I've been hearing recently about how teams who lose in week 1 are less likely to reach the playoffs. This strikes me as one of those stats that is incredibly obvious. If you choose a given week and limit your sample to the teams who LOST that week, you're going to find a pretty strong correlation to teams who don't make the playoffs. (Quick note - for those who didn't know, winning is a pre-requisite to making the playoffs).
To prove this, I decided to look at the average number of teams who lose in a random week of the NFL - and how many of them make the playoffs. My theory is that week 1 will look just like every other week. (And, if you're reading this, I must be right. Otherwise I would have deleted the post).
The stat I recently heard is that, on average, three out of the 16 teams who win in week 1 end up making the playoffs. I looked at the numbers from 2000-2009 and the actual figure is closer to 4 (3.9) - about 25% of teams who lost in week 1.
Let's compare that to....say.....week 4. Well, on average, 22% of teams who lose in week 4 end up making the playoffs. Week 12? 25%. Week 7? Almost 26%. Week 9? 19%.
What the table shows is that teams who make the playoffs spread their losses across the season. There is no individual week that stands out as "dooming" a team from making the playoffs.
Week 9 appears to be the week where, if you lose, you're least likely to make the playoffs. But, I've never heard a play by play man turn to his color guy and say, "This is all important week 9. Teams know - if they lose during week 9, it's an uphill climb to the playoffs."
Anyway, just an observation. There must be a million misleading stats out there. I'm going to do my best to find them.
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