Seahawks Conventional Wisdom: Domination in Front of the Nation on Primetime

The final piece of conventional wisdom I set out to look at was the Seahawks supposed domination of opponents during primetime games. These games are either Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, or Thursday Night Football (although I personally wish it would go away Thursday Night does still exist and is on during prime time). With Mike Holmgren calling the shots the Seahawks developed a reputation for being a nearly unstoppable force during these games. Since then the media has continued to roll out this repeated commentary whenever the Seahawks are coming up on an evening game. But is it still accurate? Are the Seahawks still dominate during primetime or does the narrative need updated?

When considering the last two pieces of conventional wisdom, the Seahawks home field prowess and their inability to win morning games, we looked at win percentage and point differential for the whole sample set. For the analysis of these narratives the holistic view of the sample set worked because the conventional wisdom only considered their ability to win or lose. So for the idea that the Seahawks are dominate in the evening we need to look at more than just winning percentage and points scored in all evening games. Although the Seahawks do have a great winning percentage at 83% (15/18) win by an average of 12 points per game (ppg) this could all be fueled by poor competition. If the Seahawks are getting to play the dregs of the league every time they play a primetime game they could easily be running up the score, but it doesn't mean they are dominate, just that they are playing bad teams. To try and understand if the Seahawks are dominating their opponents I decided to take a look at their opponents final winning percentage over all 16 games and see how they did against good teams compared to mediocre and bad teams.

Between 2010 and 2015 the Seahawks opponents in evening games have had an average seasonal win percentage of 56%. To say this differently, during the season that their opponents were forced to play the Seahawks on primetime those same opponents won over half of their regular season games. So the Seahawks opponents are on average good, but not great. A 56% win percent is equal to 9 regular season wins.

We can break the Seahawks opponents into two categories: good teams, and mediocre and bad teams. Against teams with less than a 63% win percent the Seahawks are undefeated going 8-0. Against teams with a regular season win percentage of 63% (10 wins) or more the Seahawks have only gone 7-3. The Seahawks are undefeated against the teams they should beat (the mediocre and bad one) and they are consistently beating the ones that should be more evenly matched against (the good ones).

Figure 1

So, the Seahawks are winning lots of games on MNF, SNF, and TNF, but are the winning big? Are they truly dominating the competition? Are they running up the score against bad teams and just barely squeaking by against the good ones? To figure that out final point differential, the difference between the Seahawks and their opponents final scores, is a perfect stat. We can also break point differential down into the same two camps: good teams, and mediocre and bad teams. As mentioned before the Seahawks are outscoring all their opponents by an average of 12 ppg. Against good teams, those with over a 63% regular season win percent, the Seahawks won by an average of 12.1 ppg. Against mediocre and bad teams, those teams with less than a 63% regular season win percent, the Seahawks won by an average of 11.9 ppg. Basically the Seahawks are beating opponents on primetime by almost two touchdowns regardless of the quality of that team. The Seahawks are the definition of domination.

The final piece of conventional wisdom related to the Seahawks that needed to be investigated for the Pete Carroll era was their dominance during evening games. The Seahawks opponents were be broken up into two different groups, good teams, and mediocre and bad teams, based on those opponents regular season win percentage. Then the Seahawks win percentage and final score differential against those groups were examined. During primetime the Seahawks have won 70% of their games against good teams by an average score of 12.1 ppg. The conventional wisdom about these games is still true, the Seahawks are dominating their opponents during evening games. Under Pete Carroll the Seahawks are a dominate force in primetime.