NFL PLAYOFFS .............................................................................2022 season

@theclaw

 Researching the Bator Rule during past playoffs, I found NO other pure-play Bator Rule situations so this situation is unique.

Closest I found were 4 past Superbowls in which 3 of the 4 parameters were met (parameters being to bet against any team that scores 30+ while holding opponents to 10 or less in two consecutive games):

1990 SuperBowl:  SF defeated MIN 41-13 and RAMS 30-3. Bet against SF.  Result: SF defeated DEN 55-10.  The Bator Rule loses.

1992:  WAS defeated ATL 24-7 and DET 41-10. Bet against WAS. Result: WAS defeated BUF 37-24. The Bator Rule loses.

2001:  NYG defeat PHI 20-10 snd MIN 41-0. Bet against NYG.      Result:  NYG lost to BAL  7-34. The Bator Rule wins. 

2018:  PHI defeats ATL 15-10 and MIN 38-7. Bet against PHI.      Result:  PHI defeated PATS 41-33. The Bator Rule loses. 

I was hoping for a better correlation and altho these are not pure Bator Rule situations, they don't follow the expected pattern. In fact they trend toward the opposite and are more in agreement with your speciulation that regression is less likely as teams build up to the superbowl. In fact, it may be more supportive of an Eagle victory. The 4 games displayed above represent some of the best superbowl teams in history. 

...The '89 49ers were a juggernaut, The '91 Skins team was named the BEST team by Foxsports, the Ravens set the NFL for fewest points allowed in a season, and even the 2017 Eagles rank 36th all-time best team in NFL top 100.

So I'm inclined to view the 7 points allowed in 2 consecutive games by the Eagles to be something rarely achieved.   The only better defensive effort in the playoffs may be the 1985 Bears...  They first defeated CHI 21-0 and RAMS 24-0 - then destroyed the Patriots 46-10 in the Superbowl.

@Erik48

 If you want to gauge the “bator rule” i would suggest looking at all the regular season matchups that had this 3rd game situational play instead of the playoffs situations you posted above. I found it was easy to look back on espn, it lists all the games and scores to give you game dates of the 3rd game situation but then you have to cross check that game with a site that lists spreads.  Covers doesn't go back too far, the spreads they list are the point difference at final not actual closing lines.  I went from this season back to 2017 on a few of the better teams these last few years but it was very time consuming and i have yet to find a time where there was a bye week either in between games or after the two in a row blowouts.  Truly a unique situation for sure 

Background on Mahomes:  Has 10 wins and 3 losses in the playoffs.

WIN - JAX - Trevor Lawrence -1 INT

WIN - CIN - Joe Burrow - 2 INT

WIN - PIT - Ben Roethlisberger

WIN - BUF - Josh Allen

LOSS - CIN - Joe Burrow

WIN - CLE - Baker Mayfield - Mahomes knocked out of game but had the lead and team held it.  Thats a win.

WIN - BUF - Josh Allen

LOSS - TB12 - Tom Brady - SUPERBOWL

WIN - HOU - Deshaun Watson

WIN - TEN - Ryan Tannehill

WIN - SF - Jimmy Garoppolo - SUPERBOWL

WIN - IND - Andrew Luck

LOSS - NE - Tom Brady

Jalen Hurts is 2-1, both wins this year vs Danny Dimes and 11/17 combines Josh Johnson & Purdy.  Loss to TB12

Sirianni is also just 2-1 in the playoffs with Philly.  As Offensive Coordinator in Indy gent went 2-1 also and that one loss was lit up by Mahomes and Reid 31-13

Great work............

The Bator rule 3 out of 4 does work in the regular season but not in playoffs but playoffs is a small sample size of games.

Teams seemed to be energized coming off big wins in playoffs.

I have another way to measure regression in the playoffs because teams win games bigger, they don't let up when they have a chance to bury a team they go for the kill.

The regular season is more of a marathon.

I'll be getting into that this weekend when I have more time to go over everything.

Thanks for the info ...........

@soup-can

 Thanks for the input.  I think the Bator Rule has already been proven to be a successful system during regular season. I suppose one could find the games in which a bye week interrupted the schedule between the second and third game (similar to the bye week before the SB), but as you say, it was difficult to find such a situation and I'm sure it is not a significant sample size.  And frankly the playoff examples do not represent a good sample size either.

  However, I think there is a difference in the Bator Rule  "regular season vs playoffs". During regular season, any team that achieves 30+ pts on offense while holding opponents to 10 pts or less on defense for two consecutive games, will create overconfidence by either the offense/defense or both in the 3rd game. Additioinally, linesmakers will need to inflate the lines as most bettors will use 'recency bias', expecting the trend to continue (which it usually does not). 

   Move onto the playoff scenario ... a second season of 3 (or4) games leading to the ultimate SB win.   Each game comes with greater motivation and knowledge that more effort will be needed at each level.  Any emotional regression far less likely than regular season imo.  And more likely to see a continuance of superior play - and that is how 3 of the last 4 similar situations played out.    

@theclaw

 Thanks and agree.  Always look forward to your analyses and thanks again for helping me make the move to KC on gameday. I was on Cincy all week 

POWER RATING II .......................................

Eagles -6.41 over KC

PR II doesn't work as well in SB's but has a play on Eagles.

Bonus Pts ..........................

Eagles -.37 over KC

Bonus Pts doesn't work well in SB's either but has a play on KC

Defense-adjusted POWER RATING I ......................................................

Eagles defense is 4.18 pts better then KC defense.  Eagles receive 4.18 additional pts onto PR I

Teams with better defenses by 3 pts or better --- 5-1 ATS, so to put the defenses in proper perspective, a difference this large has only happen 6 times since  2000 not including surprise WC Round teams.

from 1977 to 1999 --- 7-2 ATS when 3 pts better on defense. only 9 times from 77 to 99, 22 years

Eagles -9.14 over KC 

defense-adjusted PR I ...................................

20-8 SU on any lean

12-6 ATS w/6 pt diff to closing line

4-2 ATS w/3-5.99 diff to closing line

play is on the Eagles

PLAYOFF ONLY POWER RATING I ................................................

Eagles -3.8 over KC

17-7-1 ATS (70%) in all games since 2000 not including surprise WC round teams

when both def-adjusted PR I and playoff only are on the same team ATS --- 10-4-1 ATS

3-4 ATS past 7 years (42.9%)

when recent play falls behind the longer term average makes for a very good play as all these methods tend to regress going both down then back up. prior to the past 7 years method was an off-the-hook, incredible 14-3-1 ATS (80.6%) but unsustainable.

play is on the Eagles

EXPECTED WIN MARGIN ................................................

each team gets so many points based on the one stat has the highest correlation to pts scored through the playoffs.

Eagles 10.7 pts left 

Eagles games w/Hurts 18.35, big difference with Hurts in the game

KC  54 pts left, which means if they win it could be big.

this method doesn't tell us who will win just how much they could win by.

Based on the info thus far Eagles would be the play so now that we determined this around 10-11 pt (give or take a few pts) or so win can be reasonable expected, w/Hurts could be 13-14 to 17 or 20 pts win.

last season both teams were out of pts so did not apply

2020 Bucs had 33.92 pts left suggesting a big blowout was possible and they won 31-9. both teams had pts left so one needed to first determine the winner 

2019 method did lose, KC out of pts while 9ers had plenty left

2018  Pats had 6.73 pts left and won by 10, both teams with pts left

2017 this was a perfect year as Pats were out of pts and should lose by 3.86 pts , Eagles had 8.44 pts left and won by 6, falling almost exactly halfway between

2016 Pats with 7.85 pts left, Falcons used all their pts and should lose by 5.52, Pats  won by 6 again almost halfway between both teams results.  

2015 Panthers were out of pts and should lose by 9 pts and they lost by 14, Broncos had many pts left 45.3 suggesting a big blowout that never happened but out-come was pretty close to Panthers result.

2014 method lost Pats had no pts left Seahawks many pts.

2013 Seahawks was the play based on all the info they had 35 pts left and won by 43-8 or 35 pts.

2012 surprise WC round team

2011 Suprise WC round team

2010 Packers had 10.06 pts left and won by 6, both teams with pts left

once you determine who will win you can get pretty close to the margin of victory many times following this method.

I remember playing a alternate line laying like 7 or so pts with Bucs over KC using this method.

@theclaw

 wow, not only is this method great at picking the winner it's fairly accurate at predicting the winning margin. Really good stuff.

Yes, it doesn't seem that the Bator Rule would work well in the playoffs which are must-win situations.  In the regular season two straight blowout wins where both the OFF and DEF played well could lead to overconfidence, lackadaisical practices and dozing off during the game film reviews.  You can't look ahead to the next game when THIS game MUST be won (especially in the Super Bowl).

Here's a query for playoff teams off two straight 20-point blowouts:

PO = 1 and p:margin > 19.5 and pp:margin > 19.5

ATS: 7-14-0 (-5.12, 33.3%).  That looks bad for PHL, but the average line is -5.0.

Adding "and -3.2 < line < 3.2 and site = neutral" produces ZERO past games meeting those parameters.

I like PHL myself.  Good luck everybody.

Good stuff Dog ............................

I went back to 1996 and found no team won by 20 pts back to back games in the playoffs. Unless I missed a team or 2 but don't think I could of missed 21 teams so that querry must go back into 70's or at least early 80's or the data-base is wrong. 89 49ers Won by over 20 bac-to-back and won, as did 85 Bears. 

I did see teams win by 17,18 or 19 back-to-back and still win the next week more then not.

I also saw teams win by 17 and 20 or more and still win the next week. The teams who do this are the stronger teams that would rank at the top of the league like the Eagles do. And that is what I want to see, what teams are winning and what teams are losing, the quality of the teams. What is the make-up of the team, are they built to win big or not, How many pts do they have left ? What was there Power Rating i ?

PLAYOFF REGRESSION METHOD .......................................

Eagles 2.69

KC  .95

lower number is better, KC by 1.74

this method measures the amount a team wins over it's PR I, so Eagles beat their PR I by a ratio of 2.69 while KC actually scored less then their PR I. The better the team the bigger win we can expect from them, since Eagles rank at the top of the league with 9ers we expect them to have the potential to win big.

Teams that are good fades are teams who score 4 times their PR I or more which the Eagles haven't done at only 2.69. Or there is a difference between the two teams of 4 or better which we don't have. The Eagles are built to win by bigger scores this is important to take into consideration.

If we look back to 2017 seasons Pats won in divisional round by 4.16 over their PR I then VS upstart Jags in AFC title game I was on the Jags and they were right there at the end but lost by 4 as +7 on the game.

2016 Packers were 5.76 and Falcons 1.49 for a 4.29 diff, there was both Packers over 4 and a 4 pt diff, I was on Matt Ryan and the Falcons when so many were talking ARod was to good for Matty Ice but Falcons rolled the Packers 44-21.

Another way to look at this is do the Eagles have Pts left with expected win margin ? If they do then they did not win by big enough amounts to be in regression because if they did they'd have no pts left. Eagles are built to win by bigger scores.

So there is 2 separate ways to measure regression in the playoffs and neither way says Eagles are ready to regress.

Another method is to use regular season regression method which works but to a lesser degree, but that method reguires a team to win ATS minimum of 3 straight games which Eagles have only 2 straight as they failed to cover the final game in regular season and actually lost 4 straight ATS so it would more likely be expected of them to play better as a top team in the league.

To give an example of the 2 teams I mentioned winning by 20 pts or more back-to-back 89 49ers and 85 Bears, although they both won big in playoffs but they both had plenty of pts left for the SB, Bears 34.78 pts LEFT and they won by 36, 9ers had 22.34 pts left and rolled by 45 pts. Neither team was in regression despite how big they won.

Play is on the Eagles

TheClaw said:

"I went back to 1996 and found no team won by 20 pts back to back games in the playoffs. Unless I missed a team or 2 but don't think I could of missed 21 teams so that querry must go back into 70's or at least early 80's or the data-base is wrong. 89 49ers Won by over 20 bac-to-back and won, as did 85 Bears."

The SDQL (Sports Data Query Language) "PO = 1" refers to the current matchup which must be a playoff game. "p:margin > 19.5" refers to the previous game with a positive margin of 20+ points.  The previous game wasn't necessarily a PO game.  The previous 21 games were played in weeks 18-20 at one team's home site.  The KC-PHL is the first neutral-site game/Super Bowl.

@DogbiteWilliams

 Ok, thanks ............

Found some very interesting things going back to 2009 using the final game in regular season.

Only 4 teams though, but some things I will be able to include in future years if the remaining games I find are similar.

Found 1 Bator method and 2  .. 3 out of 4 Bator plays. 

That was an incredible great help Dog, very much appreciated for your work ..............

I'll post the results when I go over remaining years.

Is there an actual Super Bowl pick yet or still sorting it out?

The Eagles is the right play. But with a possible regression off 2 big blowout wins I may pass because I have a futures on Eagles to win SB.

I thought about hedging with a possible regression but decided not to after looking into more info 

If I didn't have that futures I'd be on Eagles for 1.1 units  and likely alt lines of  Eagles -7.5 and -10.5 for half a unit each.

I will break all this down at some point, as time permits.