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NFL
Numbers Rarely Lie
Predicting the 2014 NFL season with the help of a few key stats.
BY BILL BARNWELL ON MAY 30, 2014
An essential part of preparing for the 2014 NFL season is looking back at what just happened. About all
I remember at this point from 2013 is the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl and Ron Rivera acting out
that fan fiction I wrote about the coach who always goes for it. Theres a lot more to take away from
2013, but thats hard to do with any sort of perspective while free agency and the draft are sucking up
all the oxygen. But now that were past the Sturm und Drang of Johnny in Vegas and Teddys pro day,
its time to take a look at the bigger picture of 2013 to understand how it will influence 2014.
That can mean only one thing nerdy stats! There are several underlying numbers that serve a useful
role in measuring how a team will play. But and lets repeat this all together again, because it only
makes us stronger the NFLs 16-game season is a teeny-tiny sample, and there are myriad aspects of
the game that have no predictive value for the future. (Think about how the 2012 Packers were affected
by their run-in with the replacement officials.) Theres also the human factor. You know: We can be
pretty sure the Giants are likely to avoid suffering the most injuries in the league next year, but if Eli
Manning decides to retire and theyre stuck with Ryan Nassib, their performance is likely to be terrible
anyway.
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That said, there are a lot of really useful statistics that can help us successfully gamb er, predict what
will happen in the NFL next season. Lets meet them, shall we?
1
Point Differential
1.
You can read more about many of these stats and how theyre derived in our primer from 2012.
Its true in just about every sport: Point differential is a better predictor of a teams win-loss record
than its previous win-loss record. Wins arent created equal. A three-point victory over the Jaguars at
home isnt the same as blowing out the 49ers by 28 points at Candlestick. (Side note: Its going to be
really weird to have to start saying Levis next year.) Win-loss record gives us only 16 observations to
project 2014 performance. If you make the case that a team can give up a touchdown or score one on
every single play, point differential allows for thousands of observations in a single season.
How did it project 2013? Reasonably well, with one notable exception: the Colts. The 2012
Indianapolis squad went 11-5 while being outscored by 30 points, a performance that history suggested
was virtually unrepeatable. But with Andrew Luck taking a step forward and the AFC South collapsing
into a smoldering tire fire, the Colts went 11-5 again in 2013, this time outscoring their opposition by
55.
Besides Indianapolis, the teams with wacky point differentials mostly behaved as we expected. The
four other clubs that outperformed their Pythagorean expectation by more than one win in 2012 were
the Falcons, Texans, Titans, and Vikings. Those teams were 41-23 during their glorious 2012
campaigns; last year, their combined record was a dismal 18-45-1. Seven teams underperformed their
Pythagorean expectation by at least one win in 2012, and while the Browns and Giants declined, the
Lions, Jaguars, Saints, Chargers, and Seahawks improved. Those seven improved by an average of 1.4
wins over their previous record in 2012.
What teams should this affect in 2014?
Improve Pyth Diff Decline Pyth Diff
Texans -2.2 Jets +2.6
Falcons -1.9 Colts +1.6
Washington -1.8 Patriots +1.5
Browns -1.5 Giants +1.4
Lions -1.5 Broncos +1.3
One obvious candidate for improvement is Houston. The Texans season collapsed after a 2-0 start, but
they were competitive in many of their 14 losses. Theyll benefit from a new head coach and better
quarterback play, but they also werent as bad as their record suggests. The same is true for Atlanta,
which shockingly fell to a 4-12 season. The numbers suggested that the Falcons would decline after a
13-3 season in which they had the point differential of an 11-win team, but nobody could have seen that
kind of season coming.
On the flip side, there are those dang Colts. Indianapolis went from being the luckiest team in the
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league in 2012 to the second-luckiest last year. Denver and New England, helmed by legendary
quarterbacks, got more wins out of their point differentials than you might expect. Its entirely
possible that having a superstar quarterback who comes up with big plays when you need them can
make it easier to outperform your point differential year after year then again, you could have said
that about Matt Ryan and the Falcons until last year. At the top of the list to decline are the New York
Jets. More on them in a little bit.
Record in One-Touchdown Games
Its almost impossible to win a large percentage of close games in the NFL. Even if there was something
unique about your team that gave it a late competitive edge, the attrition rate in football is so high as to
render many of those advantages moot over a time frame of any significance. Great teams stay great by
avoiding close games altogether they just blow out the competition. Teams with a gap between their
point differential and their win-loss record often have that gap come down to their performance in
close games, so youll see some familiar faces from the last list here.
How did it project 2013? How does great except for the Colts sound again? This stat successfully
predicted that the records of teams like Atlanta (7-2 in one-touchdown games in 2012, 3-7 in 2013),
Houston (5-0 in 2012, 2-9 in 2013), and Minnesota (5-1 in 2012, 4-4-1 in 2013) were unsustainable, but
the 9-1 Colts went 5-1 in one-score games in 2013. Including the playoffs, Andrew Luck is now 15-2 in
games decided by seven points or fewer during his pro career.
2
2.
Well, I mean, Coby Fleener is 13-2 in those games (he missed four games his rookie season) but it seems like that
has more to do with Luck (and luck) than Fleener.
The close-games metric also highlighted some major pending improvements; the Panthers, who went
2-12 (1-7 in 2012) during Ron Rivera and Cam Newtons first two years with the team in those games,
lost their first two games in 2013 by a combined six points before Rivera decided to make his run for
TYFNC MVP. Carolina went 5-0 in one-score games the rest of the way. The Chargers, 1-5 in one-score
games during the final year of Norvitude, improved to 4-5 in those games last year. Thats not
incredible, but even regression toward the mean was enough to push them into the playoffs. The Lions
and the Jaguars needed more help than simple close-game luck, but after going a combined 5-13 in
one-touchdown games in 2012, they did manage to go 7-8 in 2013.
What teams should this affect in 2014?
Improve W-L Record Decline W-L Record
Texans 2-9 Jets 5-1
Steelers 2-5 Colts 5-1
Washington 2-6 Panthers 5-2
Falcons 3-7 Patriots 7-4
Lions 3-6 Eagles 3-1
Our poor friends in Houston head this list, too. Remember: The Texans had second-half leads on the
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Seahawks, Cardinals, Colts, and Patriots last year. They blew them all, of course, but that they were
able to stay competitive with teams of that caliber is a good omen for their future performance. Maybe
things are better with a healthy Arian Foster running out the clock instead of trolling cat owners. Well
see. Atlanta, Detroit, and Pittsburgh are all teams without effective running games that struggled to
finish deep into the fourth quarter, too.
You might believe that Andrew Luck is some kind of witch in close games. After that fumble recovery at
the goal line against the Chiefs in the wild-card round, I wouldnt argue with you. But Geno Smith and
the Jets? Noooope. Their close wins included games that were extended by a pair of questionable
personal foul calls on Lavonte David (Bucs, Week 1) and Chris Jones (Patriots, Week 7); wipe those
two incredibly unlikely calls off the books and the Jets are 3-3 in close games. Carolinas performance
in one-score contests is probably going to settle somewhere between the 2-14 start to the Rivera era and
the 5-0 finish from last year. And the Eagles went 3-1 in close games during the regular season, only to
lose a two-point squeaker to the Saints in the wild-card round.
Turnover Margin
Sit through five insufferable minutes of NFL coverage and youll hear somebody harp on the value of
turnovers at least once. Theyre important, and good teams do tend to win the turnover battle, but
theres also a certain amount of randomness and variance from year to year. Most notably, teams at the
extreme ends of the turnover spectrum are unable to sustain that level in consecutive campaigns.
How did it project 2013? Very well. The two teams that stood out like a sore thumb at the bottom of the
turnover rankings were the Chiefs and Eagles; they were each at minus-24 in 2012, and nobody else was
worse than minus-16. In 2013, much of their success was driven by a dramatic shift in this metric. The
Chiefs had the second-best turnover margin in football at plus-18, while the Eagles were fourth with a
plus-12 figure. Kansas Citys improvement of 42 turnovers is the most anybodys improved in a single
season since the strike year of 1987. The Jets (minus-14) and Lions (minus-12) stayed roughly the
same, but the Cowboys and even those absurdly lucky Colts granted, in the one category where
simple regression might have expected them to improve saw their turnover margin improve by 16 or
more from 2012 to 2013.
The five teams at the top of the turnover charts were unable to repeat in 2013, each falling off by at
least 15. That included the Patriots, Bears, Giants, and Falcons but the most interesting case was
Washington. A huge chunk of its 2012 success came by avoiding turnovers on offense; Washington
turned the ball over a league-low 14 times in 2012. It hit that figure by Week 8 of 2013, and by the time
Kirk Cousins had inflated his trade value in December, the D.C. team had turned the ball over 34 times,
tied with the Lions for the second-worst rate in football.
What teams should this affect in 2014?
Improve TO Margin Decline TO Margin
Texans -20 Seahawks +20
Giants -15 Chiefs +18
Jets -14 Colts +13
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Vikings -12 Eagles +12
Lions -12 49ers +11
I broke down how 2012s top five teams in turnover margin did in 2013. The sixth team was Seattle,
which improved to plus-20 and won the Super Bowl. The seventh? Houston, which went from a plus-
12 figure in 2012 to the bottom of the table in 2013. Youre probably thinking about all those Matt
Schaub pick-sixes right now (and more on them in a second), but the defense was actually worse;
Houston was 26th in the league in giveaways, but their 11 takeaways were dead last. A healthier
secondary and the arrival of Jadeveon Clowney should create more turnovers for Houston in 2014.
The Jets are also going to be a fascinating study. For as much as I went on about their lucky
performance in close games, they were incredibly unlucky in terms of fumble recoveries, as Gang
Green picked up just 30.3 percent of the fumbles in their games last year, the leagues lowest rate by a
comfortable margin. (The Cowboys, who dont exactly need more bad news right now, paced the
league by recovering 67.6 percent of loose balls in their games.)
There are some very good teams on the decline side of the ledger, and I expect most of them to be
good again in 2014, but they probably wont be quite as good as they were a year ago. Take the 49ers, for
example: They posted a ridiculous plus-28 turnover margin in 2011. With much of the same personnel
the following year, their margin was plus-nine; still good, but not stratospheric.
3
The Seahawks will
still probably post another good number next year, but it almost surely wont be in the plus-20 range.
Defensive Touchdowns Allowed
3.
Before you go nuts, it was plus-four that season with Alex Smith and plus-five with Colin Kaepernick.
Theres virtually no consistency in terms of the number of points your offense gives up on defensive
touchdowns. The year-to-year correlation in points allowed by an offense from 1999 to 2013 is
0.008. In other words: What happened last year is of no predictive value whatsoever. It can also have a
pretty large impact on the way your defense looks, too. The 99 Dolphins are the best example. They
allowed 336 points, the 19th-best total in the league. But their offense allowed a staggering nine
touchdowns that season, including seven pick-sixes from Dan Marino and Damon Huard. Strip out
those 54 points and they were a great defense; Miami was actually fifth in DVOA that year, and when
its offense allowed only a single touchdown return the following season, the Dolphins returned to third
in the league in scoring defense.
How did this metric project 2013? Very well, although I dont think this has quite as large of an impact
on team performance as the measures weve just run through. There were six teams that allowed five
defensive return touchdowns or more in 2012; the Cardinals, Lions, Jaguars, Chiefs, Eagles, and Titans
cut that figure by more than half, down to an average of 14.7 points per offense. There were five
offenses in 2012 that allowed fewer than 10 points on returns; they combined to allow an average of
21.2 points on returns last year.
The stingiest offense in terms of giving away points in 2012 belonged to the Houston Texans, who gave
up just a single safety while not allowing a single fumble or interception return for a touchdown all
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regular season. Thats two points. How did they do in avoiding pick-sixes in 2013 oh dear.
What teams should this affect in 2014?
Improve TO Pts Allowed Decline TO Pts Allowed
Bears 44 Chiefs 2
Texans 38 49ers 2
Giants 38 Panthers 4
Jets 36 Seahawks 6
Rams 32 Cardinals 8
Bet you thought the Texans would be at the top of that list, too! Well, so did I, but we remember that
Houstons pick-sixes were clumped together. They came in five consecutive games from Week 2
through Week 6; perhaps out of sheer terror, Houstons quarterbacks didnt throw a single pick-six the
rest of the way, and the Texans allowed only a fumble recovery for a touchdown and a lone safety after
their bye. Chicago instead wins the dubious prize, with three pick-sixes and a whopping four fumble
returns for touchdowns on the way to 44 points allowed. Houstons quarterbacks ended up tied with
the Jets, Giants, and Rams as league leaders with five pick-sixes. Its no surprise that the league leaders
in fewest defensive touchdowns allowed are run-heavy teams like the Chiefs and 49ers, and those
teams are unlikely to be touchdown-friendly in 2014, but all it takes is one or two lapses of
concentration to fall to the middle of the pack in this category.
The Bottom Line
I could easily go on with another half-dozen statistics defensive touchdowns scored, strength of
schedule, fumble-recovery rates, injury totals, and team age all come to mind but you get the picture.
Theres still plenty of time to run through the numbers, and Ill highlight plenty more findings as we
get closer to the 2014 campaign. But, in looking at the underlying performances and luck from last
season, we can draw a couple of conclusions.
First, the Texans are primed for an immediate comeback toward the middle of the NFL pack, even if
the combination of Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tom Savage theyll run out at quarterback might preclude
them from being a playoff contender. Virtually every metric I can find suggests they were an
underrated and unlucky team last year, and thats without considering how they repeatedly juggled
quarterbacks and quit on their coach. With even average luck next year, Houston should be a 7-9 or 8-8
team. And if it has a few bounces break its way picture Jadeveon Clowney and J.J. Watt wishboning
Andrew Luck the Texans could very well be next years surprise playoff team. Washington and
Atlanta were also among 2013s more unlucky teams.
Some teams will also fall. The Chiefs are likely to take a step backward after their remarkable sprint to
the playoffs. Indianapolis would be on that list again, albeit not as notably as it was a year ago. Even the
defending champs should slip a bit; the Seahawks will still be a very good team in 2014, but 13-3 for a
second consecutive season might be tough, especially given how arduous the rest of the NFC West has
become.
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Oh, and the Jets? As usual, nobody knows whats happening there. My only suggestion is that its better
to be pleasantly surprised than it is to be wildly disappointed.