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SportsMemo gives us "one of the best blog posts in history" for the first weekend of the NFL playoffs.  They've found the Rosetta Stone of sports handicapping -- in the NFL, just decode the weekend using Strength of Schedule.

They report that since 2002, teams with a tougher Strength of Schedule won 29 games and lost 11 -- regardless of home or away location.  And where the SOS difference was large, the teams with tougher schedules went -- wait for it -- 18 and 3 straight up.

This is talking about first round only.  Why did they edit out SOS in further rounds of the playoffs?

• CYNIC:  because that would reveal that the method doesn't work.
• BELIEVER:  because after the first round, the cream has risen to the top and the Patriots Factor begins to swamp other factors.

SportsMemo explains that when the NFL went to eight divisions, the disparity of schedules become larger.  Seahawks fans can certainly believe that -- they face three of the NFL's most ferocious defenses home-and-away.  This year, the Seahawks also had to face Green Bay, New England, Chicago on the road, etc.

SportsMemo gives the following matchups this weekend:

They conclude that the right choices (against the spread, now...) are Houston, Minny, Baltimore and Seattle.  Um, no.  As good sabermigos you realize that the SOS differences in the first two lines are nothing but noise.  But the differences in schedule in the last two lines are vast, and worth consideration.

.................

Supposing that the Ravens and Seahawks actually were much more likely to win than people realized.  Why would that be?

First of all, it goes back to our question "Why would you prefer one 3.50 ERA pitcher against another?"  Well, what if one had a 3.50 ERA in the American League and the other had it in the PCL?  There is no question that Russell Wilson has, for sixteen weeks, been facing much tougher defenses than has Robert Griffin III.

This could imply that the PCL pitcher would actually run a 4.50 ERA under the same circumstances as the AL pitcher, who ran the 3.50.  As Cool Papa pointed out, 21st-century football analysis revolves around the question of "WHICH three-yard run was the better run?"

And if so, it could be that RGIII would have run much worse stats than he did, if he'd had to face the NFC West all year.

................

But!  That isn't really the factor that SSI is looking at.  Dr. D thinks that RGIII would have done fine against the NFC West.  The hidden factor here is that you have one boxer who's training kinda hard, and boxing against setups, and another one who's going all Evander Holyfield, tripling up his training and fighting all the toughest hombres he can possibly find.

Going into this weekend, rookie QB Wilson has a tempered-steel season behind him.  And he's gotten better, better, and better against these ferocious defenses.  When playoff action hits, and torn ACL's start piling up, Wilson may be better prepared for the extra level of intensity.  After all, nobody's going to show him anything worse than he's already seen from the 49'ers.

I don't say the Seahawks are a gimme this weekend; factoring in the refs I think they're underdogs.  But the schedule they've faced, and the way they got better and better against it, man alive they look dangerous.

Be Afraid,

Dr D