Last September, I did a post on how the first two games of the season correlated to final standings. As a follow-up, here's how the 2009 season turned out:
| Team | Standing | Note | |
| WW | Colts | 14- 2 | |
| Teams | Saints | 13- 3 | |
| (9) | Vikings | 12- 4 | |
| Jets | 9- 7 | ||
| Ravens | 9- 7 | ||
| Falcons | 9- 7 | ||
| Broncos | 8- 8 | ||
| Giants | 8- 8 | ||
| 49ers | 8- 8 | avg wins: 10.0 | |
| WL | Chargers | 13- 3 | |
| Teams | Eagles | 11- 5 | |
| (7) | Cowboys | 11- 5 | |
| Packers | 11- 5 | ||
| Patriots | 10- 6 | ||
| Steelers | 9- 7 | ||
| Seahawks | 5-11 | avg wins: 10.0 | |
| LW | Bengals | 10- 6 | |
| Teams | Cardinals | 10- 6 | |
| (7) | Texans | 9- 7 | |
| Bears | 7- 9 | ||
| Bills | 6-10 | ||
| Raiders | 5-11 | ||
| Redskins | 4-12 | avg wins: 7.3 | |
| LL | Panthers | 8- 8 | |
| Teams | Titans | 8- 8 | |
| (9) | Dolphins | 7- 9 | |
| Jaguars | 7- 9 | ||
| Browns | 5-11 | ||
| Chiefs | 4-12 | ||
| Buccaneers | 3-13 | ||
| Lions | 2-14 | ||
| Rams | 1-15 | avg wins: 5.0 |
Comments:
I'm somewhat surprised at how well the first two games correlate to overall success. But it's good to see such strong evidence for one of FSPI's basic assumptions (i.e., that you can tell something about how good a team is from just one or two games).
It seems a little unusual that most teams fall into the 'WW' or 'LL' categories. I would have expected more of a Normal distribution, with most teams in the 'WL' and 'LW' categories.
As with the previous historical analysis, there is a significant difference between the 'WL' and the 'LW' groups, although unlike the historical data, this year it was the 'WL' teams that did noticeably better.
