RichNhansom wrote:
That sounds good but there are studies that show the opposite as well. Answer me this, if it is no big deal then why did the NFL change the travel schedule for east coast teams (only) so they wouldn't have to make the grueling trip west more than twice a year. We seen this last year when Pittsburgh was suppose to travel to Seattle but do to the new guidelines, Seattle had to not only travel to Pittsburgh but also had to play at the 10 am time slot. A game we got massacred in.
Look up the win loss record of Seattle when playing at 10am vs afternoon or evening east coast games.
Edit: A game got massacred in and traveled nearly three times as far as Pitsburgh over the course of that season.
I assume what you're referring to are the poorer W/L records that have been noted with teams when they travel coast-to-coast. If I'm not mistaken, this is also why, as you mentioned, the NFL is trying to reduce those types of trips even if only for east coast teams. If it's something more in depth than just W/L records in the NFL, I would love to hear more about that. However, if you're referring to what I think you're referring to, then that presents a problem with trying to analyze this because the two issues of traveling coast-to-coast would presumably stem from either the duration and distance of the trip or from playing at a different time than what a team is used to. The problem with looking at just the NFL is they have no equivalent of a coast-to-coast trip that doesn't involve different time-zones, which means those two issues cannot be looked at separately within the sport. (The longest travel distance between same time-zone teams occurs when NE and the teams in NY play the Florida-based teams but this is only like half the distance of a coast-to-coast trip.)
What I'm suggesting is the assertions of the guys debunking the effects of the time and distance of travel are correct and that the issues with travel stem from how they affect a player or coach's habits and routine in preparation for a game as well as other subtle facets of the "body clock" theory. If this is true, then the irony is that reducing the number of trips for a team probably hurts them in the long run because they'll be less acclimated to playing outside of their ideal game-time. This, at least to me, is as ridiculous as banning elevators because some people are claustrophobic.
It's difficult to base any kind of theory about the effects of coast-to-coast trips just from Seahawk games, let alone recent Seahawk games, because it's such a small sample size and the results you're looking at could be more of an indicator of us just typically be bad, average, and slightly above average compared to the rest of the league. When a game happens like us getting massacred by Pitt, it just might be that they were considerably better that day.
scutterhawk wrote:Aren't most of the MLB & NBA games played in the afternoon or evenings when all the players are wide awake though?
Most, yeah, or at least much more-so than NFL teams, but the issue of playing time as I understand isn't about what time during the day the game is at; it's about what time it's at relative to what a team is used to. MLB and NBA teams might not have to play as early in terms of their team's local time-zone as a west coast NFL team but they also play more road games more frequently and are probably some of the most acclimated athletes in being successful in such circumstances.