Do NFL teams get better or worse as the season progresses?

[Rain Man]

Early in the season, teams aren't always on sync and communicating, but they're generally healthy unless their stars like Charles and Houston are hurt.

Later in the season, they're in sync and communicating, but injuries take their toll and players get beaten down.

So I guess my question is, if you looked at the 1000+ NFL rosters over the past thirty years, would their Week 1 team beat their Week 16 team more often, or would the Week 16 team beat the Week 1 team more often?

And if there a point in the season where teams typically peak, where they're firing on all cylinders and not yet beaten down and tired?

[Buck]

Week 17 is the answer...too bad it's not on your poll.

[Rasputin]

We were 1-5 last year and finished 11-5 and a playoff win so yes you can get better as the season progresses but teams can also fall apart at the seems as the season progress. I can work both ways or stay on par for the season.

The Giants peaked as they got help to make the playoffs and ended up beating an undefeated Patriots team. The Patriots were on all cylinders the entire season but got beat in the Super Bowl.

[Rasputin]

Draft prospects tend to get better as the season so teams get better as the season progress. Older players tend to regress as the season progress so that also has to be accounted for.

[Rasputin]

I think there are so many factors to consider for your question Rain Man. Injuries, players getting arrested for murder only to be suspended for four games like Ray Lewis things like that. Teams cheating like the Broncos and Patriots also needs it's own merit badge.

[Buehler445]

IMO there is such game-to-game variability in performance it is impossible to identify a trend. Add in the inconsistency of opponents, obviously injuries, the unfortunately huge impact what officiating crews you draw have on the game, weather, travel schedules, bye week placement, strength and physicality of the previous opponent, and a litany of other considerations, drawing a trend for one team is impossible, much less a general rule to apply to all teams.

That's why it's sports, man.

[Gadzooks]

The bye week team never loses. (Unfortunately, not an option).

[Nickhead]

Originally Posted by KC Tattoo

We were 1-5 last year and finished 11-5 and a playoff win so yes you can get better as the season progresses but teams can also fall apart at the seems as the season progress. I can work both ways or stay on par for the season.

The Giants peaked as they got help to make the playoffs and ended up beating an undefeated Patriots team. The Patriots were on all cylinders the entire season but got beat in the Super Bowl.

i think i recall a 9-0 start one year, and then sucked donkey balls

[loochy]

I'd say peak time is about 3/4 of the way through the season. It's far enough in to be sharp and dialed in, but guys aren't completely run down yet.

[jjchieffan]

A young team like the Chiefs is going to improve as the season progresses. An older team, or a pretender team starting their 7th round QB with no tape on him, is going to decline as the season progresses and their older players run out of gas and teams figure out said fraud quarterback. There is no simpler answer than that.

[Amnorix]

Ignoring injuries, if the team is coaches remotely well, then the answer is always later in the season.

That's the entire goal of self-scouting and analyzing your own team as you move forward during the year.

Originally Posted by Bill Belichick

Responding to a question about whether the bye week was an opportune time to change schemes, Belichick said, “You have to answer that question every week, not just the bye week, and you do something that doesn’t work out well so what are your options, get rid of it or continue to do it and see if you can improve it.

“If you really feel convicted that you can do it well then you put more resources into it and try to improve it. At some point if it doesn’t go well then you might decide that ‘We’ve tried, we’ve invested a lot of time. We’ve invested in this and it’s still not working. Maybe it’s time to move on to something else.’ And then you make that decision.

“I can’t sit there and tell you what the book on that is,” he offered. “I think you evaluate each one individually but that’s what coaches do. That’s what we do. We evaluate it, we look at it and maybe it’s a difference of opinion in the room on the staff like ‘Look, I still think we can do it if we just work harder on it,’ versus ‘We’ve put a lot into it. Let’s do something else. We seem to be on a dead end here,’ for whatever the reasons are and there could be a multitude of reasons. Eight guys are good, one guy is bad. The next time its eight guys are good and a different guy that [isn’t]. If we just get this right we’ll be OK but we just haven’t been able to do it. Well maybe you keep trying.”

In the end you have to make that decision,” Belichick added. “It’s a bye week decision but it’s a weekly decision, too. You just have to decide what direction you want to go. I think in a lot of cases you can improve things. [For] some teams that’s just not their thing. You have to find something else but that’s true in every season. Each year I think you have to find a little bit of a different way to win. You can’t do everything exactly the same way you did it a previous year. Your team has changed and the teams that you’re playing may have changed or you may be playing different teams and maybe that dictates that you do something a little differently than you did it in the past against a different set of opponents.

“Those are the judgments that the head coach, the coordinators and the position coaches make whether it’s an overall scheme thing or whether it’s an individual technique thing,” he explained. “It can be a technique thing, too, like ‘Look, here’s the way we’re doing this technique but it’s not as effective for us as we want it to be.’ Do we keep working on it or do we modify the technique and do something a little bit different for whatever the reasons are; our players, their players, their scheme, whatever it happens to be.”

“We’ve gotten to points, … it could be anytime really and just say ‘Look, I’m done with this.’ I’ve said that before -- ‘I’ve seen enough. I’m done with it. We’re going to do something else. We’ve tried and it just didn’t work,’ or ‘I believe in it. We should be better at it than we are.’ It’s maybe circumstantial why we don’t have production.

So yeah, if your coach doesn't totally suck, you get better, because otherwise why the **** are you practicing?

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

A young team like the Chiefs is going to improve as the season progresses. An older team, or a pretender team starting their 7th round QB with no tape on him, is going to decline as the season progresses and their older players run out of gas and teams figure out said fraud quarterback. There is no simpler answer than that.

No. What you're saying is other teams may improve FASTER than you improve, but unless the coach is a complete reerun, the team itself should be playing better by later in the year. But yeah, if the 7th round QB has weaknesses that are unmasked by performance, then other teams will be able to improve MORE relative to the 7th round QB's team, and therefore beat them. Film work on the bad QB REVEALS the weaknesses that are already there, and which other teams can take advantage of. He had them in week 1 as well as week 15, but in week 1 other teams didn't yet know.

But ALL ELSE being equal, a team improves over the course of the year, unless injuries take too great a toll.

[scho63]

Progress without injuries, most regress due to major injuries.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Nickhead

i think i recall a 9-0 start one year, and then sucked donkey balls

Yes you didn't have to remind us all but on the flip side I remember in not so distant years a team starting out 1-5 and finished 11-5 and a playoff victory. ****ing **** go 13-3 I hate those years just to lose in the playoffs.