Archive for February 2010
Beyond the Rankings: More Analysis of the Best of the Decade Formula
After the big first day for my formula being unveiled to determine who the most successful franchise of the 2000′s was (and where the other 31 teams ranked), I’ve had the opportunity to revise numbers, compare results, and generally mull over the statistics that I gathered to put together the initial rankings in the first place.
Following that trend, I decided to analyze particular statistical trends among the 32 National Football League teams and try to see if there were any connections between these bits of data and the overall ranking for “Best of the 2000′s”. If you’re interested in seeing the numbers crunched and munched even further, read on.
A Comparison: The Pursuit of Perfection Best of Decade vs. USA Today’s Best of Decade
Interestingly, in the overnight hours USA Today’s NFL editors cobbled together a “Best of the Decade” Power Rankings for the NFL from 2000-2009. While taking into account regular season victories, playoff victories, and Super Bowl wins, there is also clearly some subjectivity involved in the rankings, which can be found here. In the interest of seeing how the formula I used to come up with my “Best of the Decade” list compared to what was put together by people who are actually getting paid to discuss football, here’s the comparison:
Best of the Decade in the NFL — A New Formula for Determining Success
Note: Thanks to Trey Wingo of ESPN, Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com, and the fans at SaintsReport.com’s Forum for getting the word out there about the research I’ve done, allowing me to receive feedback and improve the quality of the formulas used here. I truly believe that the numbers here are solid and help to quantify each franchise’s success in the NFL over the past decade.
With the close to another decade of play in the National Football League, there has been much conversation about just who the greatest teams and players of the 2000’s are. Much of this discussion, of course, involves personal opinions based on who a particular fan is rooting for. In the interest of presenting a quantifiable method of measuring the success of the 32 NFL franchises through the 00’s, an entirely new set of data was required.
One of the most oft-argued points when selecting the team of the 2000’s comes down to how much weight one places on regular season success versus postseason play. Those who support teams with Super Bowl success like the New England Patriots (Super Bowl XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX Champions) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (Super Bowl XL and XLIII Champions) lean towards an evaluation that heavily favors postseason results, while those who support teams with regular season success like the Indianapolis Colts point to their multiple 10+ win seasons as the measure of greatness.
The difficulty, then, was to concoct a scoring scheme that puts nearly-equal weight on both regular season and postseason results while simultaneously acknowledging that every NFL team’s goal at the beginning of the season is to become Super Bowl Champions.
