Week 1 games and Season Outcomes - Looking at Panthers History

[KB_fan]

I turned some of my week 1 number crunching into an article on the Huddle's main page:

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/2016/09/13/carolina-panthers-week-1-loss/

It answers the questions:

1) How many winning seasons have the Panthers had when they open the season with a loss?

2) To what extent do week 1 point totals (scored and allowed) reflect full season scoring totals?

3) How many recent Super Bowl winners have started their season with a loss?  Is there still hope for us?

 

Enjoy!

[wud35]

11 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

I turned some of my week 1 number crunching into an article on the Huddle's main page:

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/2016/09/13/carolina-panthers-week-1-loss/

It answers the questions:

1) How many winning seasons have the Panthers had when they open the season with a loss?

2) To what extent do week 1 point totals (scored and allowed) reflect full season scoring totals?

3) How many recent Super Bowl winners have started their season with a loss?  Is there still hope for us?

 

Enjoy!

Another brilliant job done, thank you for this.

[KB_fan]

Here are the two key graphs in the article. 

I confess it's fascinating to me how consistent the trend has been under Rivera for week 1 scoring (Points Scored by Panthers) to be lower than the season average - usually MUCH lower.   The only exception is 2014 - the year DA started the season, but also the year our offense was held back by Cam's injuries and an Oline mess for much of the season.

 

The trend on defense (Points Allowed) is also interesting under Rivera:

For the past four seasons, the pattern has been for the Panthers to allow considerably fewer points in the season opener then they've allowed during the full season.   That's a bit worrying given we just allowed Denver to score 21 points.

I'm guessing it has to do with the quality of our opposition.  Tampa (2012 & 2014) and the Jags (2015).  The only strong opponent we faced in recent week 1 games (prior to this year) was Seattle in 2013 - and their strength was more on defense than offense.

Let's hope the 21 points we allowed Denver to score proves to have been an anomaly, and we see that black line go down.  Way down.

 

[KB_fan]

I just came across an interesting analysis at 538 tonight.  It shows that, on average, week 1 and week 2 outcomes have a disproportionate effect on a season record, a much higher impact than other games of the season.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crunch-time-of-the-nfl-season-is-right-now/

Here's an excerpt.

Since 1995, teams who win their opening game have averaged around 9.1 wins, while teams losing their opener average 6.9. So the information a win conveys makes it worth more than double its face value.

If you combine how much wins and losses tell us about every team, Week 1 is the most informative of the season, followed closely by Week 2, then big dropoffs in Weeks 3 and 4. While only 16 games are played in Week 1, we get nearly 70 wins and losses worth of information out of them:

Now, one win being the equivalent of two wins may not sound like much, but again, one win in the NFL can make a huge difference. Thus, unsurprisingly, early-season results have serious playoff implications:

[The Lobo]

On September 13, 2016 at 6:37 AM, KB_fan said:

I turned some of my week 1 number crunching into an article on the Huddle's main page:

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/2016/09/13/carolina-panthers-week-1-loss/

It answers the questions:

1) How many winning seasons have the Panthers had when they open the season with a loss?

2) To what extent do week 1 point totals (scored and allowed) reflect full season scoring totals?

3) How many recent Super Bowl winners have started their season with a loss?  Is there still hope for us?

 

Enjoy!

I was just thinking about this the other day. How many teams who have lost the Super Bowl and the first game of the next season have done well? Thank you for this info.