NSPatsFan I'm disrespectful to dirt.





Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: I'm Down From Canada and they think I'm slow Eh? Posting Frequency



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"The Patriots Just Benefit From a Weak Division"



Quote: Since 2001

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@Steelers NFC North opponents win % .453

@Patriots AFC East opponents win % .450



Pats vs Division win % .775

Steelers vs Division win % .724



So the Steelers play in a division better by three one-thousandths of a precent and yet have a win percentage 17 times worse than that difference against their division opponents...



I'm sure that 0.003 is why the Patriots have won 3 more Super Bowls...







The numbers in the boxes are each Division's win % that year, so in 2016 the AFC East won 56.25 of their games. The brighter green the box is, the higher over .500 the division is and Red is the opposite.



Now some people will claim "But the Patriots add a lot of wins to the AFC East each year! It makes it look better than it is." That's true, I took a look at the numbers for the division without the Patriots and they came out like this.







In this table the NOP column stands for No Pats, so it is the win % of the other 3 teams in the AFC East. The results are STUNNING. There is a dropoff to be sure, I would argue that would happen if you remove the team with the best record in the other divisions as well. But in only THREE of the past 16 years, 2005, 2007 and 2012 denoted in orange; (including the thus incomplete 2017) has the AFC East been the worst division in football WITHOUT its best team in it. So you have the AFC East opponent teams doing better than other divisions who all have their best teams in them!



The grand total of times the AFC East was the worst division in football without the Patriots win percentage included and the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that year?



ZERO.



Ladies and Gentlemen, the "Weak division" argument is dead. I just killed it. Turns out that fans of other teams are full of shit. Who knew? For those of you who didn't see it in the Steelers fan whining thread I laid the smack down on the "The Patriots only win because their division sucks every year" argument made by Steeler fans including Dave Dameshek.But, I wanted to go further and debunk this BS once and for all, so I took the winning percentages of all the divisions since 2001 and put them into this table. Please note the current division re-alignment didn't take effect until 2002, so I just took the teams as if they were in the new divisions for 2001 and gave the Texans, who didn't exist yet, an 8-8 record in the South. So 2001 numbers are a bit skewed because of this.The numbers in the boxes are each Division's win % that year, so in 2016 the AFC East won 56.25 of their games. The brighter green the box is, the higher over .500 the division is and Red is the opposite.Now some people will claim "But the Patriots add a lot of wins to the AFC East each year! It makes it look better than it is." That's true, I took a look at the numbers for the division without the Patriots and they came out like this.In this table the NOP column stands for No Pats, so it is the win % of the other 3 teams in the AFC East. The results are STUNNING. There is a dropoff to be sure, I would argue that would happen if you remove the team with the best record in the other divisions as well. But in only THREE of the past 16 years, 2005, 2007 and 2012 denoted in orange; (including the thus incomplete 2017) has the AFC East been the worst division in football WITHOUT its best team in it. So you have the AFC East opponent teams doing better than other divisions who all have their best teams in them!The grand total of times the AFC East was the worst division in football without the Patriots win percentage included and the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that year?ZERO.Ladies and Gentlemen, the "Weak division" argument is dead. I just killed it. Turns out that fans of other teams are full of shit. Who knew?