Mid-Season Pythagorean Goodness

Every team has played at least 8 games. You know what that means! Time to criticize the Je..., er, breakdown mid-season Pythagorean Win Expectancy. You've heard the spiel by now: point differential is a better indicator of future success than previous won-loss record, blah blah blah. If you need a refresher, check out my post from Madden 16.

Pythagorean Win Expectency

You might be surprised to see the Rams with the best Pythagorean Win Expectancy, but this is heavily influenced by the 51-7 drubbing of the Seahawks in week 9. If there is one flaw in Pythagorean Win Expectation, it's that it does not take into account consistency, so outliers can potentially skew a team's expectancy.

The biggest surprise is the 5-3 Eagles having the 5th best win expectancy. Especially considering many believe the Super Bowl champs are having a down year. I was certainly one that thought they would take a step back with all of the departures in the off season, but don't be surprised if the Eagles win this division again.

On the flip side, the Cowboys have the worst win expectancy of teams with just a single loss. Getting Jameis Winston will likely help bolster the team, but the Eagles getting Perriman was arguably a bigger coup. None the less, this will be a fun division race to watch with the Giants right in the mix as well.

It appears the Packers, Bills, and Jaguars are all the real deal. Because these teams have not shown sustained success, many questioned how good they really were. With all 3 being in the top 7 in win expectancy, I expect each to finish strong and make it to the playoffs.

Opponents Adjusted Pythagorean Win Expectancy

My favorite proprietary statistic is Opponents Adjusted Pythagorean Win Expectancy. This adds up all of a team’s opponents’ Pythagorean Win Expectancy (scoring margin), minus games played against that team, to show how hard a schedule truly was. Scoring margin is a better indicator of team ability than record because close game are fluky, the best teams blow out their opponents, and the worst teams get blown out.

The reason I remove games played against the team I'm calculating for so that teams that are particularly bad or good, do not influence the win expectancy of their opponents. For example, the Browns opponents would have a deflated Win Expectancy because the Browns beat so many of their opponent’s handily. By removing games played against the Browns, this tells how hard their schedule is independent of playing the Browns. This allows it to be compared across the league.

The Easiest schedule in the league (so far, this does not take into account future games) belongs to the Arizona Cardinals. I was big on the Cardinals coming into the season, in part because the schedule was favorable. To be 5-3 with the easiest schedule in the league may not be enough to get into the playoffs. With games against the Jaguars, Colts, and Rams (x2) coming up, they will need to play better to secure their first playoff appearance in 3 seasons.

Now let's show the Cowboys some love. They are the only one loss team to not have a top 6 easiest schedule. Having a harder than average schedule (17th) explains some of why their win expectancy isn't quite as impressive as the other 3 teams (Packers - 2nd easiest schedule, Browns - 3rd, and Bills - 6th).

Let's all give a round of applause for the Redskins, who own the league’s hardest schedule and still have found a way to win more than half their games. The Redskins have had a hard time putting things together on the field even though they have perennially done an excellent job building the team. It’s great to see them have some success. I hope it continues.

Along those same lines, the Jets, Giants, and Rams have all won 6 games while having top 8 most difficult schedules. This is not too surprising considering these teams have each had just one losing record this entire cycle. All 3 are in the top 5 for win percent in Madden 17. In a year that has seen unprecedented parity, it's nice to see a few top notch teams continue to succeed.

Pythagorean Win Expectation Difference (luck)

I already mentioned the Cowboys, but another reason why the Eagles may be poised to take control of the NFC East is because the Giants have also outplayed their Win Expectation by more than a game. In fact, the Eagles are the only team in the East to have underperformed so far. I don’t expect that to continue.

All 4 teams with just 1 loss have been somewhat lucky according to their scoring margin. This bares out in watching the games too. The Browns hung on to win a close game against the Colts recently, and the Bills have won 2 games that looked like they had lost, to the Ravens and Patriots.

The only 2 teams to have a winning record and be in the bottom half of the league in luck are the Eagle (25th) and Rams (26th). It’s not surprising that the NFC representatives of last 3 Super Bowls (and last 2 winners) have been able to stave off some bad luck and continue to win regardless.

For the second season in a row, the Raiders have started off terrible in large part to their inability to win close games. This is why they have been the league’s most unlucky team so far. I predicted the Raiders to win the division in part because I didn’t think they would be as unlucky this season... I was wrong.

A team I predicted to take a step back this year was the New Orleans Saints. They were lucky last season and this season the schedule got much harder and their luck as flipped. Sitting at 3-5 in the NFC South, they are far from out of it, but the decline was predictable.