Last week the Ravens beat the Steelers 20-17, the Falcons beat the Panthers 20-13, and the Rams edged the Seahawks 23-17. Three upsets, and in each case it was a low-scoring game between teams in the same division. The hot offenses of Pittsburgh, Carolina and Seattle all underperformed. Coincidence? Or is there something to the theory that defenses can kind of build up an immunity to offenses they’re seeing twice a year?
Such questions are best answered not by looking at a few games but looking at large pools of data. So for this one, I looked at all of the regular season games of the last 10 years – 2,560 games.
Each year there are 92 games between teams inside the same division, and there are 160 other games.
Turns out there is some difference.
In the 2014 season, there was an average of 2.4 more points scored in games outside the division.
In 2013, the difference was even more severe – almost 5 points per game.
The 2015 season isn’t complete, but the difference hasn’t been as severe. So far we’re looking at 45.39 points for divisional games, with the other games running .40 points higher.
In only two of these 10 seasons was the scoring slightly higher in the division games.
| SCORING IN DIVISION GAMES | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Division | Other | Difference |
| 2005 | 41.77 | 40.91 | -.86 |
| 2006 | 38.51 | 43.06 | 4.55 |
| 2007 | 44.03 | 42.98 | -1.05 |
| 2008 | 43.74 | 44.25 | .51 |
| 2009 | 42.08 | 43.44 | 1.36 |
| 2010 | 42.03 | 45.30 | 3.27 |
| 2011 | 43.47 | 44.89 | 1.43 |
| 2012 | 44.69 | 46.01 | 1.32 |
| 2013 | 43.71 | 48.68 | 4.97 |
| 2014 | 43.76 | 46.15 | 2.39 |
So as we enter Week 17, with every team playing a divisional opponent, scoring should be a little down.
And that’s how it’s tended to play out since the league changed its scheduling format in 2010, with every team playing a divisional opponent in its last game. During the first five years since that switch, there’s been an average of 42.8 points scored in those games – way below any of the other weeks.
To make the math easier with byes, I have listed them not by weeks but by games – Games 13-16 equal Weeks 14-17, Games 1-3 are the same as Weeks 1-3, but for the middle games, there’s some fluctuation. (Some teams plays their Game 8 in Week 8, others don’t hit it until Week 9). But I wanted the same number of games in each slot.
| AVERAGE POINTS SINCE 2010 | |
|---|---|
| Game 1 | 44.86 |
| Game 2 | 44.26 |
| Game 3 | 44.56 |
| Game 4 | 46.75 |
| Game 5 | 45.96 |
| Game 6 | 44.50 |
| Game 7 | 45.55 |
| Game 8 | 46.00 |
| Game 9 | 46.84 |
| Game 10 | 44.33 |
| Game 11 | 45.29 |
| Game 12 | 44.34 |
| Game 13 | 46.71 |
| Game 14 | 45.75 |
| Game 15 | 44.45 |
| Game 16 | 42.80 |
—Ian Allan