Tuesday, December 8, 2015

NFL 2015: Which Team is the "Best"?

Suppose every team was to play every other team once.  Which team would have the most wins and could thus claim to be the "best" NFL team in 2015? 

Using the most recent data available (so every team as it currently is), I created a matchup of every team against every other team and predicted the outcome.  Whichever of the two teams playing had the highest probability of winning, I gave it a win.  This was done with every team playing every team once (including itself, which counts automatically as a win).  Since there are 32 teams, each team "played" 32 games. 

Which team is the "best"? The tops 5 are:

1. Patriots
2. Steelers
3. Bengals
4. Panthers
5. Seahawks

Which team is the "worst"?  The worst 5 are:

32. Rams
31. Browns
30. Redskins
29. 49ers
28. Raiders


Obviously, this is not what would actually happen, just what is most likely to happen according to my model.  So the Patriots could claim to be the "best" team.  Whether that actually plays out in winning the Superbowl is, however, another matter.

Here are the full results:

Rank
Team
Wins
Losses
1
Patriots
32
0
2
Steelers
31
1
3
Bengals
30
2
4
Panthers
29
3
5
Seahawks
28
4
6
Vikings
27
5
7
Broncos
25
7
8
Packers
24
8
9
Chiefs
23
9
9
Lions
23
9
11
Giants
22
10
12
Cardinals
21
11
13
Falcons
20
12
13
Ravens
20
12
15
Cowboys
19
13
16
Bills
17
15
17
Texans
15
17
18
Jaguars
14
18
18
Titans
14
18
20
Colts
13
19
20
Dolphins
13
19
22
Buccaneers
12
20
23
Bears
9
23
23
Chargers
9
23
23
Eagles
9
23
26
Jets
8
24
27
Saints
7
25
28
Raiders
5
27
29
49ers
4
28
30
Redskins
3
29
31
Browns
2
30
32
Rams
1
31

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