emkee
The Truth Is Out There
12-13 (-4.54)
Rough 'snake bitten' round for me so far (0-3). Cutler with an intentional grounding that took the Bears out of FG range that would have covered the spread, Bungles blow a 14 point 4th quarter lead to a 'practice squad' QB and the Saints gave Brady three shots to win the game in the final 2 1/2 minutes.
Indianapolis Colts at San Diego Chargers
The play...
Chargers +1.5 (3.5 units)
The Circadian Rhythm Angle (have used this angle the last 8 years)
'In the middle of the 1990's, a few sleep researchers at Stanford University decided to test a theory. Studies had shown that strength, flexibility, and reaction times surge in the early evening when the circadian rhythm is pulling the body out of the post-lunch funk. Given that subtle effect on an athlete's abilities, it stood to reason that a person at the peak of this alertness cycle would have an unseen advantage over someone whose internal clock thought it was time for bed. What the researchers needed to test their idea was a contest that not only pitted people of similar abilities at different stages of the circadian cycle against each other, but also a data set long enough to show reliable patterns.
They found it in the professional football games played on Monday night, some of the premier events in the NFL. Monday night games always start at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, regardless of which teams are playing or which team has to travel. For the league, this guarantees the maximum number of viewers. Diehard football fans on the East Coast will stay up until past midnight if they have to, while sports fans on the West Coast can turn on the TV and watch the game while eating dinner after work.
The scheduling of Monday Night Football games presents a unique circadian problem, especially if a team from the West Coast is playing a team from the East Coast. Players on the West Coast team are playing at their equivalent of 5:30 p.m., no matter if the game is in Seattle or Miami. Players on the team from the East Coast, meanwhile, are three hours ahead in their own circadian cycles. In nature, this sort of mismatch couldn't happen. It was only in the last 60 years or so that we've developed a way to travel so quickly across time zones that our internal clocks are no longer in sync with the daylight around us. Fitting its cause, we call this condition jet lag.
Without knowing it, athletes on teams from the East Coast are playing at a disadvantage. Because of the circadian rhythm, which they can't control, their bodies are past their natural performance peaks before the first quarter ends. By the fourth quarter, the team from the East Coast will be competing close to its equivalent of midnight. Their bodies will be subtly preparing for sleep by taking steps such as lowering the body temperature, slowing the reaction time, and increasing the amount of melatonin in their bloodstream. Athletes on the team from the West Coast, meanwhile, are still competing in the prime time of their circadian cycle.
Every human body, ranging from a professional athlete to a suburban dad, will experience small declines in physical ability and mental agility the longer it fights against the circadian rhythm. In the modern NFL, this has a significant impact because teams in the league are more evenly matched than those in the other major sports, and anything that alters a single player's ability has an outsized effect on the outcome of the game. What's more, there is little that an East Coast team can do about the circadian disadvantage. The schedule gives coaches few chances to adapt to the time difference. Teams traveling on the road typically fly in the night before the game, and East Coast teams playing at home rarely attempt to put their body clocks on Pacific Standard Time. Coaches instead tell their players not to try to adjust to the time differences, preferring that they keep up with their normal sleep patterns for consistency.
The Stanford researchers dug through 25 years of Monday night NFL games and flagged every time a West Coast team played an East Coast team. Then, in an inspired move, they compared the final scores for each game with the point spread developed by bookmakers in Vegas. The results were stunning. The West Coast teams dominated their East Coast opponents no matter where they played. A West Coast team won 63 percent of the time, by an average of two touchdowns. The games were much closer when an East Coast team won, with an average margin of victory of only nine points. By picking the West Coast team every time, someone would have beaten the point spread 70 percent of the time.
In a test to ensure that their findings weren't the result of West Coast teams simply being better during those years, the researchers expanded their scope and looked at every Monday Night Football game played during that twenty-five-year time span. They found that the overall winning percentages for West Coast and East Coast teams were essentially even when the teams were not playing a game against an opponent from the other coast. Nor were the results a reflection of home-field advantage. When an East Coast team traveled to another destination within its same time zone, it won 45 percent of the time. But if a team from the East Coast played somewhere in the Pacific time zone, its winning percentage shrunk to only 29 percent.
The circadian advantage—or disadvantage, depending on your perspective–-popped up in studies of figure skaters, rowers, golfers, baseball players, swimmers, and divers. Everywhere you turned, there was evidence of the body's hidden rhythms at work. One study found that in sports as varied as running, weightlifting, and swimming, athletes competing when their bodies experienced the second boost of circadian energy were more likely to break a world record. Long jumpers, for instance, launched themselves nearly 4 percent farther when the body was at its circadian peak. But the circadian rhythm cut both ways. Athletes competing when their circadian rhythm corresponded to the so-called sleep gates—those times in the early afternoon or late nights when it's easy for most people to fall asleep—consistently performed a little worse than normal, even if the slowdown wasn't obvious to them.'
Also helps that this game for the Colts was sandwiched between the Seahawks (a game where Luck and Co. had to come from behind to win in the late stages) and the Broncos next week, the much touted Luck v Peyton showdown.
A few more trends...
Teams who played away on Monday night the previous week and are playing again on Monday night at home the following week are 11-0 SU and ATS since 2004.
Bolts are 11-2 ATS on MNF in non-divison games and 6-0 ATS on MNF off a loss.
Bolts are 21-3-1 ATS all-time versus the AFC South.
Teams that are favored (or a pick 'em) after a game against Pete Carroll's Seahawks are 4-16-2 ATS.
Non-division home dogs of less than 5 points are 10-6 ATS this season.
NFL favorites with a winning record are 4-20 ATS the last 10 seasons when coming of an upset win as a home dog.
:shake:
Rough 'snake bitten' round for me so far (0-3). Cutler with an intentional grounding that took the Bears out of FG range that would have covered the spread, Bungles blow a 14 point 4th quarter lead to a 'practice squad' QB and the Saints gave Brady three shots to win the game in the final 2 1/2 minutes.
Indianapolis Colts at San Diego Chargers
The play...
Chargers +1.5 (3.5 units)
The Circadian Rhythm Angle (have used this angle the last 8 years)
'In the middle of the 1990's, a few sleep researchers at Stanford University decided to test a theory. Studies had shown that strength, flexibility, and reaction times surge in the early evening when the circadian rhythm is pulling the body out of the post-lunch funk. Given that subtle effect on an athlete's abilities, it stood to reason that a person at the peak of this alertness cycle would have an unseen advantage over someone whose internal clock thought it was time for bed. What the researchers needed to test their idea was a contest that not only pitted people of similar abilities at different stages of the circadian cycle against each other, but also a data set long enough to show reliable patterns.
They found it in the professional football games played on Monday night, some of the premier events in the NFL. Monday night games always start at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, regardless of which teams are playing or which team has to travel. For the league, this guarantees the maximum number of viewers. Diehard football fans on the East Coast will stay up until past midnight if they have to, while sports fans on the West Coast can turn on the TV and watch the game while eating dinner after work.
The scheduling of Monday Night Football games presents a unique circadian problem, especially if a team from the West Coast is playing a team from the East Coast. Players on the West Coast team are playing at their equivalent of 5:30 p.m., no matter if the game is in Seattle or Miami. Players on the team from the East Coast, meanwhile, are three hours ahead in their own circadian cycles. In nature, this sort of mismatch couldn't happen. It was only in the last 60 years or so that we've developed a way to travel so quickly across time zones that our internal clocks are no longer in sync with the daylight around us. Fitting its cause, we call this condition jet lag.
Without knowing it, athletes on teams from the East Coast are playing at a disadvantage. Because of the circadian rhythm, which they can't control, their bodies are past their natural performance peaks before the first quarter ends. By the fourth quarter, the team from the East Coast will be competing close to its equivalent of midnight. Their bodies will be subtly preparing for sleep by taking steps such as lowering the body temperature, slowing the reaction time, and increasing the amount of melatonin in their bloodstream. Athletes on the team from the West Coast, meanwhile, are still competing in the prime time of their circadian cycle.
Every human body, ranging from a professional athlete to a suburban dad, will experience small declines in physical ability and mental agility the longer it fights against the circadian rhythm. In the modern NFL, this has a significant impact because teams in the league are more evenly matched than those in the other major sports, and anything that alters a single player's ability has an outsized effect on the outcome of the game. What's more, there is little that an East Coast team can do about the circadian disadvantage. The schedule gives coaches few chances to adapt to the time difference. Teams traveling on the road typically fly in the night before the game, and East Coast teams playing at home rarely attempt to put their body clocks on Pacific Standard Time. Coaches instead tell their players not to try to adjust to the time differences, preferring that they keep up with their normal sleep patterns for consistency.
The Stanford researchers dug through 25 years of Monday night NFL games and flagged every time a West Coast team played an East Coast team. Then, in an inspired move, they compared the final scores for each game with the point spread developed by bookmakers in Vegas. The results were stunning. The West Coast teams dominated their East Coast opponents no matter where they played. A West Coast team won 63 percent of the time, by an average of two touchdowns. The games were much closer when an East Coast team won, with an average margin of victory of only nine points. By picking the West Coast team every time, someone would have beaten the point spread 70 percent of the time.
In a test to ensure that their findings weren't the result of West Coast teams simply being better during those years, the researchers expanded their scope and looked at every Monday Night Football game played during that twenty-five-year time span. They found that the overall winning percentages for West Coast and East Coast teams were essentially even when the teams were not playing a game against an opponent from the other coast. Nor were the results a reflection of home-field advantage. When an East Coast team traveled to another destination within its same time zone, it won 45 percent of the time. But if a team from the East Coast played somewhere in the Pacific time zone, its winning percentage shrunk to only 29 percent.
The circadian advantage—or disadvantage, depending on your perspective–-popped up in studies of figure skaters, rowers, golfers, baseball players, swimmers, and divers. Everywhere you turned, there was evidence of the body's hidden rhythms at work. One study found that in sports as varied as running, weightlifting, and swimming, athletes competing when their bodies experienced the second boost of circadian energy were more likely to break a world record. Long jumpers, for instance, launched themselves nearly 4 percent farther when the body was at its circadian peak. But the circadian rhythm cut both ways. Athletes competing when their circadian rhythm corresponded to the so-called sleep gates—those times in the early afternoon or late nights when it's easy for most people to fall asleep—consistently performed a little worse than normal, even if the slowdown wasn't obvious to them.'
Also helps that this game for the Colts was sandwiched between the Seahawks (a game where Luck and Co. had to come from behind to win in the late stages) and the Broncos next week, the much touted Luck v Peyton showdown.
A few more trends...
Teams who played away on Monday night the previous week and are playing again on Monday night at home the following week are 11-0 SU and ATS since 2004.
Bolts are 11-2 ATS on MNF in non-divison games and 6-0 ATS on MNF off a loss.
Bolts are 21-3-1 ATS all-time versus the AFC South.
Teams that are favored (or a pick 'em) after a game against Pete Carroll's Seahawks are 4-16-2 ATS.
Non-division home dogs of less than 5 points are 10-6 ATS this season.
NFL favorites with a winning record are 4-20 ATS the last 10 seasons when coming of an upset win as a home dog.
:shake:
