In Reply to: Here are a few factors that I would think factor in. posted by hotspot on November 18, 2024 at 08:43:28
If you're in a hostile environment and take the first possession and score, you settle the crowd down a bit. On the contrary, if your opponent gets the ball and scores to start the game, that puts you under pressure. The opposite would happen to some extent if you took possession and failed to score or deferred and the home team failed to score. So at least some of the consideration should be the quality of the two teams' offenses and defenses.
Another consideration is how much the matchup is favorable to playing from ahead over playing from behind.
I think my conclusion is that the right answer depends on matchups and not just secular statistics.