Following a season in which the Cincinnati Bengals made a magical playoff run to the franchise’s first Super Bowl appearance since 1988, the team didn’t get off to the fast start many experts anticipated in 2022. The Bengals dropped their first two games and have struggled to get above .500 for most of the year […]
Perhaps the easiest way to start a fight with NFL fans is to assert that their favorite franchise hasn’t beaten anyone. In one fell swoop you’ve devalued a season’s worth of victories and also cast substantial doubt on the team’s postseason prospects. Accusations of a cupcake schedule make for sensitive discourse because a handful of […]
When the COVID-19 pandemic kept most fans out of NFL stadiums in 2020, home-field advantage was shut out, too: Road teams won more than home teams for the first time since the AFL-NFL merger. In 2021, crowds are back — but the advantage isn’t. Through Week 8, NFL road teams are 63-56, a .529 win […]
Sometimes the arc of an NFL team’s season can reflect real changes in its performance, but just as often it’s simply an illusion of the schedule machine: Does the team play its toughest games early in the season, or late? It’s something we can even see coming ahead of time, if we do the math. […]
Sometimes the arc of an NFL team’s season can reflect real changes in its performance, but just as often it’s simply an illusion of the schedule machine: Does the team play its toughest games early in the season, or late? It’s something we can even see coming ahead of time, if we do the math. […]