Stephen Campbell of @OddsShark touched on this a bit in a Friday column, but it so peaked our interest that we wanted to take a deeper dive. (Sadly, it was 5 a.m. Sunday morning when we read the column, so all that extra sleep we needed before the actual game started went by the wayside.)
He dealt with West Coast and Mountain Time Zone teams playing 1 p.m. games in the postseason since 2002. Those teams had been outscored 202-56 in the first half of those games.
We instead dealt with only West Coast Teams (California and Seattle) and went back to the 1970 merger, which gave us 38 games (see entire list below) to examine heading into the Chargers (12-4) at Ravens (10-6) tilt early Sunday afternoon.
FIRST QUARTER:
- The West Coast team was shut out in the first quarter in 27 of the 38 games, including six of the last eight and 12 of the last 16.
- The West Coast team trailed at the end of the first quarter in 23 of the 38 games (9 were tied), including 11 of the last 14.
FIRST HALF:
- The West Coast team was shut out in the first half in 10 of the 38 games, including four of the last six.
- The West Coast team trailed at the end of the first half 29 of the 38 games (2 were tied), including nine of the last 10.
GAME:
- The West Coast team won 12 of the 38 games, including four of the last five.
CAVEATS:
- The Chargers will be just the second of those 39 West Coast teams to have a record better than its hosts. The other was the 1977 Raiders (11-3) who led the Colts (10-4), 7-0 after the first quarter, trailed 10-7 at halftime and won in overtime, 37-31.
- The Chargers will be the 12th visiting team since the 2002 realignment to have a record at least two games better than its host in the Wild Card round. Those visiting teams are just 4-7.
- The Chargers were 2-0 in 1 p.m. games during the 2018 regular season. The others: Rams 1-0, 49ers 0-3, Raiders, 0-3, Seahawks 3-0.
- Philip Rivers is 2-0 in postseason games starting at 1 p.m.
PICK: Ravens -0.5 in First Quarter (+$115)
PICK: No TDs in First Quarter (+$180)