Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Preseason Team Rankings

I have now published my preseason projections for this year's NFL offenses and defenses so it is time to go through the mathematical gymnastics to create overall rankings and predict win totals for each team. The ranking of teams is done in the straightforward manner of subtracting the points allowed against an average team (defense) from points scored against an average team (offense) to get the Net Difference. I then map the net difference into win totals. This process puts the Packers on top with an estimated 13 wins and the Rams to repeat at the bottom with (a sadly still better) 3 wins.

After I put my rankings together I wanted to do a check and see what the true expert in my household thought. My 9-year old son looked through my list and decided that he better do his own list, because mine had too many obvious errors in it. He rationalized each of his own win predictions (though he seemed to be smiling a bit too much when he gave HIS Chargers 13 wins) and did not hesitate to proclaim mine wrong where we disagreed. In fairness to him, I now present his predictions next to mine, and at the end of the season we will see who has been more accurate.


Team  Offense  Defense Net Difference Wins Son
Green Bay  26.4 18.2 8.2 13 8
Dallas  26.8 18.9 7.9 12 10
San Diego  28.3 20.3 8 11 13
Indianapolis  25.6 19.1 6.5 11 13
Minnesota  26.2 19.6 6.6 10 12
Pittsburgh  24.8 19 5.8 10 10
New Orleans  27.4 21.2 6.2 10 13
Houston  25.9 20.2 5.7 10 7
New England  25.9 20.2 5.7 10 9
Philadelphia  23.8 18.8 5 10 10
NY Jets  20.9 16.8 4.1 10 8
NY Giants  25.7 21.2 4.5 9 8
Baltimore  23.6 20.1 3.5 9 10
Arizona  23.1 19.7 3.4 9 9
Denver  21.8 18.8 3 9 9
Cincinnati  20.6 18.6 2 8 9
Tennessee  22.9 21 1.9 8 8
Washington  21.6 21.1 0.5 7 5
Carolina  20.8 20.4 0.4 7 5
Chicago  20.9 20.9 0 7 4
Atlanta  22 22.3 -0.3 7 7
San Francisco  19.7 20.1 -0.4 7 8
Buffalo  19.3 20 -0.7 7 5
Miami  21.2 22.4 -1.2 6 4
Jacksonville  22.3 24.2 -1.9 6 6
Seattle  19.5 21.3 -1.8 6 3
Tampa Bay  19.7 22.5 -2.8 6 4
Detroit  19.4 23.4 -4 5 4
Oakland  19.2 23.8 -4.6 5 3
Kansas City  18.4 24.2 -5.8 4 2
Cleveland  16.8 23.2 -6.4 4 5
St. Louis  17.7 24.5 -6.8 3 2

We both agree that the Falcons are due to come down this season, dropping to 7 wins and see the Broncos headed for an additional win this year and a likely playoff birth. We have some serious disagreements though with my data projecting the Saints to come down to 10 wins while he has them repeating their 13 win performance and I have Houston winning 10 while he has them at 7.

The question now is what should the stakes be for the bet? Leave a comment or get me on Twitter @BenAlamar with ideas.

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