Busting the Myth that It's Hard to Beat a Team Three times in a Season
Beating a team three times in one season?
That’s tough duty in the NFL, according to my social-media mentions, and nearly every trope-driven, sports-talk radio host in the country.
Funny thing about the human condition, if you say something often enough, many will begin to believe it and that narrative has almost become accepted dogma despite any empirical evidence to back it up.
So, it’s time to play myth buster with the Eagles facing that daunting task in the divisional round of the playoffs against the New York Giants on Saturday night.
Turns out the opposite of the old wives' tale is actually true, especially when the home team is the dominant part of the equation.
The background here is Philadelphia blitzing the Giants at MetLife Stadium on Dec. 11, dominating en route to a 48-22 finish and becoming the first NFL team to clinch a postseason berth.
The Eagles then clinched the NFC East and the No. 1 seed by beating New York again in Week 18 when the Giants, cognizant they matched up well against likely first-round opponent Minnesota, sat all their key players in what turned into a 22-16 setback that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
To Brian Daboll’s credit, Big Blue did “upset” the defensively-challenged Vikings, setting up shot No. 3 at the 14-3 Eagles on a short week.
The “it’s tough to beat a team three times in a season” narrative is what hopeful Giants fans and angst-ridden Birds supporters have in common, but it’s a fairy tale, bolstered by the misinformed.
In fact, teams that meet an opponent in the playoffs after sweeping their two regular-season matchups are much more likely to win the third game than lose it.
Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, there have now been 24 occasions of teams meeting for the third time in the postseason after one team won the first two matchups.
In those 24 playoff games, including Saturday’s San Francisco win over Seattle, the “sweeping” team is 15-9, a solid. 625 winning percentage.
The numbers tilt more heavily to 13-6 (.684) when the team going for the sweep is the home team in the postseason, which indicates they were also the better team in the regular season, and winning the home-and-home set was not by happenstance.
Consider this myth busted.
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
