The Worst 8 - 0 Team of all Time?

CBS's Pete Prisco recently sent out a tweet saying the Chiefs "might be the worst 8 - 0 team I've ever seen."  I thought I would take him up on that by compiling some basic team stats of every 8 - 0 team in a Google spreadsheet and comparing them.

Regardless of what the stats say, you should familiarize yourself with this amazing gif which is probably the only reason the internet needs to exist and is proof-positive that Andy Reid's Chiefs are worth every bit of 8 and OHHH YEEEAAAA.

The spreadsheet will contain the following stats on each team:

Luckiest and Unluckiest Teams - Week 14

For some reason this is my favorite stat.

I estimate team "luck" by using my efficiency regression model to calculate each team's expected wins--how many wins a team can normally expect, on average, given their actual performance in offensive and defensive running, passing, turnovers, and penalties. The difference between the expected wins and actual wins is what I loosely call team luck.


What do I mean by luck?

In my own life, I'm a big believer in hard work, preparation, focus, execution and everything else that isn't luck. Coaches and players can't let themselves think any other way for a single second. But once we account for all those things, what do we call what's left over? Statisticians call it "residual," and a substantial portion of any residual is due to random effect, including sample error and what I call "bunching." In a bounded and meticulously measured system like sports, a vast amount of the residual from any decent model will be due to randomness. A season of 16 games simply isn't long enough for the breaks to even out.

2008 Luckiest Teams

Here's the final ranking of lucky and unlucky teams for 2008. I estimate team luck by using my efficiency regression model to calculate each team's expected wins--how many wins a team can normally expect, on average, given their actual performance in offensive and defensive running, passing, turnovers, and penalties. Expected wins are adjusted for average opponent strength.

The difference between the expected wins and actual wins is what I loosely estimate as team luck. For a brief introduction on the concept, see this last post on the subject. For a more thorough but general discussion, see this essay on NFL luck. The executive summary is that there are good and bad breaks for every team in every game, and often they'll roughly even out, but many times they won't. The bottom line is that a 16-game season is far too short for all the breaks to even out. With 32 teams in the league, some are going to be luckier than others.

Tennessee, New England, and the New York Jets top the list of lucky dogs in 2008, while San Diego, Kansas City, and New Orleans appear to be among the unluckiest.

Now, I don't claim this is all luck. Part of it could be game-day coaching. For those critics out there of Norv Turner or Andy Reid, you can point to this and say they managed to take teams with some of the most spectacular statistical performances and make mediocre records. You could also make the opposite claim about Jeff Fisher or Bill Belichick.

Also of note are the 0-16 Detroit Lions. They could have been expected to win 1 or 2 games given their stats this year.

You can click on the headers any column to sort the table. I've included a division column so you can see how teams lucked-out compared to their division-mates.

Rank	Team	Exp. W	Act. W	Luck	Div
1	TEN	10.5	13	+2.5	AS
2	NE	8.9	11	+2.1	AE
3	NYJ	7.0	9	+2.0	AE
4	SF	5.2	7	+1.8	NW
5	BUF	5.3	7	+1.7	AE
6	MIN	8.4	10	+1.6	NN
7	IND	10.6	12	+1.4	AS
8	NYG	11.0	12	+1.0	NE
9	HOU	7.0	8	+1.0	AS
10	CLE	3.1	4	+0.9	AN
11	MIA	10.1	11	+0.9	AE
12	ARI	8.2	9	+0.8	NW
13	DEN	7.5	8	+0.5	AW
14	BAL	10.5	11	+0.5	AN
15	PIT	11.9	12	+0.1	AN
16	JAX	4.9	5	0.1	AS
17	CHI	9.0	9	0.0	NN
18	OAK	5.1	5	-0.1	AW
19	TB	9.1	9	-0.1	NS
20	CIN	4.7	4.5	-0.2	AN
21	DAL	9.3	9	-0.3	NE
22	CAR	12.5	12	-0.5	NS
23	ATL	11.5	11	-0.5	NS
24	SEA	4.5	4	-0.5	NW
25	STL	2.8	2	-0.8	NW
26	DET	1.8	0	-1.8	NN
27	WAS	10.0	8	-2.0	NE
28	GB	8.5	6	-2.5	NN
29	PHI	12.1	9.5	-2.6	NE
30	NO	10.7	8	-2.7	NS
31	KC	4.9	2	-2.9	AW
32	SD	11.4	8	-3.4	AW

Luckiest Teams Through Week 15

There's this guy in my fantasy league who finished 10th out of 10 teams in terms of total points scored--dead last. But somehow he finished with a 7-6-1 record and nabbed the 4th and final playoff spot. This past weekend was our league's semi-final round, and he won his game by...1 point. A meaningless sack of a 3rd string QB in the final seconds of a 20-point game on Monday night game put his team over the top. Despite managing the very worst team in our league, one more lucky win means he'll takes home all the marbles.

But that's just fantasy football. What about real football? Can a team get lucky like that, where every punt stays out of the end zone, every loose ball bounces into their hands, and Ed Hochuli rules their QB's obvious fumble was an incomplete pass?

Explanation

This is one of my most fun stats--"team luck"--and last year it got plenty of criticism. I estimate team luck by using my efficiency regression model to calculate each team's expected wins--how many wins a team can normally expect, on average, given their actual performance in offensive and defensive running, passing, turnovers, and penalties. The difference between the expected wins and actual wins is what I loosely call team luck.

There are plenty of things my model does not consider, special teams being the most prominent. But special teams plays are the most random events in the sport, save for the coin flip. Luck is a punt that lands on the 5 and skids into the end zone for touchback instead of bouncing into the air and being downed at the 1. A kick or punt return for a touchdown certainly requires skill, but when the kick return (or missed field goal or anything else) occurs means everything.

A kick return when a team is already ahead by 20 points doesn't mean much, but when a team is behind by 3 in the 4th quarter, it means the game. Teams and players can't control when those events occur, or else they'd save them up for when they matter most. So in a very substantial way, they are luck, at least when it comes to deciding game outcomes. (For a more thorough discussion, see this essay on NFL luck.)

Lucky and Unlucky Teams

So far this year, the luckiest teams are the Jets, Patriots, Titans, Bills, Broncos and Vikings. Basically, these teams have 2 or more wins more than their stats suggest they should have.

On the other side of the coin are the Packers, the Chargers, the Saints, and the Chiefs. Of particular interest are the Lions, who are on the verge of the first 0-16 season. Normally, a team with their stats would have won a game or two by now.

One interesting thing about this analysis is that Miami's turnaround isn't so miraculous as it seems. Despite their 1-15 season in 2007, their stats indicated they normally would have won about 5 or 6 games, but were unlucky in the extreme. I think their improvement this year is real and substantial, but not as drastic as their record indicates. According to their stats they should be a 9- or 10-win team this year, which would be a 4 or 5 game improvement rather than a 9 game improvement.

The Falcons showed the same pattern, but to a lesser degree. Although they notched only 4 wins, they "should" have won 6. That shouldn't take anything away from their comeback this year, though. In 2008, they continue to be one of the more unlucky teams.

The Charmed One

Looking back at 2007's luckiest/unluckiest teams, one thing stood out as most remarkable. Last year Green Bay was the #1 luckiest team while the Jets were near the bottom at #31. But this year the Packers are the least lucky team while the Jets are the luckiest. So what changed? According some minor media reports, I vaguely recall an obscure quarterback was traded from the Packers to the Jets...

"Ahah!" my brother-in-law and noted Favre lover is saying right now. Your model's residual doesn't measure luck. It measures Favre-ness. You know, that intangible mumbo-jumbo that John Madden blathers on about every other Sunday night.

But my model does include passing, interceptions, and sacks. What it doesn't include are things like J.P. Losman fumbling on a 2nd and 5 on his own 16-yard line with a 3-point lead and less than 2 minutes remaining...which was instantly returned for a game-winning touchdown. If you can make a case that Brett somehow intangibled his way to that win, then I'll gladly stand corrected.


The Full List

RANK	TEAM	GWP	Curr W	Exp W	Luck
1	NYJ	0.42	9	6.0	+3.0
2	NE	0.45	9	6.5	+2.5
3	TEN	0.68	12	9.7	+2.3
4	BUF	0.27	6	4.0	+2.0
5	DEN	0.42	8	6.0	+2.0
6	MIN	0.49	9	7.1	+1.9
7	NYG	0.66	11	9.4	+1.6
8	DAL	0.54	9	7.8	+1.2
9	SF	0.26	5	3.8	+1.2
10	ARI	0.48	8	6.9	+1.1
11	IND	0.63	10	9.0	+1.0
12	CAR	0.72	11	10.2	+0.8
13	MIA	0.59	9	8.4	+0.6
14	PIT	0.74	11	10.5	+0.5
15	HOU	0.47	7	6.7	+0.3
16	STL	0.12	2	1.8	+0.2
17	SEA	0.24	3	3.5	-0.5
18	BAL	0.68	9	9.6	-0.6
19	TB	0.68	9	9.7	-0.7
20	JAX	0.40	5	5.7	-0.7
21	OAK	0.26	3	3.8	-0.8
22	CHI	0.62	8	8.8	-0.8
23	CIN	0.24	2.5	3.5	-1.0
24	ATL	0.72	9	10.2	-1.2
25	CLE	0.37	4	5.3	-1.3
26	WAS	0.59	7	8.4	-1.4
27	PHI	0.71	8.5	10.1	-1.6
28	DET	0.11	0	1.7	-1.7
29	KC	0.27	2	4.0	-2.0
30	NO	0.65	7	9.3	-2.3
31	SD	0.60	6	8.5	-2.5
32	GB	0.55	5	7.9	-2.9