1. The Eagles are a home stadium team. They are significantly different – both statistically and in focus – on the road. At home, perhaps because they are swept up in the excitement, they all perform better. And the attitude carries over to the opponent, who tends to play worse. This happens from time to time. It’s not the same as a ‘home field crowd’ advantage, meaning where the crowd is really loud and the other team can’t hear and communicate, though it’s related. The Eagles actually play better at home. I’ve never seen a good explanation for why this happens but it happens a lot: some teams are really good at home. The Eagles are really good at home. Other teams sensed that this year and played like they felt bad things would follow bad things. This kind of pressure to perform eats at you: make a mistake and you expect more mistakes or you expect the other team will simply get the breaks or whatever.
2. The Patriots have planted the idea that if you aren’t perfect, they will come back and beat you. This can inspire opponents to do as well as they can, but it creates a need for perfection that ramps up until it becomes nearly impossible not to make mistakes. You fear that if you aren’t able to go full out perfect for 60 minutes, that they’ll come back to win. It’s not just the last Super Bowl or this last weekend. Even when they’ve lost in the AFC Championship Game, they’ve come back. Could have beaten Denver on the last play and could have had another shot if a penalty was called. (That’s not a complaint, just a statement of how close they come: they remember losing to Carolina on the last play. Like I said, like Vince Lombardi teams, they believe they don’t lose, but rather run out of time to win.) As a note, yes, this isn’t always true, but you need to go back a ways to find counter examples like the Ravens and Jets.
3. The Patriots are better than people believe. Here, the media focuses on what they can’t do: linebackers aren’t fast enough to cover, they can get run over on the edge, the offensive line has trouble with the top pass rushers. Truth is more that the Patriot Method, which I described in another post, makes plays more competitive, more of a toss-up, because they don’t risk to win each play, and that enables them to rise to higher levels when they do need to take a risk to win a play. The Patriot Method makes them a bendable defense, but look at the scoring defense: one of the best in the league. Do I need to point out games are won and lost by the score on the board when the clock runs out? As for the offense, they score. Tom Brady leads an offense that scores. Give him healthy people and the offense will score more. Even in games where it’s obvious the team doesn’t have it – like Kansas City in the first game or Miami late in the season – the offense puts up points.
4. The Patriots are a really good road team. They only play badly in two places: Miami fairly regularly and sometimes in NY against the Jets. By contrast, teams with moxie can come into Foxborough and fight it out: there is no huge crowd advantage and the ‘home field advantage’ is really that you know they’re good and you have to play really well. Lots of teams have come into town and fought it out. The Patriots usually but not always win. They’ll go into your stadium and they’ll play as well or better there than they do at home. I remember watching them lose in Seattle and thinking ‘Seattle is really good’ – and this was a huge statement game for that franchise – but the Patriots fought it out. I don’t want to overstate this but the Patriots are genuinely tough, while I think the Eagles are more home tough. The Patriots expect close games against good teams and they expect they’ll win those games. The Eagles rely more on overwhelming the opponent mentally at home.
jomi: playing with perception 