Do Preseason Records Matter?As we approach the start of preseason games, you often find different reactions from NFL handicappers to the exhibition matchups. Some players are drooling at the thought of having real NFL lines to bet into (whether from a sheer love of the action or from having particular approaches geared to preseason betting), while others roll their eyes and wait for the real season to begin.Regardless of which camp you fall into, maybe you should pay attention to the preseason results if they can be very helpful in predicting how certain teams will do in the regular season. The fundamental question is simply do the preseason won-lost records have any bearing on how a team performs for real? The answer might be yes! For example when we looked at this subject back in the (see '03 Preseason Notes), the two top teams we mentioned as “looking good” for the 2003 season based on the preseason results were New England and Carolina…who ended up being the two Super Bowl teams! As Adam Sandler sings, not too shabby! Our data sample now covers the seasons from 1997 to 2007 (an eleven-year span) and we will begin by simply tracking all teams based on how many preseason wins they accrue:
First some explanation of the terms above: "Average Wins" reflects the average wins during the regular season, "Average Change" represents the difference in regular season wins this year compared to last year, and the three "Wins" categories show the number of teams reaching certain win levels. Can you detect the pattern in this table? More preseason wins = more regular season wins on average! Preseason results do seem to matter in that teams with three or more preseason victories are markedly better than teams with fewer wins, and the rare teams which go winless in preseason are indeed facing trouble in the regular season as well. On the other hand, if we limit the view to say the last four years, the pattern isn't quite so clear cut, with a break in the steady increase:
7.2 wins for 0 preseason wins The next logical progression for our research though is to break out the teams by their prior season performance, and we'll do that using our traditional "G-A-P" criteria where a Good team gets 10+ wins, an Average team gets 7 to 9 wins, and a Poor team has less than 7 wins.
The good prior-year teams end up winning over two games fewer the next season (the “nowhere to go but down” syndrome), but the number of preseason wins does not seem to be too important. In fact the optimal number seems to be 2 preseason victories, any more than that and the chance of another 10+ win season is reduced. Recently in fact a 3+ win preseason tally has been a definite negative.
A very strong division here -- prior season average teams that post three or more preseason wins have averaged over 9 wins and have hit the magic 10 win mark 48% of the time, while prior season average teams with less than two preseason wins have averaged 6.7 regular season victories and only made the 10+ level 21% of the time! At the same time 3+ preseason win teams have had bad regular seasons only 20% of the time, while fewer preseason wins has coincided with a tough year 50% of cases! So view this class as one where preseason records are mighty important!
There's only modest evidence that poor teams with good preseason records stand a better shot of being competitive in the regular season. What leads to the big turnaround for the sadsacks of the previous season is a subject deserving of its own article. From the above then we can conclude with the following:
To consider: Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington.
Looking Good: Detroit, Tampa Bay, Washington
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