Last year I spent some time looking into whether or not time zones affected NFL outcomes for night games. My conclusions can be found here. While researching, I realized that some teams seem to get preferential scheduling. With the Patriots heading to Denver for Sunday night football, I decided to look into this year's NFL schedule and the results so far.
If you look at my first graphic, you can easily see that Seattle and Denver are getting a pretty good deal when it comes to getting to host these advantageous games this season, while Oakland isn't getting much home cooking. Looking at my updated chart below, you can see that Seattle has been getting some friendly scheduling for some time now with 70% of their night games against eastern teams being played at home. It still amazes me how Denver has managed to get so many advantageous games on their schedule when they are Mountain Time and don't have any division opponents two time zones away.
While there isn't a lot of game data to go by, the fact that western teams are a perfect 6 for 6 when hosting Thursday night football is interesting. This season there is only one Thursday night game involving a two time-zone differential. Since the game is in Indianapolis, the perfect record will be intact for another year.
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