Divisional Playoff home field trends

For just the third time in the last 20 years, all four home teams won on Wild Card Weekend, now lets examine the importance of home field in divisional round, as the top two teams in each conference enter the fray. This is the 22nd season that the NFL has had this exact playoff format. Teams that have home field in the divisional round are 62-22, which means that on average home teams go 3-1, but they split last year with the Jets and Packers winning on the road. In the last 6 years, home teams are just 12-12, so the first 15 years of this format the home teams were winning at an 83% clip. Anyways, all 4 home teams have won 6 times, and no more than 2 road teams have won 4 times, all 4 have happened in the last 6 years. 3 years ago was the first time that more than 2 home teams have ever lost during one weekend in this round. Here it is broken down further:

#1 Seed AFC- 12-9
#2 Seed AFC- 15-6
#1 Seed NFC- 18-3
#2 Seed NFC- 17-4

3 of the 9 teams that have lost as the #1 seed in the AFC have been coached by Marty Schottenheimer.
AFC # 1 seeds that played on Saturday went 9-3, they went 4-6 on Sunday.
Home teams are 34-8 (.810) on Saturday, 28-14 on Sunday (.667)
Coincidentally the NFC home teams are 35-7 and the AFC home teams are 28-14
Peyton Manning has played in 6 divisonal playoff games. In those 6 games the home team is 1-5. He is 0-3 at home, and 2-1 on the road.

Texans finally exceed expectations after decade of disappointments

A little over an hour before the scheduled kickoff at Reliant Stadium I took the elevator down from the press box to the field. I was joined by a member of the Texans media relations staff, and Joyce, the elevator attendant. The 60-second conversation that took place wasn’t about the game that was about to take place; it was about the crowd that was already in the building, something that none of us were used to seeing.

Not unlike most teams in the NFL, the Texans have had small crowds at kickoff. This can be attributed to noon starts and tailgating, but its quite common to see a half-empty Reliant Stadium when the ball is tee’d up a minute or two after 12:00 on a given Sunday. so much so, that the Texans implored their fans to enter Reliant Stadium early. On Saturday they listened.

Sixty minutes before kickoff as the first position groups jogged onto the field you could feel the energy in the building more so than any game since the Cowboys opened this place in 2002, when with the roof closed it was considered one of the loudest buildings in the NFL. A near-decade of failures and disappointments has allowed us to forget that.

Before beating Cincinnati Saturday, I’m not sure how much belief there was in this team by the city. You can only tease and then disappoint a fan base for so long before they become numb to the whole process. For years, high-hopes and expectations have given way to failure and blame. 2005, the club’s fourth season, was supposed to be the big break through. “If the Browns can make the playoffs in four seasons why can’t we”, the fans asked. That fourth season that started with such hope ended in 2-14, which put the finishing touches on the Charley Casserly/Dom Capers regime.

In came Gary Kubiak and Rick Smith from Denver. Their first season made it clear that it was time to jettison David Carr, and in came Matt Schaub, who went 8-8 his first year as a starter, the team’s first .500 finish. That brought expectations in 2008, only to see that team start 0-4, but they managed to match the 2007 record, which led to more expectations in 2009.

At the halfway point of that season they were 5-3 headed to Indianapolis. They lost that game by a field and that started a 4-game losing streak by a combined 18 points. It looked like the Kubiak era was over until the closed the season with a 4-game win streak to get them to nine wins for the first time, the last was a win over New England. They narrowly missed the playoffs, but it didn’t stop people of thinking Super Bowl the next season, which turned out to be their biggest disappointment yet.

A 4-2 start turned into a 6-10 finish, so when a 3-1 start to this season quickly turned to 3-3 it felt like another normal Houston Texan season, but it wasn’t, this team has something the others didn’t. They managed to win 7-straight despite losing starter after starter, and even some backups to those starters.

Their division-clinching win December 10^th illustrated just how different this team was. Trailing by 13 at halftime with a 3^rd string rookie quarterback, they figured out a way to win. Yet, I think that when thousands of fans met them at the airport that night, they did so because they thought that would be the only accomplishment they would get to celebrate. Its one thing to win a weakened AFC South with your top two quarterbacks and best defensive player on injured, but its another to make noise in the postseason.

Finishing the regular season with three straight losses only enhanced that belief, and that was the best thing for them. The energy that filled the building sixty minutes before kickoff wasn’t a nervous energy, it was a “we’re pumped to be here energy”. If we win, great, if not, it was a hell of a ride, and we can’t wait for next season. That rubbed off on the home team, sure, there were jitters early, but as Arian Foster said they weren’t nervous jitters, it was excitement, being somewhere they had never been before.

When they play Baltimore next week, they’ll face a team that won’t be happy to be there, they’ll face a team with pressure, a team that has been there before. That means they won’t be walking into the hornets nest the Bengals walked into Saturday. The Ravens fans will be excited to host a playoff game for the first time in five years, but they are doing so against a team they don’t care about, have no history with, and who they think they are a lot better than. That’s how most of the country will view at least, and that’s the way this Texan team likes it.

Maybe a 31-10 Wild Card win over the Bengals will be the final highlight of a successful season. Maybe it will turn out that beating a 9-7 Cincinnati team that didn’t beat another playoff team in 2011 is no big deal. It doesn’t matter. On Saturday, 71 thousand people showed up on time to Reliant Stadium wanting and hoping to see something special. After a decade of failure and disappointment, those 71 thousand people finally exited truly believing that they had something special.

Remembering the last NFL Playoff game in Houston

On Sunday, January 16, 1994 the Houston Oilers hosted Kansas City in an AFC Divisional Playoff game at the Astrodome. The Oilers finished the season 12-4 after winning their final 11 regular season games. It was their 7^th straight playoff appearance, and this team was the best of the 7 as they earned a first round bye for the first time as the #2 seed in the AFC. They finished the season tied with Buffalo for the best record in the AFC, but lost the tiebreaker because of a head-to-head loss early in the season when they started 1-4. I remember most people thinking the Oilers were the favorite to come out of the AFC and face the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, but I could be wrong since I was 8 years old.

Kansas City finished the season 11-5 that season, and lost at the Dome in week 2 that season 30-0, but Joe Montana, in his first season as a Chief, did not play that game. Marty Schottenheimer's team was lucky to even have advanced to play in Houston. Trailing by 7 late at home against Pittsburgh the week before they blocked a punt late in the 4^th quarter to set up a tying touchdown, and finally beat the Steelers in overtime, but the 8-year old Adam Spolane was looking way past the Chiefs.

The day before, top-seeded Buffalo hosted the Los Angeles Raiders at Rich Stadium in the first AFC Divisional game. A Raiders win meant the Oilers would get another home game, after they beat Kansas City which of course, was a lock. I’ll always remember that game because it was 0 degrees and there were frostbite doctors on the field. I thought it was pretty cool that players could lose fingers or maybe even an arm playing a football game. Buffalo fell behind 17-6 but came back and won the game 29-23, so I knew the game against the Chiefs would be my final home game of the season, which was disappointing, but it also meant the Oilers would play in Buffalo the next week, a year after the 35-3 debacle which still haunts me to this day.

I loved the Houston Oilers. I loved the Run and Shoot Offense. I loved Warren Moon. I loved Cris Dishman. I loved Ernest Givens and his Electric Slide touchdown dance. I loved the Columbia Blue jerseys. I loved the Houston Oilers song (the one the Dolphins stole). I still remember “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones playing on the PA before kickoffs. I still remember “Wooly Bully” after touchdowns. Not only did I love and still remember these things, I miss them as well, and January 16, 1994 was the last time they were relevant.

On that Sunday afternoon my dad and I arrived at the Dome well earlier than an hour before kickoff, which is how I liked it, and still do. We were so early that they were showing the Cowboys/Packers game on the Diamond Vision screens. I can’t remember the exact section where we had our tickets to Oiler games, like I remember section 260 for Astro games, but I know we were in the Mezzanine, or as I called them, the Orange seats, behind the end zone towards the corner. The way the Dome was set up for football was one end zone was at home plate; the other was in centerfield. We were behind the home plate end zone, which was over the Oilers tunnel. At the Astrodome, the visitors had two tunnels. They’d enter the field before the game from where the centerfield wall was, but at halftime, and after the game, they would use an exit down the left field line, which I assume was closer to their locker room.

That ill-fated late Sunday afternoon started great. The Oilers jumped out to a 10-0 first half lead, and it stayed that way after one half of play. Of course this has me thinking about a Buffalo rematch, but it should have had me thinking about history.

Everyone knows about the 35-3 game at Buffalo the prior season, but people forget the way the Oilers season ended the year before that game. It happened in the Divisional Round in Denver. The Oilers lost to the Giants the last week of the season, which dropped them to the 3 seed forcing them to beat the Jets in the Wild Card Round and have to go to Denver. They led 14-0 and then 21-6 only to lose 26-24. Denver’s game winning drive started at their two-yard line with only 2:07 left on the clock. They drove to the Oilers 10 (88 yards) before kicking a 28-yard field goal. On this day, I should’ve known a 10-point lead might as well have been a 10-point deficit.

Houston still led 10-7 going into the fourth quarter, but the last 15 minutes was a complete disaster even after the Oilers started the quarter with a field goal to extend the lead to 13-7. I mentioned that Joe Montana didn’t play when the Oilers crushed KC in week 2; unfortunately he played on January 16. The Chiefs scored 3 fourth quarter touchdowns and beat the Oilers 28-20, snapping the Oilers 11-game win streak, which would mark the end of a football era in the city of Houston.

January 16, 1994 was the last time the Oilers would take the field with hall of famers Moon and Mike Munchak. Moon went to Minnesota and Munchak retired. When the Oilers opened the next season, Cody Carlson was their starting quarterback, the first of three that they used with the others being Bucky Richardson and Billy Joe Tolliver. I think it has to be the only time in NFL history that one team started 3 quarterbacks in a season who played in the Southwest Conference (Carlson: Baylor, Richardson: Texas A&M, Tolliver: Texas Tech). The ’94 Oilers went 2-14, losing 11 straight games at one point, which I would have to believe makes them the only team to win 11 in a row one year and lose 11 in a row the next.

Soon after the 2-14 season, the Oilers were gone to Memphis and then Nashville. Six years after that the Texans arrived and finally in their tenth season, they will host a playoff game in the parking lot that my dad and I were stuck trying to get out of for over an hour on January 16, 1994.

AFC Wild Card Homefield Trends

This is the 10th season of the four division setup in each conference. It has drastically changed the playoffs because there is one less wild card, and it pretty much makes it impossible to play a home playoff without winning your division. We are just hours away from the start of Wild Card Weekend, and here is a trend that I have noticed over the last 9 years (02-10) with the record of home teams in wild card games as opposed to the nine years prior to the realignment (93-01).

2002-2010 Home teams went 19-17 (.528)

1993-2001 Home teams went 28-8 (.778)

I break it down further:

2002-2010 the #4 seeds went 10-8 (.556)

1993-2001 the #4 seeds went 15-3 (.833)

2002-2010 the #3 seed went 9-9 (.500)

1993-2001 the #3 seed went 13-5 (.722)

Now lets look at it by conference:

2002-2010 AFC Home teams went 9-9 (.500)

1993-2001 AFC Home teams went 14-4 (778)

2002-2010 AFC #3 seeds went 5-4 (.556)

1993-2001 AFC #3 seeds went 8-1 (.889)

2002-2010 AFC #4 seeds went 4-5 (.444)

1993-2001 AFC #4 seeds went 6-3 (.667)

2002-2010 NFC Home teams went 10-8 (.556)

1993-2001 NFC Home teams went 14-4 (.778)

2002-2010 NFC #3 seeds went 4-5 (.444)

1993-2001 NFC #3 seeds went 5-4 (.556)

2002-2010 NFC #4 seeds went 6-3 (.667)

1993-2001 NFC #4 seeds went 9-0 (1.000)

NOTE: AFC home teams have lost 5 straight games in this round

Taking a closer look at the 3 finalists for the Rockets job

After interviewing seemingly everyone who has ever spent time on an NBA coaching staff, the Houston Rockets have whittled their list to three names to replace Rick Adelman, who was fired last month: Lawrence Frank, Dwane Casey, and Kevin McHale. This will be the third coach hired in the Les Alexander era, and regardless of who the Rockets elect to hire, this coach will not have the track record of the previous two (Jeff Van Gundy and Adelman) who had coached their previous team’s to the NBA Finals. Of the three finalists, only one has taken his team to the second round, the other two have never made the playoffs. A decision could be made any day, and I thought I’d take a closer look at the men who could become the next Rockets coach.

Lawrence Frank

Frank is the safest choice of the three, which makes me think he won’t be the guy. After Adelman was let go, Adrian Wojnarowski from Yahoo! said the Rockets wanted to unearth the next NBA coaching star, making it sound like they didn’t want a known entity, which Frank is, with over 450 games as a head coach under his belt. He took over the Nets in the middle of the 03-04 season when Byron Scott was pushed out by Jason Kidd (allegedly) after taking the Nets to the NBA Finals two straight seasons. The Nets finished third in the East, losing a 7-game series to Detroit, who won the championship. Jersey went out in the first round in 05, and reached the second round the next two seasons. His last three seasons with the Nets were bad, as the team ended the Jason Kidd and Vince Carter eras. He lost 16 straight to begin last season and was fired. Frank was a manager at Indiana under Bob Knight, and is thought of highly around the league. His New Jersey teams seemingly played to their potential. He was never upset in the playoffs, and he pulled one upset, as the six seed in ’06 beating Toronto in 6 games.

Kevin McHale

The Hall of Famer is the ultimate wild card in this mix. He has never coached a full season in the NBA. He has never been an assistant in the NBA. He spent close to 15 years running the Timberwolves basketball operations. He did some good things in that span, and some bad things, but for about a decade, the Wolves were always competitive, and he did draft Kevin Garnett in 1995, when drafting high school kids was not in style. McHale has been an NBA head coach for 94 games. He finished the 05 season 19-12 after firing Flip Saunders a season after the TWolves finished with the best record in the West. He was not interested in being a full-time coach after that because of the grind, and actually hired Dwayne Casey as his replacement. McHale’s second coaching stint came in December of 2008 after Randy Whitman was fired. He stepped down as VP of Basketball Operations and became the full-time head coach. He took over a team that was 4-15, and lost his first eight games, but followed that up by winning 12-of-16, and it looked like the Wolves might have been on the right track, but Al Jefferson blew out his knee, and Minnesota ended the season 8-31, and Wolves owner Glen Taylor surprisingly let McHale go, even though he made it clear that he wanted to remain Minnesota’s coach. McHale has never started the season as a head coach, so Morey and company would be taking an enormous gamble to handa the reins to him.

Dwane Casey

When he was an assistant at Kentucky in the late 80’s Casey was caught mailing $1,000 dollars to Chris Mills. That discovery, along with many others, led to the resignation of Eddie Sutton at UK, and it put the Wildcats on probation, which allowed Rick Pitino to swoop into the Lexington. Casey wound up coaching in Japan, until the mid 90’s when he joined George Karl’s staff in Seattle, where he would remain an assistant for ten years under Karl and Nate McMillan before being hired by McHale in 2005. He inherited a terrible team and won just 33 games in his first season, and was fired after somehow managing to split 40 games the next season. Ricky Davis was his second best player. Since he was fired the Wolves have gone 90-280, so its safe to say his teams didn’t under achieve. He is now an assistant for the Mavericks, who could very well be the best-coached team in the entire league. I don’t know how much of that is because of him, but the Mavs are in the middle of a deep playoff run, and the last assistant to get a head coach job during a deep playoff run was Tom Thibodeau, and he was the coach of the year this season. Although the year before Kurt Rambis got head coach job, so never mind.

I have no idea what the direction the Rockets will go, or how much longer they will wait, but what I do know is that whoever they bring in will not have near the credentials that the last two coaches brought in by Les Alexander have had, and that concerns me.

Why I'm not taking sides during the Eastern Conference Finals

When you go to college over a thousand miles from home, like I did going to Indiana, you meet and befriend all sorts of people from all walks of life. My experience was no different. Three years ago when finished school, I left friends from all across this great country of ours, including the cities of Miami and Chicago, where some of my best friends reside. Because of this, I have decided to not be an obnoxious douche bag by taking sides over the next two weeks when the Heat and Bulls play for the Eastern Conference title. Its called growing up.

For much of my life, I have basked in my friend’s misery when their teams have lost. I have done the same all throughout this season with the Heat, so much so, to where I drove a friend of a friend into hating me even though he has never met me! I have done the same thing to my Chicago friends. I remember giggling like a high school girl as the Cubs were getting swept in the Division Series by Arizona and then by the Dodgers. Hell, I even wasted $30 on a Pittsburgh Pirates hat when we went to Wrigley for a Cubs game. I will do this no more.

Now, I do have rivalries with these respective cities, like with the Cubs and Dolphins, but when it comes to this series I have none. The Rockets are in the other conference, and its not like they have a history with either team, so why do I care who wins and loses? The truth is, I don’t, so why take sides against friends when I don’t have to? This series has the potential to be one of the best 7-game series that we’ve ever seen, so I am just going to sit back and enjoy. When it is all said and done I will congratulate my friends who win, and console those that lose.

So, I wish everyone involved the best of luck. We have three of the five best players in the world playing in two its loudest arenas (except for the first and third quarters in Miami), which will have the seats full for all 48 minutes (by human beings in Chicago and by white bed sheets in Miami). Its hard not to like either of the teams. You have the Bulls with the young, humble superstar, who has never been to this point before. For Miami you have the great LeBron James, whose string of MVP titles was snapped. He has the experience of failing in big games before, and how about Dwanye Wade. What a classy guy, and you know a guy wants to win when he tries to snap the elbow off another team’s best player, and you can’t not talk about these two teams without talking about their histories. The Bulls have six NBA Championships that were won by Michael Jordan, and the Heat won their title 5 years when Wade and Bennett Salvatore coupled to shock the Mavericks.

If you don’t have a dog in this fight, or money on the line, you might be tempted to take sides in this series. Don’t do it. Just sit back and enjoy the show, just like me, and may the best team win!

Conference Semifinal Predictions

Here are my predictions for the Confernce Semifinals. I was 5-3 with my before-series picks in round 1, and 6-2 with my mid series picks.

Eastern Conference

#1 Chicago vs #5 Atlanta

Even though they beat Orlando in round 1, the Hawks were probably the least impressive out of the 8 teams remaining, but they are in the second round for the 3rd straight year, one of 3 teams that can say that (LAL, BOS). However, it is important to note that they have been swept in this round each of the last two seasons. They looked great against the Magic at times, but they weren't consistent with that great play, which is how they have always been. I don't think they are capable of being great for an entire game. The Hinrich injury is huge because he is their best shot at slowing down Derrick Rose, and now Jeff Teague is going to have to see important minutes in this series.

Prediction: Bulls in 5

#2 Miami vs #3 Boston

This series is being hyped up more than a Yankees/Red Sox series, which will get annoying soon if it hasn't already. Everyone is talking about how important this series is for LeBron James, but I think it is just as important for Chris Bosh. He has something to prove, and if he can't come through against Kevin Garnett, I think the Heat will have a decision to make with him. I like Boston in this series because I don't think Miami can match its sense of urgency, especially early in games. Its one thing to come from behind against the Sixers, its another to have to do it over and over against the Celtics. As dumb as it sounds, the most important players for the Heat could win up being Mike Bibby, Mario Chalmers, and James Jones. They have to knock down shots.

Prediction: Celtics in 6

Western Conference

#4 Oklahoma City vs #8 Memphis

When the Thunder made the Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins trade everyone immediately talked about how that trade would help them against the Lakers. Well, as it turns out, its going to help them immensely against the Grizzlies. Perkins will help OKC matchup inside against Memphis. Even though they beat Denver in 5 games, I saw something that worried me about the Thunder: Russell Westbrook. He played selfish against the Nuggets, and I think thats the first time that has happened with this OKC team. Memphis would love nothing more than for him to hoist up 30 shots a game. Memphis shot over 47% against San Antonio, and I'm not sure that can continue. This could be a great series, and neither team lost at home in the first round.

Prediction: Thunder in 7

#2 LA Lakers vs #3 Dallas

Dirk and Kobe finally meet in the playoffs, and its a chance to see Jason Terry and Matt Barnes go at it after they had that little scuffle back towards the end of the regular season. Dallas played much better in the first round against a better team, but I still don't like the matchup for them because of rebounding. They didn't rebound well against Portland, and as has been said hundreds of times, that how the Lakers beat you. I think Dallas will cause the Lakers problems with Terry and Nowitzki, but they are just a little too reliant on the 3 to beat LA.

Prediction: Lakers in 7