Quote:
Originally Posted by Lubicon
Underdogs are 30-48 ( 0.348) in Wild Card games since 2002 so statistically 2-3 of them should win this weekend. With the format change I would think this would go down slightly but that probably still means 2 underdog wins.
https://en.as.com/en/2022/01/13/nfl/...15_765933.html |
On one hand there is a so called larger mismatch in the 2 vs 7 game on the card, but there also is an extra game. So I would think the numbers in time will give us a bit more information as to what this added Wild Card game does to the numbers. As you note, likely a slight percentage adjustment, but I'd be shocked if that percentage changes by more the 5%, whereas the number of games has increased by 50%
I'd have to go back and check history, but I don't think it's every year where the Home teams are favored in every game. There were no bad record Division winners, or Wild Card Teams with a good record that lost out to a #1 seed type of thing.
Another trend I heard was that in the Wild Card round, 90% of teams who win the game cover the spread. So statistically the spread doesn't matter over the long haul. But again this is year 2 of this format so the sample size is only 6 games.