The playoffs aren't the regular season

[dwmyers]

A new post, commenting on the lack of penetrating analysis of the strength of schedule metric. I think both FO and Advanced NFL Stats missed the real point..

http://codeandfootball.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/playoffs-arent-the-regular-season/

Excerpt:

When you try to think of the NFL playoffs as simply an extension of the regular season, you screw up. Advantages that reliably yield wins under regular season conditions – think of the dominance of the San Francisco 49ers defense, at times, in the NFC Championship game two weeks ago – aren’t consistent enough in the post season. A lot of games are decided by, well, small effects, perhaps intangibles, at this time of year.

Part of the reason is that the gap in the classical offensive and defensive metrics is much more narrowed in the post season; you’re looking at such small differences in net offensive potential that other elements come into play. The other component, as far as I can tell, is that traditional analysts, focused on the analysis of the regular season, are loathe to abandon tools that worked so well on the 16 regular season games. If it’s 66-75% accurate during the regular season, isn’t that enough in the post season?

[Big Blue Joe]

Back in the early 1990s, I used to call this the “NFC East effect” and it seemed as obvious to me as the nose on my face. The NFC East was the toughest division in football. Whatever team won the NFC East was bound to win the Super Bowl because they had faced such incredibly hard competition, that anyone else was a patsy by comparison (with the possible exception of the San Francisco 49ers). And whether any division could again gain such dominance, I don’t know. The salary cap has made it hard to hold such powerful teams together.The "NFC East effect" is still alive and well. Since 2006, every Superbowl winner has had to play at least 4 games against the division.