NFL analysis: Wins and Making the Playoffs

During the 2015 playoffs, there were two division leaders, the Washington Redskins, and the Houston Texans who went 9-7 (W-L) during the regular season. I did a little research, and I found out that if you go 9-7 you have a 60% chance of not making to the playoffs, much less be a division champion.

But then the New York Jets went 10-6, and didn’t make it to the playoffs. If a team goes 10-6, then there is an 82% chance that they make it to the playoffs. That means this season was an odd one, because the chance that two 9-7s are division leaders, and a 10-6 didn’t make the playoffs is less than 1%.

These probabilities are based off of results from the 2002-15 regular seasons. The reason I stopped the data at 2002 is because that was the year that the NFL expanded to 32 teams (Fun Fact: 2002 was the year where the Super Bowl was nicknamed the Pirate Bowl).

Below is a histogram about the distribution of wins in a season.

I think the high number of 8-8 seasons isn’t surprising, because it is the exact middle of the record possibilities. In fact, most of this data isn’t surprising to me, except the 3-13, and 14-2 seasons happened less often than they should have. In 2015, the Tennessee Titans were the worst team in the NFL, being 3-13, and in 2003, and 2004, the Patriots won both Super Bowls with a 14-2 record. These aren’t all of the examples, but some I remember.

Knowing the distribution of wins, how often do these teams make a specific position in the playoff? Find out below.

One really surprising thing about this data is that if you are 12-4, you have an 18% chance of being a wild card (5 or 6 seed in either conference). In 2008, the Indianapolis Colts were a #5 seed in the AFC,  being 12-4. Being a wild card, the Colts had to play on the road, and eventually lost to the San Diego Chargers. Another surprising thing is that if a team goes 7-9 25 times, on average that team will win the division once, and miss the playoffs 24 times. Also, you might notice all of the lines intersect at about 9.5 wins. So if a team has 9 or 10 wins, those teams will usually have the most uncertain situation of making the playoffs.

In doing this, I realize that luck can be a factor in getting to the playoffs. A 7-9 team can actually make the playoffs as a division leader, and an 11-5 team can completely miss the playoffs altogether.

Data source: pro-football-reference.com