In Part I, I looked at how Pythagorean Projection did over the 1994-2008 seasons. In Part II, I looked at how it did team-by-team for the 2007->2008 season.
In Part III, the projected wins for the 2009 season is presented. As you should be aware by now, you can expect an error rate of ±4 or more games for as many as 10 teams.
| Team | Projected Wins | Comment |
| Rams | 2.5824
| New HC |
| Lions | 2.7847
| New HC, (and QB?) |
| Bengals | 3.2359
| Carson Palmer should be back |
| Chiefs | 4.3666
| New HC, QB |
| Browns | 4.3836
| New HC, Anderson/Quinn back |
| Raiders | 4.5542
| New HC |
| Seahawks | 5.3737
| New HC |
| Jaguars | 6.1842
| |
| Broncos | 6.2170
| New HC, QB |
| 49ers | 6.8998
| Newish HC |
| Redskins | 6.9572
| |
| Texans | 7.3029
| |
| Bills | 7.8322
| |
| Cowboys | 7.9218
| |
| Cardinals | 8.0222
| |
| Bears | 8.6526
| New QB |
| Dolphins | 8.7997
| |
| Packers | 8.9221
| New defensive coaching staff |
| Buccaneers | 9.0484
| New HC, QB |
| Jets | 9.2131
| New HC, QB |
| Vikings | 9.2171
| New QB? |
| Saints | 9.5347
| |
| Falcons | 9.7252
| |
| Panthers | 10.1263
| |
| Colts | 10.1733
| |
| Chargers | 10.1735
| |
| Patriots | 10.5850
| Tom Brady is back |
| Eagles | 11.2536
| |
| Giants | 11.3240
| |
| Steelers | 11.8460
| |
| Ravens | 11.9466
| |
| Titans | 12.0570
| No more Albert Haynesworth |
Comments:
The Bengals, Brown, and Seahawks are almost guaranteed to do better if they can avoid the serious injury problems they had last year.
Would Tarvaris Jackson qualify as a new QB for the Vikings? What they really need is some consistency at the position. They haven't had a QB start all 16 games of the season since 2004—Daunte Culpepper's last full (healthy) season with the franchise.
Albert Haynesworth falls outside of the usual HC/QB issues of other teams. But in the 2007 season, the Titans' ability to play defense pretty much disappeared when he was out injured. And for a defensive-oriented team like the Titans, that could be a big, big deal.
On the other hand, Dan Snyder has an extensive history of spending money on big-name players with unremarkable results, so Redskins fans shouldn't get too excited about having him on their favorite squad...
Coming up
The Pythagorean projection can be regarded as a kind of predictive power rankings... how well does it do predicting week 1 games?
