QBs? Really?

Tip to @grllin, John Clayton has a weird theory on why road teams are winning more

Since 2004, wild-card teams have gone 13-11 against the division-winning teams with home-field advantage. This weekend, the wild-card New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens are favorites, and even though the Green Bay Packers are underdogs in Sunday’s road trip to Philadelphia, they won the season-opener there.

This didn’t happen years ago. From 1990, when the league went to two wild-card teams, to 2003, division-winning teams in the wild-card round won 41 of 56 games. It was a simpler time. A good running attack and a solid defense could prevail because there wasn’t the current saturation of dynamic quarterbacks.Things changed in 2004, when Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers came into the league. Wild-card teams with top quarterbacks are dangerous, regardless of their regular-season records. Winning on the road is tough, but Joe Flacco has won three playoff road games as a wild card. Roethlisberger has won as a sixth seed. Good quarterbacks have the ability to win road games because they can make comebacks in the fourth quarter

I think he’s closer to right with his later ideas.