Ian Allan looks at the issue of whether teams are adversely affected when forced to travel across the country to face an opponent. Is there a significant difference when a team must travel across two time zones?

Peter Chen posed an interesting question in the Tuesday mailbag. I tossed out a few numbers but didn’t know quite how to answer it. And it’s a question that deserves more time, really, than I have right now in August, with trying to watch all these preseason games and maintain the player projection board.

But I did spend another couple hours on it in my free time, and dug up a couple of mildly interesting concepts.

Jason Spann, meanwhile, wrote in to point out that a group of Stanford students did a scientific study in this area, which is outlined in a nice article by David K. Randall at Deadspin. This Stanford group outlined how teams from the Eastern Time Zone are at a disadvantage when asked to play in prime time games on the West Coast because of the jet lag factor. They backed this up nicely by comparing results of games to point spreads.

I don’t have access to all the point spreads, and I don’t have the two-three days I’d need to really get into this issue. But I did look into it briefly. To make it easier, I limited my look to the last 10 years. The current NFL Record & Fact book has overall road records for each team for the last 10 years, saving me some time.

On my second cut at this issue, I did the following:

  • Calculate records of Pacific Time Zone teams playing in the Eastern Time Zone.

(Why by the way, is it Pacific and Eastern? Seems like they should either by the Atlanta and Pacific time zones or the Eastern and Western time zones.)

  • Calculate records of Pacific teams playing in the other time zones. (In my first cut at this issue, by the way, I included Arizona among the Western teams. But Arizona is on Mountain time, so I left them out this time).

  • Calculate records of Eastern teams playing in the Pacific time zone. I don’t have the Monday night and Sunday night games flagged in my spreadsheet, so I just left them all in there – even though the Stanford group says there’s a big disadvantage there.

  • Calculate records of Eastern teams playing in other time zones.

The findings were interesting, I though. At least kind of interesting.

The Pacific teams definitely did much poorer playing in the East. They won only 31 percent of their games. They won 41 percent of their other road games. So there’s definitely a difference there. We should keep that in mind in Week 1, when Seattle is playing at Carolina. The Seahawks are a strong team; a Super Bowl contender. They’d blow out Carolina on a neutral field. But the time zone factor could help tighten that one up. Seattle played at Carolina early last year and was fortunate to sneak out with a 16-12 win.

The Eastern teams actually played a little better out West than they did in their other road games. They won 46 percent of the Left Coast. They won under 45 percent in their other road games.

There’s a little bit of a small-sample-size problem with this study. We’re looking at only four teams out west. The Raiders have been terrible for the last 10 years, going on 49-111. While the 49ers have been great for the last couple of years, they’ve also been pretty bad. The block of Eastern teams, meanwhile, includes the two dominant teams of the last 10 years – New England and Indianapolis. Plus you’ve got Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

I don’t care what time zone Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are playing in; they’ll be pretty good.

But if you take Oakland out of the study, the western teams then have a better winning percentage than the east, and difference is still there. Without the Raiders, the three remaining Pacific teams have gone only 37-68 on the road the last 10 years. That’s 35 percent. They’ve gone 59-76 on the road in other time zone (44 percent).

Conclusion: be wary when a team is making a long trip back east.

Pacific Teams In Eastern Time Zone
WLPct
628.176Oakland
924.273Seattle
1023.303San Francisco
1821.462San Diego
4396.309Total
Pacific Teams In Other Time Zones
WLPct
1531.326Oakland
2027.426Seattle
1532.319San Francisco
2417.585San Diego
74107.409Total
Eastern Teams in Pacific Time Zone
WLPct
72.778Atlanta
55.500Baltimore
25.286Buffalo
43.571Carolina
35.375Cincinnati
45.444Cleveland
27.222Detroit
43.571Indianapolis
15.167Jacksonville
44.500Miami
62.750New England
54.556N.Y. Giants
56.455N.Y. Jets
43.571Philadelphia
16.143Pittsburgh
37.300Tampa Bay
44.500Washington
6476.457Total
Eastern Teams In Other Time Zones
WLPct
3239.451Atlanta
2941.414Baltimore
2350.315Buffalo
3439.466Carolina
3240.444Cincinnati
1655.225Cleveland
1556.211Detroit
4726.644Indianapolis
2747.365Jacksonville
2844.389Miami
5220.722New England
3932.549N.Y. Giants
2841.406N.Y. Jets
4230.582Philadelphia
4429.603Pittsburgh
2743.386Tampa Bay
2844.389Washington
543676.445Total