NFL Wrapup: Pythagorian Projection vs. Reality

As usual, the "Projected Wins" value is used as a baseline, so a positive difference means the team exceeded their projected win value, a negative difference means they fell short.

Teams are sorted by the magnitude (absolute value) of the difference; teams that came close to their projected wins are near the top, teams farthest away from their projection are at the bottom.

This is a follow-up to a post from last summer. See this post for background details.

Team	Actual	Proj.	Diff.	Note
Jaguars	3	3.1	-0.1
Falcons	6	5.9	0.1
Chargers	9	9.2	-0.2
Broncos	12	11.7	0.3
Giants	6	5.6	0.4
Dolphins	8	7.5	0.5
Eagles	10	9.4	0.6
Bengals	10	11.1	-0.6
Seahawks	12	12.8	-0.8
Washington	4	4.8	-0.8
Vikings	7	6.1	0.9
Jets	4	5.4	-1.4
Patriots	12	10.5	1.5	Healthy Gronk
Cardinals	11	9.5	1.5	Carson Palmer was actually having a pretty good season before he got hurt.
Browns	7	5.5	1.5	Brian Hoyer
Colts	11	9.4	1.6
Rams	6	7.6	-1.6	Bradford injured
Raiders	3	4.9	-1.9
Chiefs	9	11.1	-2.1
Bears	5	7.3	-2.3	Offense collapsed
Bills	9	6.7	2.3	Defense much better
Lions	11	8.5	2.5	Defense much better
Steelers	11	8.2	2.8	Le'Veon Bell? The Steelers definitely had a rollercoaster season...
Ravens	10	7.1	2.9	Flacco playing better
Buccaneers	2	5.3	-3.3	No offense
49ers	8	11.5	-3.5	Injuries
Saints	7	10.8	-3.8	Drew Brees did not have a good year, weak defense didn't help.
Cowboys	12	8.2	3.8	Defense better, running game
Panthers	7	11.6	-4.1	Defense struggled, offense wasn't able to take up the slack.
Packers	12	7.8	4.2	Rodgers plays whole season
Texans	9	4.2	4.8	Last year's team was probably not as bad as their record.
Titans	2	7.5	-5.5	Injuries. Also Ken Whisenhunt's resume as a HC is mostly pretty ugly when he doesn't have Kurt Warner as his starting QB.

Comments:

• Four teams over the 4.0 threshold, but unlike last year, none over 5.5. Which gives a final scoring of 18 reasonably close, 10 moderately close, 4 wrong, and 0 "yikes".

• Remember last year when I speculated that the Titans and Jets might have a chance to contend for a playoff spot? Yeah, leave us never speak of that again.

• On a related note, it's been since 94-95 that the Lions have had back-to-back winning seasons, so it's probably advisable to hold off declaring the Lions have turned the corner. If they can come out and contend again in 2015, it'll be a solid sign that 2014 wasn't another fluke season for them like 2011 (and the first half of 2007).

• The Texans rebounded pretty nicely from their 2-14 season, especially considering they started three different guys at quarterback. But I think they're gonna have to find a solid quarterback before they're gonna do much better than 9 wins.

• The Saints have another tough season, but this time they can't blame it on the absence of Sean Payton. Maybe most surprising was 5 home losses for a team that had mostly done very well in the Superdome for many years.

NFL Week 1 Game Picks

Game	Pythag	Pythag RH	Line
Panthers @ Buccaneers	Panthers 0.3926	Panthers 0.1103	Buccaneers -1
Jaguars @ Eagles	Eagles 0.3904	Eagles 0.3343	Eagles -10.5
Packers @ Seahawks	Seahawks 0.3176	Seahawks 0.4397	Seahawks -5
Saints @ Falcons	Saints 0.3066	Falcons* 0.0698	Saints -2.5
Bengals @ Ravens	Bengals 0.2492	Ravens* 0.1250	Ravens -1.5
Titans @ Chiefs	Chiefs 0.2232	Chiefs 0.1512	Chiefs -4.5
49ers @ Cowboys	49ers 0.2115	49ers 0.1449	49ers -5
Patriots @ Dolphins	Patriots 0.1889	Patriots 0.1168	Patriots -4.5
Giants @ Lions	Lions 0.1809	Lions 0.3540	Lions -4
Browns @ Steelers	Steelers 0.1723	Steelers 0.3029	Steelers -6
Colts @ Broncos	Broncos 0.1403	Broncos 0.2164	Broncos -7
Vikings @ Rams	Rams 0.0926	Rams 0.2938	Rams -4
R*dskins @ Texans	R*dskins 0.0383	Texans* 0.0319	Texans -2.5
Bills @ Bears	Bears 0.0370	Bears 0.2735	Bears -6.5
Raiders @ Jets	Jets 0.0273	Jets 0.2143	Jets -4.5
Chargers @ Cardinals	Cardinals 0.0159	Cardinals 0.1990	Cardinals -3

Comments:

• So the big question (for me, anyway): can the Packers beat the Seahawks? I think they've got at least a chance, and the new emphasis on hands to the face might help. But they'll be playing with at least one backup guy on the o-line, and who knows what the defense is gonna be like.

  The Seahawks schedule looks pretty easy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them get to 12 or 13 wins again. Which means winning this game might be the Packers only real chance of getting a higher playoff seed than the Seahawks.

• Cam Newton has a broken rib, which is presumably at least part of why the Bucs are favored to win. But the Bucs have a new head coach, and Josh McCown (reportedly) as their starting quarterback. Seems like a game that says "stay away".

• So, R*dskins or Texans? Both had disasterous seasons last year, and both have new head coaches. But the Texans also have Ryan Fitzpatrick as their starting quarterback, now starting for his fifth team. Maybe home field tilts this the Texans' way, but I think the R*dskins have a solid chance to come away with the upset here.

• Can the Rams win without Sam Bradford? They reportedly have a pretty good defense, and Matt Cassel is not the most amazing quarterback in the league, so I think if they can stop Adrian Peterson on defense, they may not need to score a huge number of points to beat the Vikings.

• Other than that, it seems like the line is pretty much assuming things will take up more or less where they left off last year. As usual, it's gonna take a couple of games to have an idea of where things really stand.

Pythagorean projection 2013->2014

Well, the Hall of Fame preseason game is now less than two weeks away, so I suppose it's time to get the new season going on fspi. Here we go!

As usual, this isn't a prediction of how many games teams are gonna win. It's more an indication of what they might be expected to do, and to create some commentary fodder for the teams that miss the mark.

Team	Projected Wins	Note
Jaguars	3.1	New QB
Texans	4.2	New HC, QB
Redskins	4.8	New HC
Raiders	4.9	New QB
Buccaneers	5.3	New HC
Jets	5.4
Browns	5.5	New HC, QB
Giants	5.6
Falcons	5.9
Vikings	6.1	New HC, QB
Bills	6.7
Ravens	7.1
Bears	7.3
Dolphins	7.5	New OC
Titans	7.5	New HC
Rams	7.6	New DC
Packers	7.8
Cowboys	8.2
Steelers	8.2
Lions	8.5	New HC
Chargers	9.2
Eagles	9.4
Colts	9.4
Cardinals	9.5
Patriots	10.5
Saints	10.8
Chiefs	11.1
Bengals	11.1
49ers	11.5
Panthers	11.6
Broncos	11.7
Seahawks	12.8

Comments:

• If you've been following fspi for very long, you'll know it's been a while since the last time a defending Super Bowl champion won a playoff game the following year. The Seahawks seem like they could be in good shape to end that streak.

• I kinda feel like the Panthers played a little over their heads in 2013, and maybe could be looking at a fall back this year. They'll certainly need more from their offense to be a threat in the playoffs.

• I also wonder if the Chiefs can maintain their winning pace. They're not gonna be flying under anybody's radar this year, and as long as Peyton Manning stays healthy, they're gonna have a hard time winning their division.

• The Cardinals are another team that could have trouble matching last season's success, especially without Daryl Washington. Carson Palmer needs to have a better season than he had last year.

• The Lions have a new head coach, and the Vikings have a new head coach and quarterback. Unless the Bears can get a major turn around on their defense (and assuming Aaron Rodgers can stay healthy), it's tempting to pencil in the Packers as the NFC North champs for 2014.

• Certainly, if Rodgers stays healthy, the Packers should easily surpass 7.8 wins.

NFL Wrapup: Pythagorean projection vs. reality

One final season wrapup post, and I got it in before spring summer! (Oh, well. Given how trivial some of the stuff is that passes for news right now, maybe it makes sense to wait a while to post it. Anyway...)

As usual, the "Projected Wins" value is used as a baseline, so a positive difference means the team exceeded their projected win value, a negative difference means they fell short.

Teams are sorted by the magnitude (absolute value) of the difference; teams that came close to their projected wins are near the top, teams farthest away from their projection are at the bottom.

This is a follow-up to a post from last summer. See this post for background details.

Team	Actual	Proj.	Diff	Note
Bills	6	5.8	0.2
Raiders	4	4.3	-0.3
Patriots	12	12.4	-0.4
Rams	7	6.6	0.4
Lions	7	6.5	0.5
Jaguars	4	3.4	0.6
Seahawks	13	12.4	0.6
Cowboys	8	7.4	0.6
Steelers	8	8.6	-0.6
49ers	12	11.3	0.7
Broncos	13	12.3	0.7
Dolphins	8	7.1	0.9
Chargers	9	8.0	1.0
Bengals	11	9.9	1.1
Ravens	8	9.4	-1.4
Browns	4	6.2	-2.2	Injuries, QB issues
Packers	8	10.3	-2.3	Aaron Rodgers hurt
Titans	7	4.5	2.5
Jets	8	5.4	2.6	Defense shows signs of life
Bears	8	10.8	-2.8	Injuries, big drop off on defense
Saints	11	8.1	2.9	Sean Payton back
Giants	7	10.0	-3.0	Injuries
Colts	10	6.8	3.2	Andrew Luck got better
Vikings	5	8.8	-3.3	Adrian Peterson regresses back to just very good
Buccaneers	4	7.9	-3.9	HC, QB controversy
Panthers	12	7.8	4.2	Defense much better
Cardinals	10	4.8	5.2	Bruce Arians, Carson Palmer
Eagles	10	4.0	6.0	Chip Kelly, Nick Foles
Redskins	3	9.1	-6.1	RG3 not fully recovered
Falcons	4	11.0	-7.0	Injuries
Texans	2	10.1	-8.1	Injuries
Chiefs	11	2.6	8.4	Andy Reid, defense much better

Using my original category metrics, that's 16 teams reasonably close, 9 teams moderately close, 5 teams wrong, and 2 teams in the "yikes" category.

Comments:

• Sean Payton really made a remarkable difference for the Saints. At this point, he's got to have a lot of good will available in New Orleans.

• Which kinda makes me wonder just how bad the situation with Jim Harbaugh really is. The 49ers were pretty much a doormat team from 2003 to 2010. Then Harbaugh is hired, and they are immediately one of the best teams in the league, advancing to the conference championship for 3 years in a row. Based on those kinds of results, he's really gotta be some kind of a pain if they still want to get rid of him.

• I was a little surprised to see that the Titans and Jets beat their respective projections by decent margins, in spite of their struggles. Clearly they both have issues to resolve, but maybe aren't that far away from at least being in contention for a playoff spot.

• Carson Palmer didn't have the most amazing season in the world (he threw a career high 22 interceptions), but he was so much of an upgrade over what the Cardinals had last year, he's gotta have some credit for their improved record.

• Last summer, I predicted that Chip Kelly might struggle getting his offensive schemes to work in the NFL. I'm still not totally sold it's going to work long term, but I have to admit he did better in his first season that I was expecting.

NFL Week 1 Picks

Hey, everybody, it's time for another season of football! As usual for week 1, the picks are based on each team's Pythagorean Projection values. Picks using APR and SRS will start up in week 2.

Game	Pythag (std)	Pythag (R/H)		Line
Patriots @ Bills	Patriots (0.4100)	Patriots (0.3120)		Patriots -7½
Eagles @ Redskins	Redskins (0.3176)	Redskins (0.3983)		Redskins -3½
Seahawks @ Panthers	Seahawks (0.2840)	Seahawks (0.1979)		Seahawks -3
Titans @ Steelers	Steelers (0.2392)	Steelers (0.4113)		Steelers -7
Ravens @ Broncos	Broncos (0.1843)	Broncos (0.4154)		Broncos -9
Raiders @ Colts	Colts (0.1842)	Colts (0.4409)		Colts -9½
Falcons @ Saints	Falcons (0.1808)	Falcons (0.0740)		Saints -3
Giants @ Cowboys	Giants (0.1645)	Cowboys (0.0244)	*	Cowboys -3
Buccaneers @ Jets	Buccaneers (0.1570)	Buccaneers (0.1094)		Buccaneers -3
Vikings @ Lions	Vikings (0.1447)	Vikings (0.0190)		Lions -4½
Texans @ Chargers	Texans (0.1322)	Texans (0.1266)		Texans -3½
Cardinals @ Rams	Rams (0.1104)	Rams (0.1971)		Rams -5
Packers @ 49ers	49ers (0.0625)	49ers (0.2857)		49ers -4½
Dolphins @ Browns	Dolphins (0.0584)	Browns (0.1912)	*	Browns -1
Bengals @ Bears	Bears (0.0556)	Bears (0.0468)		Bears -3
Chiefs @ Jaguars	Jaguars (0.0519)	Jaguars (0.0266)		Chiefs -3½

Comments:

• The Browns are favored to win?! There was no line for this game for quite a while. I don't really know why, and I'm not sure I belive it yet. I will check on this one later in the week. Update: well, it's Saturday afternoon, and the sports books (the ones that aren't saying pick 'em, anyway) are saying Browns -1½. So Browns it is.

• The Bills' quarterback woes continue. Erstwhile starter Ryan Fitzpatrick has gone to the Titans, which means the Bills have a choice between their injured first-round pick E.J. Manuel and undrafted rookie Jeff Tuel. The Pats should easily cover 7½ points, unless maybe Tom Brady throws 4 interceptions again. And maybe, even then.

• This is one of those can't-let-it-slip-away road games that I was talking about for the Seahawks. They're probably not going to have an easier road opponent all season.

• Man, Mile High is gonna be rocking Thursday night. The Broncos don't have any reason to show mercy, so this game has the potential to get very, very ugly for the Ravens.

• I'm a little surprised the Line is favoring the Lions over the Vikings. The Vikings swept this series last year, and with the addition of Greg Jennings to help Ponder's passing game, they could be even more of a threat this year. It won't be good news for the Vikings' playoff hopes if they lose this game.

• Last year, the Cardinals defense and special teams kept them in a lot of games, including last year's Cardinals @ Rams match-up. If the defense and special teams can take up where they left off, and if Carson Palmer can rise at least to the level of game manager, this is a game the Cardinals could win. A couple big "ifs", so this game will likely be an early indication of how the Cardinals' season will go.

• The way the Packers' last visit to the 49ers went, I think it'll be fairly impressive if the Packers are within one score at the end of the game.

  The Packers had a profoundly unimpressive preseason, largely due to their awful slate of backup quarterbacks. But the defense didn't look that great either, and just like in their playoff matchup last January, the Packers' defense will have to step up for them to have a chance to win.

NFL Pythagorean Projection 2012 -> 2013

The start of preseason is only a couple weeks away now, so it's time for this year's edition of Pythagorean Projection!

Team	Projected Wins	Note
Chiefs	2.6	new HC, QB
Jaguars	3.4	new HC
Eagles	4.0	new HC
Raiders	4.3	new QB
Cardinals	4.8	New HC, QB
Titans	4.8	make or break for Jake Locker
Jets	5.4	new QB?
Bills	5.8	New HC, QB
Browns	6.2	New HC
Lions	6.5	Some coaching changes
Rams	6.6
Dolphins	7.1
Colts	7.2	"New" HC
Cowboys	7.4	new DC
Panthers	7.8
Buccaneers	7.9
Chargers	8.0	New HC
Saints	8.1	S. Payton back
Steelers	8.6	Can Roethlisberger stay healthy?
Vikings	8.8	Can AP repeat?
Redskins	9.1	RG3 coming back from injury
Ravens	9.4	Free agent exodus
Bengals	9.9
Giants	10.0
Texans	10.1
Packers	10.3
Bears	10.8	New HC
Falcons	11.0
49ers	11.3
Broncos	12.3
Seahawks	12.4
Patriots	12.4

Comments:

• It's not going out on much of a limb to predict that the Chiefs will do better than 2 wins, but Andy Reid is the probably best head coach they've had at least since Dick Vermeil.

• I have to wonder how Chip Kelly will do in the NFL. The Pac-12 isn't exactly known for their defenses, and even the best college defense is not at the same level as the NFL. I'll believe his offensive schemes can work at the pro level when I see it happening.

• As mentioned previously, the Colts stats in 2012 were really not impressive, and that's reflected in their 7.2 win projection here. With Bruce Arians gone, and the whole emotional push of Chuck Pagano's situation pretty much over, the Colts could be in for a major let-down this year.

• The Ravens lost a lot of key talent after their Super Bowl victory. They didn't exactly power their way into the playoffs last year, and it won't take much of a slide for them to miss the playoffs entirely in 2013.

• The Seahawks enjoy perhaps the strongest home-field advantage of any team in the NFL right now. The bad news is that seems to cover some serious problems that manifested in their rather dismal 3-5 road record last year. They've got a pretty stout road schedule in 2013, and they can't afford to let any easy ones slip away if they're to make it to 12 wins overall.

• The Patriots have won double-digit games 11 of the last 12 seasons, made the playoffs 10 of those seasons, including 5 trips to the Super Bowl (and, of course, 3 wins). That's really an extraordinary success for the free-agent, salary cap era. However you feel about them, Belichick and Brady have to go down as one of the best HC/QB teams in the history of the game, and both will be easy first ballot hall-of-famers when the time comes.

NFL Wrapup: Pythagorian Projection vs. Reality

As usual, the "Projected Wins" value is used as a baseline, so a positive difference means the team exceeded their projected win value, a negative difference means they fell short.

Teams are sorted by the magnatude (absolute value) of the difference; teams that came close to their projected wins are near the top, teams farthest away from their projection are at the bottom.

This is a follow-up to a post from last summer. See this post for background details.

Team	Actual	Proj.	Diff	Note
Browns	5	4.9	0.1
Patriots	12	11.6	0.4
Panthers	7	7.5	-0.5
Bills	6	6.6	-0.6
Cowboys	8	8.6	-0.6
49ers	11.5	12.3	-0.8
Packers	11	11.9	-0.9
Giants	9	7.9	1.1
Texans	12	10.9	1.1
Ravens	10	11.2	-1.2
Bengals	10	8.6	1.4
Dolphins	7	8.5	-1.5
Chargers	7	8.7	-1.7
Bears	10	8.3	1.7
Chiefs	2	4.0	-2.0
Cardinals	5	7.0	-2.0	Kevin Kolb can't stay healthy
Titans	6	8.2	-2.2	Jake Locker doesn't seem ready for prime time
Raiders	4	6.3	-2.3
Jets	6	8.4	-2.4	Revis hurt, and nobody to take up the slack
Seahawks	11	8.2	2.8	Russell Wilson, defense
Jaguars	2	5.2	-3.2	MJD hurt for most of season
Steelers	8	11.2	-3.2	Bruce Arians > Todd Haley?
Buccaneers	7	3.5	3.5
Falcons	13	9.3	3.7	Easy schedule?
Redskins	10	5.8	4.2	RG3
Vikings	10	5.5	4.5	Adrian Peterson's MVP season
Saints	7	12.1	-5.1	Sanctions take their toll
Rams	7.5	2.3	5.2	Jeff Fisher
Eagles	4	9.8	-5.8	Collapse of the Dream Team
Lions	4	9.9	-5.9	Lack of discipline
Broncos	13	5.8	7.2	Peyton Manning
Colts	11	3.3	7.7	Bruce Arians, Andrew Luck

Comments:

• Jeff Fisher did an impressive job in his first season with the Rams, managing to post their best record in 6 years, and a 4-1-1 record in the division. Of course, that means they'll be expected to have a winning record next year, something they haven't done since 2003.

• The Bengals' win over the Giants was the start of a 7-1 streak that propelled them to a winning season and the playoffs. They now have back-to-back winning seasons and playoff appearances for the first time in 30 years. The Bengals last won a playoff game 22 years ago, so a win this Saturday will end the league's longest active streak without a playoff win.

• It shouldn't be a huge surprise that a lack of discipline off the field for the Lions was reflected in a lack of performance on the field. The Lions did fire a few assistant coaches; I guess we'll find out next fall how much of a difference that makes.

• I certainly nailed it when I predicted the Saints would fall short of their 12.1-win projection. The good news for that team is (assuming their offense remains strong) even a modest improvement in their defense will get the Saints right back in contention.

• On the other hand, my prediction that the 49ers would fall short of their 12.3-win projection was, well, wrong. Mostly a very impressive season, especially given a pretty tough schedule. But I wonder how confident Jim Harbaugh can be going into the playoffs with a quarterback who doesn't have 8 starts yet, and his choice of two unreliable field goal kickers.

• The Colts have managed a very impressive turn-around, with a lot of the credit going to Andrew Luck. But his stat lines haven't been very impressive, with a 54% completion rate, and nearly as many interceptions as touchdown passes. As mentioned earlier, I think there's a good chance Luck will struggle in the playoffs, and could have a noticable sophomore slump next year if the Colts have a tougher schedule of opponents.

NFL: Pythagorean Projection 2011 -> 2012

We're coming down to training camps and the start of preseason football, so it's time for this year's edition of Pythagorean Projection!

Team	Projected Wins	Note
Rams	2.3	New HC
Colts	3.3	New HC, QB
Buccaneers	3.5	New HC
Chiefs	4.0	New HC
Browns	4.9	New QB
Jaguars	5.2	New HC
Vikings	5.5	Adrian Peterson coming off injury
Redskins	5.8	New QB
Broncos	5.8	Peyton Manning
Raiders	6.3	New HC, QB (again)
Bills	6.6
Cardinals	7.0
Panthers	7.5
Giants	7.9
Seahawks	8.2	New QB?
Titans	8.2	New QB?
Bears	8.3	Cutler &co healthy?
Jets	8.4	Tebow!
Dolphins	8.5	New HC, QB(?)
Cowboys	8.6
Bengals	8.6
Chargers	8.7
Falcons	9.3
Eagles	9.8
Lions	9.9	Lots of off-field drama
Texans	10.9	Schaub healthy
Ravens	11.2	Terrel Suggs hurt
Steelers	11.2
Patriots	11.6
Packers	11.9	Defense has to be better. Right?
Saints	12.1	New HC, DC
49ers	12.3

Comments:

• The Rams are a really bad franchise. Four years during the "Greatest Show on Turf" era are the only winning seasons they've posted since 1989. Jeff Fisher seems like a pretty good coach, but he's got his work cut out for him to make something of that team.

• The Bengals are another team with a long history of mostly losing seasons. If they make it to 9 wins in 2012, it will be the first time since 81-82 that they've had back-to-back winning seasons.

• I wonder how good Peyton Manning will be this year. 2010 was really not a good year for him, although it's hard to say how much that (in hindsight) weak supporting cast was at fault. But now he's got a new team, a new coach, and who-knows-what for a receiving corps. The good news is it could easily be another year where 9 or 10 wins will take the AFC West, so the Broncos should have some margin for error.

• It seems like the Dolphins could be on the verge of... well, not sucking as much as lately, anyway. But they need to win some home games, and keep their quarterback (whoever that turns out to be) healthy and productive for the whole season. The list of Dolphins starting quarterbacks since Marino retired is a rogues gallery of has-beens and never-wases. And the list of seasons where they had a quarterback even make it to 15 starts is pathetically short.

• The good news for Tarvaris Jackson is that 2011 was one of the best seasons of his career. The bad news is, that was only good for a 7-7 record, and it's not clear he's got a lot of room for improvement. If Matt Flynn looks anywhere near as good in preseason as he did in his week 17 start last year, Pete Carroll is going to be hard pressed not give Flynn the starting spot.

• The Saints have to be an early candidate for the team most likely to fall well short of their projection. Given the bounty scandal, suspension of coaches and players, as well as the drama of Brees' protracted contract negotiation, they're facing a lot of pretty major distractions and setbacks this season.

• I think the 49ers are going to be hard pressed to make it to 12 wins this year. I feel like they played at least a little over their heads in 2011, and they're facing a tougher slate of opponents this year. Their offense can be pretty weak at times (especially on the road), and they're not going to be flying under anyone's radar in 2012...

NFL Wrapup: Pythagorean Projection vs. Reality

As usual, the "Projected Wins" value is used as a baseline, so a positive difference means the team exceeded their projected win value, a negative difference means they fell short.

Teams are sorted by the magnatude (absolute value) of the difference; teams that came close to their projected wins are near the top, teams farthest away from their projection are at the bottom.

This is a follow-up to a post from last summer. See this post for background details.

Team	Actual	Proj.	Diff.	Note
Steelers	12	12.1	-0.1
Dolphins	6	6.2	-0.2
Giants	9	9.2	-0.2
Titans	9	8.5	0.5
Patriots	13	12.3	0.7
Redskins	5	5.9	-0.9
Raiders	8	8.9	-0.9
Cowboys	8	7.0	1.0	Romo healthy all season
Falcons	10	11.2	-1.2
Jaguars	5	6.4	-1.4	David Garrard cut at the end of preseason
Eagles	8	9.4	-1.4
Ravens	12	10.6	1.4
Seahawks	7	5.5	1.5
Bears	8	9.5	-1.5	Injuries
Bills	6	4.4	1.6	Better defense, at least for a few games
Jets	8	9.8	-1.8	Sanchez had 18 interceptions
Browns	4	6.1	-2.1
Chiefs	7	9.1	-2.1	Injuries, coaching
Lions	10	7.8	2.2	Matt Stafford healthy the whole season
Broncos	8	5.2	2.8	Tim Tebow
Chargers	8	10.9	-2.9
Bengals	9	6.1	2.9	Andy Dalton and A.J. Green
Texans	10	7.1	2.9	Much better defense
Saints	13	10.1	2.9	Drew Brees' record-breaking season
Packers	15	12.1	2.9	Aaron Rodgers' MVP season
Vikings	3	6.0	-3.0	No more Favre
Panthers	6	2.4	3.6	Cam Newton
Cardinals	8	4.4	3.6	Better defense and Patrick Peterson
Buccaneers	4	8.7	-4.7	Much tougher schedule
Rams	2	6.8	-4.8	Was 2010 a fluke year for the Rams?
49ers	13	6.8	6.2	Jim Harbaugh, coach of the year?
Colts	2	9.1	-7.1	No Peyton Manning

Comments:

• With the exception of a few extreme cases, most teams came fairly close to their projected win mark this year.

• In hindsight, the Colts' 9.1 projected wins, along with the fact that they barely made it to 10 wins last year were some warning signs of serious problems in Indianapolis.

• I'm not really sure what happened with the 49ers this year. There defense has been pretty solid for a few years now. Maybe they just needed someone who could make the best use of the offensive players they had? Frank Gore and Alex Smith both did very well this season.

• Last year, the Rams' defense had a stand-out season, holding their opponents to 20 points or less in 10 games. This year, they only held their opponents to 20 points or less in 4 games. That's the difference between 2010 and 2011 right there.

• Last summer, I speculated that the truncated off-season would hurt teams with new coaches and in need of free agent help. But with the exception of the Eagles and their many free agents, I'm not sure there are any teams that can blame their troubles on the short off-season.

NFL: Pythagorean Projection 2010 -> 2011

Well, it's almost halfway through July, which usually means only a few more weeks until the start of preseason football. It remains to be seen what will happen this year, but I remain optimistic that there will be NFL football played this fall.

With that in mind, here's my annual Pythagorean projection post. [How Pythagorean Projection works] [Other posts on this topic]

Team	Projected Wins	Note
Panthers	2.4	New HC, QB
Bills	4.4
Cardinals	4.4	New QB
Broncos	5.2	New HC, QB(?)
Seahawks	5.5
Redskins	5.9	New QB?
Vikings	6.0	New HC, QB
Bengals	6.1	New QB
Browns	6.1	New HC
Dolphins	6.2	New QB?
Jaguars	6.4
Rams	6.8
49ers	6.8	New HC, QB?
Cowboys	7.0	Hew HC, Romo back
Texans	7.1	New DC
Lions	7.8
Titans	8.5	New HC, QB
Buccaneers	8.7
Raiders	8.9	New HC (again)
Colts	9.1
Chiefs	9.1
Giants	9.2
Eagles	9.4	New DC
Bears	9.5
Jets	9.8
Saints	10.1
Ravens	10.6
Chargers	10.9
Falcons	11.2
Steelers	12.1
Packers	12.1	Grant, Finley, Barnett, etc back
Patriots	12.3

Comments:

• As usual, you can expect a fair number of teams to miss their projected win total by a margin of ±3 or more wins (Here's last year's wrap-up post).

• I think the truncated offseason is going to hurt the teams with new head coaches the most; even under the best-case scenario they're not going to have much time to get their teams up to speed on their new system and playbooks.

• Similarly, teams that need to fill key spots from free agency (like the Cardinal's QB situation) are going to have a very short window to get their guy and get him up to speed with the rest of the team.

• No team in the NFC West is projected to make it to 8 wins. But given the fact that the 49ers, Cardinals, and Seahawks are all looking for a quarterback, it seems like the Rams have the best chance to win that division.

• I wonder if the Rams have thought about going after Plaxico Burress? It would really help Sam Bradford to have a reliable receiver to throw to (of course, it would also require Burress be willing to sign with the Rams, and to still have solid skills as a wide receiver after two years in lockup).

NFL Wrapup: Pythagorean Projection vs. Reality

This is the follow-up to last summer's Pythagorean Projection 2009>2010 post.

Team	Acutal	Proj.	Diff	Comment
Redskins	6	5.8	0.2	New HC, QB
Dolphins	7	7.2	-0.2
Eagles	10	10.2	-0.2	New QB
Jets	11	11.4	-0.4
Ravens	12	11.6	0.4
Saints	11	11.6	-0.6
Browns	5	4.3	0.7	QB issues
Titans	6	6.8	-0.8	QB issues, Britt injured
Colts	10	10.8	-0.8	Injuries
Bills	4	5.8	-1.8
Packers	10	11.8	-1.8	Injuries
Seahawks	7	5.0	2.0	Weak division
Chargers	9	11.1	-2.1	Special teams, Gates injured
Patriots	14	11.6	2.4
Jaguars	8	5.5	2.5
Giants	10	7.4	2.6	Eli Manning healthy
Steelers	12	9.2	2.8	Troy Polamalu healthy
Lions	6	2.9	3.1	Ndamukong Suh
Texans	6	9.4	-3.4	Bad defense
49ers	6	9.5	-3.5	Bad offense
Falcons	13	9.0	4.0	Michael Turner healthy
Broncos	4	8.1	-4.1	Injuries
Cardinals	5	9.3	-4.3	No more Kurt Warner
Bears	11	6.7	4.3	Cutler doing much better
Bengals	4	8.4	-4.4	Too much WR drama?
Raiders	8	2.8	5.2	No more JaMarcus Russell
Cowboys	6	11.3	-5.3	Romo hurt, bad defense
Chiefs	10	4.7	5.3
Rams	7	1.6	5.4	Weak division, new QB
Vikings	6	11.6	-5.6	QB, HC issues
Panthers	2	8.2	-6.2	QB issues
Buccaneers	10	3.8	6.2

Comments:

• The "Projected Wins" value is used as a baseline, so a positive difference means the team exceeded their projected win value, a negative difference means they fell short.

• Teams are sorted by the magnatude (absolute value) of the difference; teams that came close to their projected wins are near the top, teams farthest away from their projection are at the bottom.

• Unlike last year, but like 2008, there are a lot of teams past the ±4 game difference level, which is over the average level for the 1994-2008 seasons.

• In spite of all the quarterback drama surrounding the Redskins, Eagles, Browns, and Titans, they all finished remarkably close to their projected win totals.

• And in spite of all the issues with turnovers and lost games with the Giants, they actually did significantly better than their projected win total. You may remember last year Eli Manning had a foot injury; I suspect that was a big reason the Giants struggled last year.

• The good news for the Bears is Jay Cutler 23 touchdowns and 16 interceptions this year (compared with 27 touchdowns and 26 interceptions last year). The bad news is that hew was sacked 52 times (35 times last year), so the Bears' window of opportunity before Cutler is too hurt to play a full season is likely to be pretty short.

• The Chiefs and Buccaneers both benefited from relatively weak schedules (although the Buccaneers played in a much tougher division). Both are in the second year of tenure for their respective head coaches and quarterbacks.

• Matt Ryan (and head coach Mike Smith) get a lot of credit for the Falcons resurgence for the last three seasons. But running back Michael Turner (who was also signed three seasons ago) has also been a big factor, especially when he's healty.

NFL: Pythagorean Projection 2009->2010

Preseason football is just a few weeks away now, so it's time to start getting ramped up for the 2010 season. With that in mind, here are the Pythagorean Projections for the 2010 season.

FYI: Details of how Pythagorean Projection works, 2008->2009 Projections, 2008->2009 Projection vs Reality

Team	Projected Wins	Comment
Rams	1.6	New QB
Raiders	2.8	New QB
Lions	2.9
Buccaneers	3.8
Browns	4.3	New QB
Chiefs	4.7
Seahawks	5.0	New HC
Jaguars	5.5
Bills	5.8	New QB?
Redskins	5.8	New QB, HC
Bears	6.7	New OC
Titans	6.8
Dolphins	7.2	New QB?
Giants	7.4
Broncos	8.1	QB Issues
Panthers	8.2	New QB
Bengals	8.4
Falcons	9.0
Steelers	9.2	QB Issues
Cardinals	9.3	New QB
Texans	9.4
49ers	9.5
Eagles	10.2	New QB
Colts	10.8
Chargers	11.1
Cowboys	11.3
Jets	11.4	Lots of FA acquisitions
Saints	11.5
Ravens	11.5
Patriots	11.5
Vikings	11.6
Packers	11.8

Comments:

• The Rams scored the fewest total points (175) in the league last year, and fell 69 points short of the team with 3rd fewest total points (Buccaneers, 244).

  The good news for rookie QB Sam Brafford is all he has to do to beat that is average 11 points per game. The bad news is the Rams also allowed the 2nd most total points (436), surpassed only by the Lions (494).

• If Ndamukong Suh can be productive for the Lions right away, if Matt Stafford and Calvin Johnson can stay healthy the whole season... I think the Lions have a real shot at 6 or more wins this season, even if nothing else improves.

• The Bills and Dolphins both had QB problems last season. It would be a major improvement for both teams if they could each get through the whole season with just one guy starting at QB.

• I think the Bears could be in real trouble. They don't have anything like the offensive players Martz had in St. Louis back in the day (Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Tory Holt, Isaac Bruce). And with the Lions making some big off-season improvements, and the Packers and Vikings both coming back for more, the Bears could very easily get caught short in what could be one of the most competitive divisions of the 2010 season.

• Besides their QB issues, the Steelers really need Troy Polomalu to stay healthy for 16 games.

• Can the Patriots get to 11 or 12 wins? That seems like a lot for a team that only had 2 road wins in 2009.

NFL Wrapup: Pythagorean Projection vs Reality

Last summer, I did a series of posts on Pythagorean Projection (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). As a follow-up to Part III, I present the Projected Wins for 2009 versus Actual Wins.

Note that the format for this table is slightly different than what I used in Part II. Here, the projection was used as a baseline, so a positive difference means a team exceeded its projected wins; a negative difference means a team fell short of its projected wins.

Team	Actual	Proj.	Diff	Comment
Jets	9	9.2	-0.2	New HC, QB
Eagles	11	11.3	-0.3
Seahawks	5	5.4	-0.4	New HC
Chiefs	4	4.4	+0.4	New HC, QB
Raiders	5	4.6	+0.4
Browns	5	4.4	+0.6	New HC
Patriots	10	10.6	-0.6	Brady back
Falcons	9	9.7	-0.7
Lions	2	2.8	-0.8	New HC, QB
Jaguars	7	6.2	+0.8
49ers	8	6.9	+1.1
Rams	1	2.6	-1.6	New HC, injuries
Bears	7	8.7	-1.7	New QB
Texans	9	7.3	+1.7
Broncos	8	6.2	+1.8	New HC, QB
Bills	6	7.8	-1.8
Dolphins	7	8.8	-1.8	Injuries
Cardinals	10	8.0	+2.0
Packers	11	8.9	+2.1	New defense
Panthers	8	10.1	-2.1	Jake Delhomme
Vikings	12	9.2	+2.8	New QB
Steelers	9	11.8	-2.8	Troy Polamalu hurt
Colts	13	10.1	+2.9	Manning healthy all year
Chargers	13	10.1	+2.9
Ravens	9	11.9	-2.9
Redskins	4	7.0	-3.0
Cowboys	11	7.9	+3.1
Giants	8	11.3	-3.3	Eli injured
Saints	13	9.5	+3.5
Titans	8	12.1	-4.1	No more Haynesworth
Buccaneers	3	9.0	-6.0	New HC, QB
Bengals	10	3.2	+6.8	Healthy Carson Palmer

Broken down into the range used in Part I, we have:

Range		# of Teams	% of 32	Classification
0	≤δ≤ 2	17	53.1%	Reasonably Close
2	<δ≤ 4	12	37.5%	Moderately Close
4	<δ≤ 8	3	9.4%	Wrong
8	<δ	0	0.0%	Yikes!

(Note that in Part I, the difference was expressed in winning percentage; here it is expressed in games won in a 16-game season.)

Comments

• The teams are sorted by the magnatude of difference; teams that came very close to their projected wins are at the top, teams further away come further down the table.

• In 2008 (c.f. Part II), 8 teams (25%) finished at least 5 games away from their projected win total, which (as I said) seemed likely to be an outlier year. Here we see teams much closer: only two finished more than 5 games away from their projected wins total.

• There's also a case to be made for more gradual coaching changes. The Cardinals 2-game improvement (which could've been 3, if they had had something to play for in week 17), can be attributed to continuing improvements under Coach Whisenhunt. While the Redskins 3-game fall-off might be attributed to Coach Zorn losing his squad.

• Those two or three extra wins that Favre (presumably) brought to the Vikings might not seem like a big deal out of context, but (this year) they're the difference between the #2 seed and being the last wildcard (or maybe eliminated in favor of the Falcons or some other team)

NFL: Pythagorean Projection IV: Picking Games

Update 14 Feb 2010: on further review, I had a bug in the program I used to generate the numbers I had originally posted here. I was picking games using the projection for the same season (rather than using the previous season's projection). Naturally, this made the picks look better than they should. I have updated the table below to reflect picking one season's games based on the projection from the previous season's numbers.

I've also added the results for the 2009 season.

Introduction

• Part I: how Pythagorean Projection did over the 1994-2008 seasons (this also contains an introduction of what Pythagorean Projection is).

• Part II: a team-by-team look at how Pythagorean Projection dis for the 2007->2008 season.

• Part III: the 2008->2009 projections

Using Pythagorean Projection to Pick Games

In this post, I will look at how the Pythagorean Projection does in picking the winner for individual regular season games for the following season. The method is very simple: the team with the highest projection is picked to win.

The following table details the tallies resulting for this method for then 1994-2008 seasons. As usual, tie games are counted as a push.

The 'correct percentage' is then computed, using the usual (w+t/2)/(w+l+t) formula.

Season	Right	Wrong	Push	Correct %
1994	133	91	0	59.4%
1995	125	83	0	60.1%
1996	145	95	0	60.4%
1997	129	109	2	54.2%
1998	148	92	0	61.7%
1999	124	108	0	53.4%
2000	143	105	0	57.7%
2001	137	110	1	55.4%
2002	140	99	1	58.5%
2003	136	120	0	53.1%
2004	146	110	0	57.0%
2005	149	107	0	58.2%
2006	140	116	0	54.7%
2007	142	114	0	55.5%
2008	140	115	1	54.9%
2009	164	92	9	64.1%

Conclusion

As it turns out, Pythagorean Projection does a surprisingly good reasonable job picking games (producing results a bit better somewhat worse than last year's regular season numbers for APR.

More on this in a couple of weeks. I will post the picks for Week 1 based on the Pythagorean projections from last season (as well as the Line picks as usual).

NFL: Pythagorean Projection III: 2008->2009

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?

NFL: Pythagorean Projection II: 2007-2008

As discussed in Part I, Pythagorean Projection is a technique for projecting a team's future wins based on their points scored and allowed the previous season.

In Part I, I looked at how it performed over 14 seasons of data (projections from 1993 to 2007, corresponding resuls from 1994 to 2008). In Part II, I'm going to look at the 2007 projections as compared to the 2008 results.

As with Part I, the results are ranked according to the difference between the projected and actual wins, as an absolute value, sorted from smallest to largest difference.

Team	Proj.	Actual	Diff.	Comment
Raiders	4.9	5.0	-0.1
Texans	7.9	8.0	-0.1
Saints	7.8	8.0	-0.2
Eagles	9.1	9.5	-0.4
Vikings	9.5	10.0	-0.5
Colts	12.5	12.0	0.5
Steelers	11.4	12.0	-0.6
Redskins	8.7	8.0	0.7
Cardinals	8.1	9.0	-0.9
Buccaneers	10.0	9.0	1.0
Bears	7.6	9.0	-1.4
Rams	3.7	2.0	1.7
Cowboys	11.0	9.0	2.0	Tony Romo hurt
Bills	4.9	7.0	-2.1
Broncos	5.7	8.0	-2.3
Chiefs	4.5	2.0	2.5
Patriots	13.8	11.0	2.8	Brady hurt week 1
49ers	3.7	7.0	-3.3	Singletary take over week 8
Chargers	11.3	8.0	3.3
Giants	8.6	12.0	-3.4
Jets	5.4	9.0	-3.6	Favre comes to town
Bengals	7.9	4.0	3.9	Carson Palmer hurt
Browns	8.5	4.0	4.5	Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn hurt
Titans	8.1	13.0	-4.9	Kerry Colins comes in, week 1
Packers	11.5	6.0	5.5	New QB; Defense collapsed
Lions	5.7	0.0	5.7	Was 2007 a fluke season?
Jaguars	10.7	5.0	5.7
Ravens	5.0	11.0	-6.0	New QB, HC
Panthers	5.6	12.0	-6.4	Jake Delhomme stays healthy
Seahawks	10.7	4.0	6.7	Injuries, HC issues
Falcons	4.0	11.0	-7.0	New QB, HC
Dolphins	3.8	11.0	-7.2	Parcells; new QB, HC

Broken down into the ranges used in part 1, we have:

Range		# of Teams	% of 32	Classification
0	≤δ≤ 2	13	40.6%	Reasonably Close
2	<δ≤ 4	9	28.1%	Moderately Close
4	<δ≤ 8	10	31.3%	Wrong
8	<δ	0	0.0%	Yikes!

(Note that in Part I, the difference was expressed in winning percentage; here it is expressed in games won in a 16-game season.)

Comments:

• The Lions had a terrible pass defense in 2007. 4 of their first 6 wins were against teams with weak pass offenses (only the Vikings and Broncos were ranked over #18).

• This also shows a weakness of Pythagorean Projection: it doesn't easily produce extreme values. Only 3 teams (Rams, 49ers, and Dolphins) were projected to have fewer than 4 wins, and only 2 teams (Colts and Patriots) were projected to have more than 12.

• Perhaps most interesting is that in the cases where Pythagorean Projection missed by the most, there are some typical issues: coaching, QB changes, and key injuries most often.

• The 1994-2008 data set (detailed in Part I) had 21.9% of the projections fall at least 4 games (or 25%) away from the actual winning record. The 31.3% this range in 2008 is a notable increase over that. For a 32-team field, the difference is about three teams, which means the remarkable turn-arounds of the Ravens, Falcons, and Dolphins can account for the difference. It will be interesting to see if we see similar turn-arounds (or collapses?) in 2009.

Coming up

In part 3, I'll take a look at the projections for the 2009 season.

NFL: Pythagorean Projection I: 1994-2008

Introduction

Those of you who have spent much time reading footballoutsiders may have noticed they often talk about something called a 'Pythagorean projection', and seem to take it pretty seriously.

Pythagorean projection is a technique (full details here) of taking, for each team, the number of points they score and allow, and using that to project the winning percentage for the next season.

The result is a number in the range from 0.000 to 1.000, which is taken as the predicted winning percentage (0.000 would mean predicting no games won; 1.000 would mean predicting all games won).

Every Season since 1993

I'm going to go back to 1993, since at or just before 1993 is when a lot of important features of the current NFL system were adopted:

• Free agency
• Salary Cap
• 6 teams (per conference) playoff format
• Bye week

This results in 461 projections, with 461 actual results to compare to. (Note that for some teams and seasons, like the Browns in 1999, or the Texans in 2002, there was no 'previous season' to provide a projection, and so are not included in this data set.)

The Full Data Set

The graph below displays the 461 projections compared with the corresponding actual result. Here is how the data points were produced:

For each season from 1994 to 2008, for each team with PF/PA values from the previous season:

1. The actual winning percentage was computed for the team for that season.

2. The projected winning percentage was computed using the Pythagorean method.

3. The difference between actual and projected winning percentage is computed (using absolute value, since a miss below isn't better than a miss above).

4. The values are then sorted from lowest (values near 0% indicate a near-perfect projection) to highest (high values indicate... well, situations where Pythagorean projection didn't work so well).

Here is what a plot of these numbers looks like:

Click for full size

Some details:

Range		# of Data Points	% of 461	Classification
0.0	≤δ≤ 12.5	201	43.6%	Reasonably Close
12.5	<δ≤ 25.0	159	34.5%	Moderately Close
25.0	<δ≤ 50.0	97	21.0%	Wrong
50.0	<δ	4	0.9%	Yikes!

Outliers

As a predictive method, Pythagorean Projection isn't something to bet the farm on. However, it can be interesting to look at the teams it missed on. Below are the 4 teams in the above data set where the projected and actual winning percentages differed by more than 50%.

• 1994 Houston Oilers (actual: 2-14 projected 11.8 wins)
  In 1993, the Oilers won the AFC Central with a 12-4 record. This is before I paid very close attention to the game, but Wikipedia does indicate that there was serious conflict on the coaching staff in 1993. In 1994, head coach Jack Pardee was fired after a 1-9 start to the season, and Jeff Fisher was brought in as the new head coach.

• 1999 Indianapolis Colts (actual: 13-3 projected 4.8 wins)
  The Colts were a doormat team for a long time after Unitas left. That didn't really change until 1999, which was Peyton Manning's second season.

• 2001 Chicago Bears (actual 13-3 projected 4.8 wins)
  2002 Chicago Bears (actual 4-12 projected 12.3 wins)
  From 1996-2004 (inclusive), the Bears didn't win more than 7 games in a season, except for 2001. Part of it was fluke wins (including a couple improbable OT victories), part of it was the Bears' defense showing signs of what would take them to the Super Bowl a few years later.

Coming up

In part 2, I'll take a look at how Pythagorean Projection performed on the 2008 season.