Ranking Professional Football Team Performance

The teams in the National Football League (NFL) play 17 games during the season. Teams are ranked by the number of games won. But such a small sample of games can't really determine how good or bad teams are. Often teams end up with identical win-loss records. In such cases, other criteria are used to better determine team rankings. (See Football Power Index)

— Proposal —

To more accurately determine team ranking without such complex measures such as the Football Power Index, the league should use a method of Game Points or GPs. In 2023, only 40% of games won were by teams dominating both the first and second halves. In other words, most games had a loser outscoring the winner in one of the halves. So instead of letting the final score dictate who is the better team, why not break the game into its components where partial credit is due.

Let each game be divided into two halves. For each half, high score gets 2GPs. Tied score, each team gets 1GP. The team with the highest final score gets 2 more GPs. If the final score is a tie, each team gets 1 more GP. (In this way a tie game won't be won or lost due to a single lucky bounce of the football or by questional officiating.) Total GPs per game is 6.

Game outcome	First Half + Second Half	Final   Score	Total  GPs
Top score both halves and top score overall	2 + 2	2	6
Top score in one half  but tied score in other half	2 + 1 or 1 + 2	2	5
Top score in only one half  but top overall score	2 + 0 or 0 + 2	2	4
Tied score in halves and tied in overall score	1 + 1 or teams have identical scores in alternate halves	1	3
Top score in only one half  and bottom score overall	2 + 0 or 0 + 2	0	2
Tied score in one half and bottom score overall	1 + 0 or 0 + 1	0	1
Bottom score in each half  and bottom score overall	0 + 0	0	0

— Advantages —

Awarding up to two GPs for each half of a game would certainly improve strategy, competition and viewer and commercial interest.  For example:
  •  In a tight first half, the final minutes of play would take on the excitement of the last minutes of a close game since the teams would be competing for 2 GPs.
  •  In a game where one team is hopelessly behind in overall score, the closing minutes of the second half might still be interesting if the losing team can outscore the opponent in the second half, earning it 2 GPs.

An additional advantage of GPs is that overtime play to break tied-games would be unnecessary. Why force apparently evenly matched teams to roll the dice on a few extra plays, thus distorting the "win" column? Each team gets one GP

— Test Case —

Using the National Football League 2023 season as an example, Table 1 below shows the teams sorted by %Wins. There are several instances of teams having the same %Wins (shown in the table with identical colors). One way to deal with the ties is by using season Score Differences. For example, in Table 1, we see eight instances of tied %Wins. If we include the Score Difference criteria, the tied ranks are resolved. Only five teams own a individual %Win record (with no color).

— Application —

One way to minimize %Wins ties without relying on Score Differences is to Game Points (GPs) as explained above. Instead of a maximum of 17 possible wins, there would be use17 games times 6 possible GPs per game, or 102 poosible GPs scores... a much better measure to rank teams, minimizing ties. Table 2 below shows the ranking using GPs compared to Wins+Score Diff. Notice that Dallas has moved from second to fourth.

If there are teams with the same GP, then Score Differences can be used to break ties. In the Table 2 below we see three tied GPs ranks. If we add the Score Difference criteria, their rankings are resolved. In all there are three tied ranks using GPs compared to eight using just %Wins (as indicated by colored names), the worst case being 52.9% (9 wins 8 losses)

— Looking at Division Results —

If we realign Table 2 according to Division we see in Table 3 that the GP ranking compares quite well with the %Win column and also with the order found in the %Wins+Score Diff. column. The only difference is in the AFC-West where Denver and Las Vegas has switched places (seen in gray). In addiion, there are no tied GP scores within any of the Divisions as opposed to 5 tied %Wins. This close fit indicates that the GP system of looking at game halves has validity at the division level also.

I suggest that the National Football League, as well as sports statisticians and sports writers, consider posting Game Points on a trial basis for a couple of years and see if it has any validity in sorting out how teams should be ranked. Afterall, sports fans love statistics.

(Also see National Football League Standings History.)

Note: Game Points were derived from team scores by quarter from The Football Database.