Yesterday I saw a post showing the average winning percentage of opponents defeated, and Carolina was on top of the list because they beat a 6-4 team for their ONE win. Obviously, and hopefully, the post was made tongue-in-cheek, but it did have me wanting to look at the data differently, so I decided to build on that and show total wins for opponents each team has defeated. I don’t know that this adds much different than regular schedule strength stats, or avg DVOA of opponent, but I just wanted to try a different view. For lack of a better team, let’s call it WDs (Wins Defeated).
I’ll use Dallas and Baltimore as an example to illustrate the metric. Both teams are 8-3, but the quality of their wins are strikingly different.
In Dallas’ eight wins this year, their opponents have a .297 winning percentage, the equivalent of a 5-12 team over a full season. Here are the YTD records of the opponents they beat:
- 3-8
- 4-6
- 2-8
- 4-6
- 4-6
- 3-8
- 1-9
- 4-8
In Baltimore’s eight wins this year, their opponents have a .508 winning percentage, almost the equivalent of a 9-8 team over a full season. Here are the YTD records of the opponents they beat:
- 6-4
- 5-5
- 7-3
- 3-7
- 8-3
- 2-9
- 6-5
- 5-5
One small issue which I didn’t adjust for is that some teams haven’t had their bye yet, so not every team has played the same number of games. I could aggregate winning percentage, which would be more accurate, but would be a weird stat to digest. I kept it basic and just added wins. The point is simply to combine win volume with strength of wins.
In the chart below, the data is color coded by number of wins for each team, in case you want to compare against teams with the same record.
What stands out?
How about 7-3 Miami with only 22 WDs, while the other 7-3 teams have between 34 and 37 WDs.
At 4-6 the Jets have the 17 moat WDs by virtue of two of their wins coming against the Eagles and Bills. They lead all 4-win teams and are ahead of three 5-win teams.
Like I said, I don’t know that it’s any better than other schedule strength stats, just trying something different, although it’s probably been done by others as well. Hope you enjoy!
Stefanski and Gym Shorts have done some fantastic stuff with the Browns this year