| |  Divisional round usually goes to home team
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
For the first time in nearly a month and a half Monday, the Pittsburgh Steelers had all 53 players on their active roster participate in a practice, the early workout for Sunday's bloodletting against the Baltimore Ravens being graphic evidence of why teams so covet home-field advantage and the
first-round bye that accompanies it.
By the final month of any season, everyone on a roster is hurting, and the
bruises of December don't just magically disappear when the calendar flips
to January and the postseason. But players on the four teams that earn
first-round byes, and who don't have to prepare for a game the initial week
of the playoffs, probably play a little less hurt than their
opponents.
The home-field advantage remains an essential element, but it almost becomes
incidental to the one-week respite from games, as far as some players are
concerned. One NFC general manager referred to it as the "health-field
advantage," because it means one more week of treatment for injured
players and virtually two weeks before the full-contact collision of game
action.
Money can't buy that kind of instant elixir.
There is a good chance now, for instance, that Pittsburgh will have tailback
Jerome Bettis back in the lineup on Sunday. St. Louis Rams wide
receiver Isaac Bruce used the week off to rest his sprained foot. Players
who might not have been 100 percent a week ago are at least a bit closer now.
"Knowing that you don't have to play anybody when the week of practice ends
and the weekend rolls around," said Chicago Bears defensive tackle Keith
Traylor, "is one of the best feelings that you can have. You might still be
hurting physically, but mentally you feel a lot better, and that's a huge
part of it. I don't think there's any doubt that's a reason why the teams
with the home-field advantage win so often in the playoffs."
Indeed, the teams that earn a first-round bye and proceed directly to the
division-round contests have a better winning percentage than home teams
in any other round. At least historically, that should bode well this
weekend for Pittsburgh, New England, Chicago and St. Louis.
Since the current 12-team playoff format was adopted in 1990, home clubs in
the division round have a 36-8 record, an .818 mark. In the 11
seasons (1990-2000), the four bye teams went undefeated on four occasions, as
recently as 1998. Even in the poorest year, 1995, the bye teams were still
2-2, so they have never posted a losing record.
Compare that .818 winning percentage to the other rounds: Home teams in the
wild-card round were 32-12 from 1990 through 2000, a winning mark of .727. The home
teams in division championship games during the same period were 13-9, just
.591.
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Home-field advantage
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Since the league adopted the current 12-team playoff format in 1990 the home
teams in the divisional round, those four teams that drew a bye, have a 36-8
record. Here is a year-by-year breakdown of how the four bye teams fared:
|
|
Year
|
W
|
L
|
|
2000
|
3
|
1
|
|
1999
|
3
|
1
|
|
1998
|
4
|
0
|
|
1997
|
3
|
1
|
|
1996
|
3
|
1
|
|
1995
|
2
|
2
|
|
1994
|
4
|
0
|
|
1993
|
3
|
1
|
|
1992
|
3
|
1
|
|
1991
|
4
|
0
|
|
1990
|
4
|
0
|
Even the eight home teams that lost in the division round have played close
games. The average margin in those contests is 8.3 points and four games
were decided by four points or fewer.
The principle interest, of course, between the divisional games and the
other rounds is the bye, that key week off for players to heal up and
coaches to bone up on potential opponents. How key can the off-week be:
Since 1990, the NFC representative in the Super Bowl has always been from a
bye team. In the AFC, the Super Bowl representative was a bye team seven of
11 times.
Clearly the week off provides the bye teams a much easier, and obviously
shorter, road to the Super Bowl game.
"Most years, it's a definite advantage, no doubt about it,' said St. Louis
Rams cornerback Aeneas Williams. "There's a reason you play so hard to earn
(the week off), because it automatically puts you one step closer to the big
dance, and it's one less week of wear and tear on your body. With the bye,
you win one time and you're already to the conference (championship) game.
That's a pretty good deal, no matter how you cut it."
The week off also is an advantage in terms of game-planning. The Steelers,
for instance, spent last week reviewing videotapes of all three possible
division-round opponents. They can take this week now to focus on the
Ravens, having already done some preliminary planning for what will be a
third battle between the AFC Central rivals. Plus there is the fact that the
four bye teams did not travel last weekend.
Since there are never guarantees in the NFL, this weekend could end the
supremacy of home teams in the division round. But that would be an
upheaval of epic proportions.
"Coming off a bye week," said one of the quarterbacks from a bye-week team,
"you feel so much more refreshed. No one is invincible in this league, but
when you fight all year for the home-field game, you don't want to waste it.
And most teams don't."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.
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