Three-game road trip bad sign for Cowboys
Rick Gosselin: Three-game road trip bad sign for Cowboys
10:32 PM CDT on Thursday, April 6, 2006
The Cowboys aspire to be a playoff team in 2006. But their schedule may not allow them to play on into January.
The NFL schedule could prevent Chicago, Houston, Miami and Philadelphia from reaching the postseason as well. Those five teams have been assigned three-game road trips in 2006, and history says that's a death knell for playoff hopes.
The NFL has sent 92 teams on three-game road trips since 1990 and only 32 survived to make the playoffs. More recently, 21 teams embarked on three-game road trips in the 2000 decade, and only six have qualified for the playoffs.
The longer a team stays on the road, the more weary the body and legs become. Of the 92 teams that have taken three-game trips in the last 16 years, 63 lost more games than they won. Six teams went 3-0 and 23 teams went 2-1 – but 48 teams went 1-2 and 15 more went 0-3.
Three-game trips are an unfair scheduling quirk, and the NFL knows it. The league had been trying to wean those three-game trips off the schedule.
There were a staggering eight such trips assigned in 2000, and only two of the teams reached the playoffs.
It's the first time the Cowboys have been assigned a three-game trip since 1992. The Cowboys went 2-1 on that trip and 13-3 on the season en route to their first Super Bowl championship of the decade.
So a three-game trip is not impossible to overcome. But that 1992 Dallas team had young superstars Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, plus the best offensive line in the NFL and the league's No. 1-ranked defense.
This Dallas team doesn't.
10:32 PM CDT on Thursday, April 6, 2006
The Cowboys aspire to be a playoff team in 2006. But their schedule may not allow them to play on into January.
The NFL schedule could prevent Chicago, Houston, Miami and Philadelphia from reaching the postseason as well. Those five teams have been assigned three-game road trips in 2006, and history says that's a death knell for playoff hopes.
The NFL has sent 92 teams on three-game road trips since 1990 and only 32 survived to make the playoffs. More recently, 21 teams embarked on three-game road trips in the 2000 decade, and only six have qualified for the playoffs.
The longer a team stays on the road, the more weary the body and legs become. Of the 92 teams that have taken three-game trips in the last 16 years, 63 lost more games than they won. Six teams went 3-0 and 23 teams went 2-1 – but 48 teams went 1-2 and 15 more went 0-3.
Three-game trips are an unfair scheduling quirk, and the NFL knows it. The league had been trying to wean those three-game trips off the schedule.
There were a staggering eight such trips assigned in 2000, and only two of the teams reached the playoffs.
It's the first time the Cowboys have been assigned a three-game trip since 1992. The Cowboys went 2-1 on that trip and 13-3 on the season en route to their first Super Bowl championship of the decade.
So a three-game trip is not impossible to overcome. But that 1992 Dallas team had young superstars Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, plus the best offensive line in the NFL and the league's No. 1-ranked defense.
This Dallas team doesn't.
posted by The Gryphon at 3:45 PM
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