Winning ways

This weekend in the NFL playoffs, all four games involve rematches from the regular season. What does that mean? We'll let you know once we figure it out. I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is "almost nothing". One of the coaches going in with a win to live up to is Joe Gibbs.

Last week, during the Redskins' tenuous victory over Tampa Bay, the television coverage brought to our attention an interesting fact. Prior to last week's game, Joe Gibbs' Redskins teams were 12-0 in playoff games when leading at halftime. Whenever you encounter a lonely statistic like this, you have to ask yourself a series of important questions. "So, what?" for starters. Is this remarkable at all? Even if the statistic was highly unlikely to have accumulated, you still want to know whether it has any bearing on the situation at hand. Now, that's where we come in.

First, let's get a handle on Gibbs' playoff record. Between 1982 and 1993, Gibbs coached in 19 playoff games. He won fourteen, and lost only five. The games break down like so:

Halftime Status	Wins	Losses
Ahead	12	0
Tied	2	0
Behind	2	5

When the lead, on either side, was a single touchdown or less, though, we have the following:

Halftime Status	Wins	Losses
Ahead	4	0
Tied	2	0
Behind	2	1

For my money, this is the more impressive statistic. What the 12-0 tells us is not so much that Gibbs is strong in the locker room at halftime, but that he dominates the first half, and when he's going to win, the game is often not in doubt. It's this 8-1 in games separated by a touchdown or less at halftime that shows he knows what to do in the second half.

Based on recent regular season and postseason trends, teams leading at halftime win about 80% of the time (these stats might not correlate well to comparisons to Gibbs' Redskins because most of his playoff success is from over a decade ago). Teams leading my more than 7 points win 90% of the time and teams leading by more than 14 points rarely lose (3-4% of the time). Teams leading by 1-7 points win 70% of the time. Based on the statistics, Gibbs' 4-0 record in these games would occur about a quarter of the time. Add in his other wins with larger halftime leads and it is less likely that a random coach would have an undefeated record. Perhaps Joe Gibbs is a genius, but it seems more likely that this sequence of games is just a statistical anomaly, aided by Gibbs' teams usually being strong on defense and in the running game, both of which are important for protecting halftime leads.