Are West Coast NFL Teams At a Disadvantage When They Travel East?

Tuesday on ESPN's First Take, Eric Kuselias brought up the point that west coast teams play poorly when they travel east. He argued that west teams are forced to play the early game when are the visitors in east coast cities and they are struggling to adapt.

Let's look at that. The Oakland Raiders and Arizona Cardinals might be interested since the visit Baltimore and Carolina, respectively.

Western teams are a combined 0-9 when they play in the Eastern Time Zone. Of those nine games, eight were played at 1:00 p.m. ET. The Raiders-Ravens and Cardinals-Panthers games on Sunday will both be at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Seattle has lost at Buffalo, NY Giants and Tampa Bay. San Diego lost at Buffalo and Miami. Arizona lost at Washington and NY Jets. San Francisco lost at the Giants. Oakland lost at Buffalo. If you want to add Denver as a western team, they lost in their one trip east (in New England on Monday night).

So is it the travel or the time of the game?

I can see the gripe about the time of the game. A game that starts at 1:00 p.m. ET feels like 10:00 a.m. to a team from the Pacific Time Zone. It isn't like teams spend a ton of time in these eastern cities to adjust their bodies to the time zone.

Of course, Arizona did try to change that. After their Week 3 loss to the Washington Redskins, the Cardinals decided to stay out east in order to prepare themselves for the New York Jets. They were promptly spanked.

Could it be the travel? Eastern Time Zone teams are 4-7 when they travel west (everything Denver and west). Two of those wins were over the woeful 49ers in San Francisco (Philadelphia and New England). Another was Carolina's last second win in San Diego.

Or could it be that the better team won? After all, none of those nine losses were flukes. Yeah, the Dolphins beating the Chargers raises some eyebrows, but all the other losses were justifiable.

But let's look at the 2007 season. Teams from the Pacific or Mountain time zones were 4-16 when they played in the Eastern Time Zone. Eighteen of those 20 games were played at 1:00 p.m. ET. Two of the Atlanta Falcons four wins last year came at home against western teams (Seattle, San Francisco).

Obviously there is something going on. Good luck to the Cardinals and Raiders this weekend. You'll need it.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-23-2008 @ 9:36AM

soulcitysigma1914 said...

i had never heard this point made before this season but i've been hearing it from sportscasters since week 3 or so; it didn't just break this week. but it is a valid problem and the nfl should consider making east coast teams who host west coast teams play at 4 p.m. EST. It's only fair. i know that decreases the amount of games for Fox or CBS to broadcast at 1 p.m. EST on a given week and the move would upset a lot of fans on the east coast, but the NFL should put fair competition before ratings, and since most teams are east of the mississippi, it should be impossible for there not to be any east coast vs. east coast/east vs. central time/central time vs. central time team games to play and broadcast at 1 pm EST

10-23-2008 @ 1:09PM

lowridersteeler said...

HAHAHAH!!!!!!! IT MAKES ME LAUGH WHEN I READ SUCH GARBAGE,IM FROM THE WEST AND AS YOU CAN SEE IMA STEELERS FAN ,IF THESE SO CALLED TOUGH WEST TEAMS SAY THAT THEY ARE TOUGH THEN SHOW US ,IF NOT GO MAKE SOME PANCAKES SOME WHERE ,AND PUT ON AN APRON,BUNCH OF SISSIES

10-23-2008 @ 11:06AM

you must consider it's a new day in football too. i had discussed this in an online chat and another chatter mentioned years of domination by the San Francisco 49ers in the 80s (that franchise did also do very well in much of the 90s). I was challenged to explain how that was the case if this has a real effect, and I couldn't... I just think the game is different now.

10-23-2008 @ 12:39PM

Morphy said...

Another interesting statistic is that teams that are bad are highly unlikely to beat teams that are good on the road.

Last I checked, west coast teams are baaaaaaaaad this year.

10-23-2008 @ 2:19PM

FlipWashington said...

I've been maintaining just such a theory for years . . . although I didn't consider all "western" teams may have such problems. The Broncos are 6-11 since 2002 when playing 1:00PM ET games east of Denver. They don't fare much better in night games either . . . but do pretty well in the 4:15PM games. What does it all mean? I have no f*cking clue.