Bobbyjim45's Win Predictions and Team Rankings (Week 7)

by Bobbyjim45

I was blessed with a gift on Thursday... the gift of free time.  I had my wisdom teeth out and rather than work on college applications, which I have to get done in the next couple months, I decided to instead screw around with NFL team stats.  I started with a pretty crappy rating system, and I realized there were a lot of flaws in it, so I turned to, who else, but D21W, AGM's resident statistician for a little guidance.  He pushed me in the right direction, and after much tedious number crunching and fancy Excel work, I came up with a nice little stat.  I got "Bobbyjim45's Predicted Wins".  Basically, I used numbers from the past three seasons (2004, 2005, 2006) to determine a way to predict how many games a team will win based on Point Differential, Yardage Differential, and Turnover Margain.  I figured out that wins were derived from about 48% points, 24% yards, and 28% TO.  Those were really the only stats that had any major correlation to winnning games, with points obviously being the biggest factor, as that is the only statistic that shows up on the scoreboard.

Here is the formula I made up, using linear regression, to show predicted wins:

( (Pts+226.04)/28.255 ) * .48

+

( (Yds+1240.7)/155.1 ) * .24

+

( (TO+18.145)/2.2681 ) *.28

Then, before I could make my predictions for this season, I had to project each teams stats for the whole 2007 season.  I did this in a pretty crude manner, by simply taking each statistic and multiplying it by 16/6 for teams that have played 6 games and 16/7 for teams that have played 7 games.  Maybe not the most flawless method, but it worked the same.

So here are the stats I used and the win projections that came out.  Of course, I'm not saying that the Patriots are going to win 20 games this year, but simply that using their stats, when compared to stats other teams have put up over the past 3 years, they have enough there to cover them for 20 wins.  No team in the past three years has scored over 15 projected wins by the end of the year, so this is just a testament to how amazing this season has been for New England and Indy.

Team 	Wins	Games	Off Pts	Def Pts	Pt. Diff.	Off P Yds	Off R Yds	T Off Yds	Def P Yds	Def R Yds	T Def Yds	Yds Diff	Take	Give	TO Diff	Proj. Wins
NE	7	7	279	120	159	2096	934	3030	1275	649	1924	1106	14	6	8	20.35
Ind	6	6	193	95	98	1547	851	2398	973	644	1617	781	13	4	9	18.64
Pit	4	6	160	78	82	1184	954	2138	1049	453	1502	636	11	8	3	15.33
Dal	6	7	227	158	69	1901	913	2814	1462	609	2071	743	14	13	1	13.59
Sea	4	7	137	108	29	1626	648	2274	1489	752	2241	33	16	9	7	11.21
Was	4	6	122	88	34	1139	688	1827	1177	484	1661	166	11	9	2	10.87
NYG	5	7	187	149	38	1521	913	2434	1442	682	2124	310	13	13	0	10.56
Ten	4	6	132	108	24	1071	864	1935	1382	358	1740	195	16	15	1	10.22
Bal	4	7	124	119	5	1517	770	2287	1373	503	1876	411	14	12	2	10.2
SD	3	6	137	119	18	1252	755	2007	1438	507	1945	62	14	11	3	10.06
Phi	2	6	116	101	15	1318	778	2096	1321	528	1849	247	8	7	1	10.03
GB	5	6	142	107	35	1642	394	2036	1342	601	1943	93	12	12	0	9.98
Car	4	6	123	110	13	1109	795	1904	1327	660	1987	-83	13	8	5	9.9
TB	4	7	124	110	14	1485	719	2204	1299	863	2162	42	12	8	4	9.82
Jac	4	6	107	87	20	1111	891	2002	1285	623	1908	94	10	9	1	9.62
Min	2	6	115	114	1	911	982	1893	1695	459	2154	-261	16	10	6	8.95
KC	4	7	102	113	-11	1481	575	2056	1380	761	2141	-85	15	13	2	7.84
Ari	3	7	147	157	-10	1637	722	2359	1369	759	2128	231	9	16	-7	6.45
Hou	3	7	169	174	-5	1859	529	2388	1546	856	2402	-14	13	18	-5	6.34
Cin	2	6	164	187	-23	1642	588	2230	1495	813	2308	-78	14	15	-1	6.3
Atl	1	7	95	153	-58	1439	636	2075	1542	885	2427	-352	12	7	5	5.91
Det	4	6	140	171	-31	1458	513	1971	1616	699	2315	-344	16	14	2	5.83
Oak	2	6	126	140	-14	1031	875	1906	1225	850	2075	-169	10	14	-4	5.36
Cle	3	6	167	183	-16	1436	691	2127	1581	897	2478	-351	10	14	-4	4.5
Den	3	6	106	164	-58	1366	784	2150	988	1057	2045	105	9	13	-4	4.5
Chi	3	7	137	165	-28	1544	568	2112	1574	928	2502	-390	12	19	-7	3.56
Buf	2	6	84	132	-48	781	594	1375	1620	795	2415	-1040	12	7	5	3.18
NYJ	1	7	136	192	-56	1393	627	2020	1678	966	2644	-624	7	10	-3	2.77
Mia	0	7	156	231	-75	1526	806	2332	1461	1095	2556	-224	7	14	-7	2.37
NO	2	6	101	152	-51	1366	540	1906	1464	604	2068	-162	5	14	-9	2.06
SF	2	6	78	135	-57	750	533	1283	1207	761	1968	-685	8	12	-4	1.27
StL	0	7	79	192	-113	1344	578	1922	1408	907	2315	-393	11	23	-12	-1.16

At this point, I'm not sure how reliable these predictions are because I don't think a 6-7 game sample size is quite enough. Over the past three years, the 2004 Colts had the highest predicted win total with just over 14. Now we have 3 teams over 15. I think that there are too many factors like SOS and outlier games, such as Philly scoring 56 points against Detroit, that need to be worked out before this can be a truly accurate predictor of number of wins. For now, though, I think it's a good way to rank the teams and see who's the best.

If you have any questions or comments, or you'd like to learn more about my predicted wins, leave me a message or send an email. I'm also making all of my picks this week using these rankings, so I'll let you know how that goes next week along with some new and improved stats.