Every year I put out at least a cursory projection of the NFL standings. Most of the time, I’m just guessing, but I’ve always wanted to add a little more rigor to my analysis.
This year, I went through each team’s schedule and did my best to estimate their win equity in each game, and projecting the results from each. After getting the totals, I had the league one game under .500, so I readjusted my totals on a few teams where I considered my initial predictions shaky to get to 256-256.
This isn’t a power ranking; this is a projection based on schedule as well as strength.
Six teams have half-wins; that doesn’t mean I’m predicting ties in certain games, just that that was the most clear and honest answer in my eyes and I couldn’t round it one way or the other for the sake of even numbers.
Anyway, here we go:
[table caption=”AFC” width=”640″ colwidth=”140|10|10|140|10|10|140|10|10|140|10|10″ colalign=”right|center|center|right|center|center|right|center|center|right|center|center”]
East,W,L,North,W,L,South,W,L,West,W,L
New England,11.5,4.5,Baltimore,9,7,Indianapolis,11,5,Denver,12,4
Miami,8,8,Cincinnati,8,8,Tennessee,7,9,San Diego,7.5,8.5
New York Jets,7,9,Pittsburgh,8,8,Houston,6,10,Kansas City,7.5,8.5
Buffalo,6,10,Cleveland,7,9,Jacksonville,6,10,Oakland,4,12
[/table]
[table caption=”NFC” width=”640″ colwidth=”140|10|10|140|10|10|140|10|10|140|10|10″ colalign=”right|center|center|right|center|center|right|center|center|right|center|center”]
East,W,L,North,W,L,South,W,L,West,W,L
Philadelphia,9,7,Green Bay,11,5,New Orleans,11,5,Seattle,11.5,4.5
Washington,8,8,Chicago,8,8,Carolina,8,8,San Francisco,11,5
Dallas,7,9,Detroit,6.5,9.5,Atlanta,7,9,Arizona,9,7
New York Giants,6.5,9.5,Minnesota,5,11,Tampa Bay,6,10,St. Louis,6,10
[/table]
Post any questions, comments, or curiosities you have. I’ll be the first to note that certain teams’ records vs. their perceived strength were distorted by strength of schedule: For example, Indianapolis’ is quite easy, while the AFC North’s is quite hard.
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