How much can an NFL fan read in Ravens' Blowout victory?

The demolition of the Miami Dolphins by the Baltimore Ravts in 59-10 weeks seems to mark the arrival of Lamar Jackson as a full quarterback, the installation of the Ravens as serious contenders for the AFC and a coup de grace for the Dolphins – who would have had a wave of players making commercial demands the night of the loss. But apart from the fact that Miami, ranked 31st in the FiveThirtyEight Elo rankings, was tied for 31st, the third-biggest drop in week 1 since the AFL / NFL merger Does not it make sense?

In 2003, the Buffalo Bills provoked an exaggerated reaction from the world population following football watching in the first week, beating the New England Patriots rivals 31-0. The win came with a neat story – the new Bills security lawyer, Milloy, was surprisingly unveiled by the Patriots during the pre-season – and seemed to signal a change of guard in the AFC East. But the Bills finished the season 6-10 after the playoffs – and the Patriots have won 17 of their next 18 games, including the Super Bowl.

The two participants in the biggest explosion of week 1, the Atlanta Falcons 62-7 win over the New Orleans Saints in 1973, missed the playoffs. Washington, meanwhile, ruled out Detroit 45-0 in 1991, but the teams were no longer in the NFC championship game.

So we know that there is no guarantee that the winner of an eruption of the first week will have a better season than the loser. But how did the teams on both sides of the standings manage? We looked at all the rashes of the first week – no matter which match since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 in which the margin of victory was at least 30 points – to see what the Ravens and Dolphins could wait for the rest of their seasons, if history gives hints.

It's a must for the 46 games in question: the teams that opened their season with a dazzling victory had, on average, a higher percentage of wins in the regular season – and progressed further in the playoffs – than the teams with suffered an eruption. In total, 38 of the 46 eruption winners earned a higher victory percentage than the losers.

Comparing these averages, another trend has emerged: Week 1 eruptions have become rarer in recent times. There were 31 between 1970 and 1996, an average of 1.1 per season. But between 1997 and 2018, there were 15 – only 0.7 per season.

In addition, the eruptions of the opening week were previously much more powerful indicators of success. Prior to 1997, teams that had a winning week 1 won almost twice as many games as their victims, and the winners made 83.9% of their playoff time. Keep in mind that the wild card round was not introduced until the 1978 season, so previous teams had a shorter road leading to the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to see the chasm in the series returns of the winners and losers of the final round:

But of course, if the eruptions were both more frequent and more important before 1997, this means that they have been less frequent and less important since:

The percentage difference in earnings is much smaller in recent years than in the oldest sample. In fact, the number of breakouts in the first week has been so low in recent years that we have been concerned about the size of the sample. the Super Bowl appearances rate of 6.7% for winners and losers since the burst since 1997 represents a team each.

Ideally, we would only look at eruptions after the 2002 realignment, along with standard divisions and playoff seeding throughout the league. This leaves us with only nine data points, but the resulting difference between the percentage of winners (0.531) and losers (0.438) has continued to decline.

So, what has happened? Why did you win an early season with more than 30 points before 1997 gave an NFL team a one in five chance to qualify for the playoffs, while the winning teams had far worse results? Why have the eruptions occurred more than once a year during this first stretch and significantly less often since?

This is probably a confluence of several factors, rather than inverting a switch. The advent of free will in the early 90s, a series of player protection rules were adopted a few years later and the concurrent evolution of more dynamic and broader infringements, contributing to a longer parity between teams despite the increased volatility of the game scores.

But there is always reason to believe that a 59-10 type drag means something. Only a handful of modern-day teams were blasted during the first week, like Miami, and had the slightest success. Even if dominating a team in the first week is not an indicator of success as strong as before, Baltimore is probably still in a decent shape for this season. Oh, and the crows are all, but certainly better than the dolphins.

Again, if any of these trends were flawless, Milloy and the Bills would have won the Super Bowl XXXVIII while Tom Brady and the Patriots watched from their couch.

Discover our latest NFL forecast.