Continued...
So lets also look at "Strength of Victory"
This is a stat that allows a simple breakdown of tge quality of a teams wins.
The gist is that you take the total number of wins from all the opponents a team beat, then divide that number by the total wins for that team, then divide that number by 17 ( the total number of games tge team played that year)
So if a team beat 5 other teams that season, and those five teams won a total of 25 games, the SOV would be 25/5 =5 .... 5/17 = .294
Now lets say another team also won 5 games, but those opponents they beat won a total of 50 games... that SOV would be 50/5 = 10..... 10/17=.588
Both teams won 5 games, but team two beat a better quality of team... so if you have a team that is beating up on scrub teams on the schedule, but losing to good ones, it is reflected in the SOV..
So lets look at an example from this year
5 teams finished with an 11-6 record.
Cleveland, Philly, Miami, Buffalo and KC
(The SOVs and total wins for beaten opponents)
Cleveland - (.513 - 96)
Philly -(.476 - 89)
Buffalo -(.471 - 88)
KC - (.428 - 80)
Miami(.358 -67)
So these 5 teams had 3 division winners in them, however Clevelands resume is far more accomplished for beating better teams..
Miami, on the other hand, has the fourth worst SOV in the league... they have fattened up on crappy teams and really haven't beaten good teams to compensate.
Getting a SOV over .500 and having a winning record is pretty difficult to do. Often a high SOV happens when a bad team with very few wins beats a couple really good teams and it inflates their SOV unnaturally high.. consistently beating good teams is a rare trait in the NFL... most teams that face a barrage of above average opponents lose a ton and dont finish over .500...
For instance this year only 7 teams had a SOV at .500 or higher...
One was Carolina... they only beat two teams... those two teams won a total of 17 games... so they hit .500 on the nose...
Another was New England. They only won 4 games. 2 were vs mediocre teams ( tge jets and Broncos... but the other two were vs playoff teams ( bills and steelers) this bumped the SOV to .529. Which is good enough to tie Baltimore for 4th in the league
And the best case is Arizona.. they led the league with a .588 SOV... they won 4 games, but three of those 4 games were playoff-bound, double digit victory teams...
now all that proves is that of the 4 win teams, the Cards were probable the best... but its far harder to maintain a high SOV with a high win total...
Which brings me to the AFC north
All 4 teams had a SOV over .500...
Arizona was tops at (.588 - 40) 4 wins,
the Steelers were 2nd at (.571 -97) 10 wins
Cinci was third at (.536 -82) 9 wins
Balimore (.529 - 117) tied for 4th with
New england (.529 -36) but the rats had a far more impressive stat line...
cleveland rounded out the top 5 at (.513 - 96)
What all this means is that the AFC north had 4 winning teams. That played the toughest schedules in the NFL and had the best quality wins.. you may never see results like this again in our lifetime...
