in 2010, but they may not post as good a record. At 10-6, the Bucs were third in the NFC South this year. Under the old format, they would play the third and fourth place teams from the NFC’s other divisions. Instead, they will play the NFC North as well as the Cowboys and 49ers, the third place teams from the NFC East and NFC West, respectively. By playing the entire NFC North, the Bucs will play Green Bay and Chicago instead of Washington and Minnesota.

At the same time, the NFC East will play the NFC West, so unless the league’s weakest division improves drastically over the offseason, the Eagles and Giants, who placed first and second in the NFC East this year, will have the advantage of playing the Cardinals and 49ers. The previous format would have pitted the Eagles against the Packers and Saints instead; the Giants would have played the Bears and Falcons instead.

Occasionally, one division is fortunate enough to play the both conferences’ weakest division. The most egregious example of this was 2008, a year the AFC East teams faced the AFC West and NFC West. Those were, essentially, eight “gimme” games for the Patriots, Jets, and Dolphins (the Bills were too awful to beat anybody). A lot of people were up in arms that season because the 11-5 Patriots missed the playoffs while the 8-8Chargers, 9-7 Cardinals, and 9-6-1 Eagles made it. There was no injustice that year. The Patriots finished second in the AFC East to Miami, who also finished 11-5. Both the Patriots and Dolphins won seven of their eight games against the AFC West and NFC West. Both teams went 4-4 against the remainder of their schedules. Both teams swept the season series with Buffalo. Against the AFC West, NFC West, and Buffalo Bills, both Miami and New England went 9-1. Both finished 2-4 against everyone else. New England, who won the division in 2007, played their intra-conference nondivision games against Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. They lost both games. Miami finished last in 2007 and played Baltimore and Houston. They lost both of those games. As you can see, 11-5 was a highly inflated record for both Miami and New England.

My point is that the new scheduling formula makes it so that you can no longer look at a team’s record as a fair indicator of how good that team is. So it follows that a team earning a first round playoff bye should no longer be an indicator of that team’s superiority. Until the format is changed, those days are over.