Quote:
Originally Posted by DomCasual
I have to acknowledge this post. Rarely does a post on a message board stay in my mind longer than about five minutes. I read this late last night, and woke up this morning feeling like I should go back and reread it. It couldn't possibly say what I thought it said, when I first read it. Quarterbacks perform better because of thin air? Punters and kickers, maybe. Baseball hitters, for sure. But quarterbacks? I must have misread your post.
But sure enough. That's what you said.
I'm not sure if I should even ask how you justify this opinion. I should just let sleeping dogs lie. I'm already ahead, from an entertainment perspective.
But alas, I just can't let it go. Could you indulge me? How might something like this work?  |
First off, DomCasual, just so you know, I live in Denver. However, I'm intelligent, so I'm a Chiefs fan.
Altitude effects are interesting. I remember when the Rockies started out, the games were hugely high scoring, and there was a theory that breaking balls and curves weren't as effective in thinner air. But I don't hear much about that any more and I don't think their games are as high-scoring any more. So maybe that was more about them having bad pitching and Larry Walker in the early days. Or maybe teams have figured out how to adjust for it.
In football, I wonder if the effects are pronounced enough to impact pass timing. First off, the ball may travel a little faster with the same force applied to it. Second off, the receiver may be slower than he thinks he is, causing a mild disruption. That would give the Broncos an advantage in their home den of evil, but it seems like it would be a disadvantage on the road.
I'm not exactly an elite athlete, but I frequently run races in Denver and at sea level, and I seem to get two advantages at sea level. First off, I'm faster, and that's easily documented and explained. I get more air. But the advantage goes beyond that. I'm not just faster, but I'm better. If I run a large race in Denver, I hope to be in the top half of runners, but often I only beat maybe 40 or 45 percent of runners. But when I run at sea level, I'm much more likely to finish in the top half and often beat 55 to 60 percent of other runners. (We're talking big, flat races, by the way, not mountain races or trail races that add variability.)
Just being faster shouldn't increase my standings in the race. I should beat the same proportion of people in a large race whether it's at sea level or at altitude, because everyone is faster at sea level and slower at altitude. But I consistently place better, which makes me think that living at altitude offers me a boost. I've read something about this in the past, where I essentially have more red blood cells for a couple of days when I descend to sea level. So I'm not only getting more oxygen coming in, but I can transport more oxygen in my bloodstream. But this effect only lasts a couple of days until the excess red blood cells die off and aren't replaced.
So with that information, it seems like a few things should happen:
1. Teams traveling to sea level should have worse timing in Denver, but Denver teams should have worse timing at sea level. That's a wash.
2. Teams coming to Denver should be slightly slower than at sea level, as should Denver teams in their normal stadium. Denver teams may have a slight advantage in overall conditioning due to the simple fact that they train at altitude.
3. Denver teams going to sea level should get an added boost beyond the normal oxygen effect at sea level, because they're walking around with more red blood cells as long as they don't arrive too early. (Hey, this may explain why the Broncos do so poorly in Super Bowls.)
So it seems to me like Broncos players have a minor advantage at altitude in timing and conditioning. At sea level, they have a minor disadvantage in timing, a minor advantage in overall conditioning, and a notable advantage due to the fact that they're kind of naturally blood doping at altitude.