West Coast Teams Still Can’t Deal With the Eastern Time Zone (0-12)

A few weeks ago, I wrote that western teams were 0-9 when they travel to play a team in the Eastern Time Zone. Since then, the Raiders lost in Baltimore, the Cardinals lost in Carolina and the Seahawks lost in Miami to make that record 0-12.

That doesn't include the Chargers loss to the Saints in London two weeks ago.

In my first post, there were a lot of theories to why this is happening. It cannot be the travel alone; Eastern teams are 7-7 this season when they head west. I think it is because the mental clock of the western teams are screwy. Eleven of the 12 games were played at 1:00 p.m. ET which would feel like 10:00 a.m. to someone living on the west coast.

One commenter plainly stated the obvious: the western teams suck. The Cardinals, Seahawks, 49ers, Raiders, and Chargers are a combined 16-29 (the Cards and Niners play tonight, giving one of them a victory and the other a loss). Of those 16 wins, five were against one of the other western teams. Five more were against the Rams, Chiefs or Lions ... who are 2-7, 1-8 and 0-9, respectively.

This in an interesting trend with a few more test samples to watch:

Week 11: Oakland at Miami, 1:00 p.m. ET
Week 11: San Diego at Pittsburgh, 4:15 p.m. ET
Week 13: Arizona at Philadelphia, 8:15 p.m. ET
Week 13: San Francisco at Buffalo, 1:00 p.m. ET
Week 15: San Francisco at Miami, 1:00 p.m. ET
Week 16: Arizona at New England, 1:00 p.m. ET
Week 16: San Diego at Tampa Bay, 8:15 p.m. ET
Week 17: Oakland at Tampa Bay, 1:00 p.m. ET

Now looking at the list and you would think that the home teams ... all in the eastern time zone ... would be favored. In all those games, only the Cardinals trip to Philly features the western team with a better record.

Also interesting is that there are two night games and one 4:15 p.m. game. If the western teams can win a couple of those games it would bring evidence to the game times being a factor in the trend. However, one of those night games (Arizona at Philadelphia) comes after a short week. Arizona would have hosted the Giants on Sunday and then travel to Philly for the Thanksgiving night game on Thursday.