Rematch of Division Rivalry Blowout

Theory: In a division rivalry, a team that loses by 2+TD's will play better the next time the teams meet later that season. 
Why?  Two reasons.  One, the team that won the first game will not prepare as hard for the second game knowing they already beat the team handily that season.  Two, the team that lost is pissed and does not want to be embarrassed by a division rival again.

Week 1 last year the Broncos embarrassed the Raiders 41-14. So when the two teams met in week 12, with Denver a 9 point favorite and at 6-4 and Oakland 2-8, this was an easy survivor pick, right? How about the rematch of the 4-3 Bears (-12.5) and winless Lions team who already lost to Chicago by 27?

You all know what happened. The Raiders beat the Broncos by 21 and the Lions held a lead in the 4th quarter.

Teams that lose to a division rival by 2+ TD's almost always play much better the second time around.  Check out the data:

These are very impressive overall numbers.  Teams that get stomped on the road then play the rematch at home generally play the game as close as a FG, and have even won 41% of the time.  With the rematch on the road the numbers are slightly worse (as expected) but still very impressive.


Conclusion: The losing team generally plays much better in the rematch, especially at home.  While the first meeting was a blowout, the second meeting was at worst a Field Goal game, and had a lot of "upsets".  On the road, the rematch is also much closer than the first meeting, but there are a lot of games that are at least a 1 TD game.  You can see that from the median scores.


Here is where things are more interesting:

*Data excludes rematches in Week 17, and the outlier 2007 Pats


The overall home numbers look even better when you see the AFC North is skewing the average numbers (partially due to Cleveland being awful), and NFC West skewing the "Upsets" numbers (probably because there are no real rivalries in the NFC West).  In 5 out of the 7 divisions (The AFC East produced no data for home stomps) the team that got stomped on the road came home and won 11 out of 18 rematch games.  And in those 18 games, all but 1 game had the original loser keeping it within 5 points.  5!  That's after they lost to the same team by 2 TD's!

Lots of other little nuggets in the division breakdown:

• The NFC East is by far the most competitive division after a stomp.
• The entire NFC doesn't have a lot of blow outs on the road (in a first match up).
• The AFC East doesn't have a lot of blowouts in first match ups.  Only 1 on three years. (18 games)
• After a stomp, the AFC North teams plays closer on the road than at home.
• If you stomp on the road in the AFC South, you will likely stomp in the rematch at home.
• The AFC West has a lot of stomps on the road.

If the trends hold up, we should see 12 of these rematch games this year.  Don't choose this trap game.


all data can be seen here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0An2wHPZQRpOvdFZKN3pVeW9mcnZzaFpCSGxlUkdQTEE&hl=en