As camp / preseason moves inexorably on toward the regular season, we'll see all kinds of picks and prognostications over which teams will rise up and which ones will drop. We know several playoff teams will miss in 2015, and others will rise up and take their place. Which ones ? I read one poster pimping the Falcons. How did the Falcons do in 2014 vs top competition ?
One of the things I like to look at is last years' Sagarin Ratings. Its not the be-all in terms of predictions, but they do offer some interesting tidbits to consider and their rankings match up very closely with point spreads
http://sagarin.com/sports/nflsend.htm
I like how they break it up into wins vs Top 10 and wins vs Top 16 ( top half of the league)
Not only can you see how many tough games they played, but also how they did in those tough games
And the Top 10 changes throughout the season.
For example - Detroit was a Top 10 team when GB lost to them in game 3, but they were a middle 10 team when GB beat them at the end of the season. So the Lions got extra credit for beating GB, but the Packers didn't for beating them. So you get a pretty good snapshot of how teams fared vs the best competition . And the rankings change all season long - a nod to the comment that its not who you play , but when you play them that matters"
Also note the Lions anemic record vs top teams in 2015...
Take a look at the KC Chiefs - they finished 9-7, but also had a winning record against both the top 10's and the top 16s they faced
And they played a # 8 schedule with 10 of 16 games against the top half of the league. That suggests a good team and perhaps they'll do even better this year with Berry and others back from injury.
Take a look at the over-hyped Vikes. They had an 0-4 record against Top 10 teams and an 0-7 record against Top 16. Only 7 of their 16 games came against top half teams and their schedule rank was 22, well below average. And they lost every one of those games against the top half of the league. Every single one.
There's lots more you can tease out of these rankings- you can look at "winning only", or "winning by how many points" if you so desire. So as you read the pundits proclamations, you may want to review this sheet to see if there is any validity to their claims.
Or not
Teams get better, teams get worse and predicting which is which isn't an easy task.
But there are some clues to be found here and elsewhere - like Pro Football Reference Pythagorean Wins prediction tool
http://www.pro-football-refere...m/teams/gnb/2014.htm
Here they use points scored vs points given up and some additional math to predict wins/losses. GB had an expected record of 11-5 based on their formulas and the Packers finished 12-4. Outliers, like the Az cardinals did much better than expected; will that continue or not in 2015 ?
If anybody else has interesting ootball stats they like to consider, post em in here. Or not
