NFL 2014 win totals in review

In my preseason win totals post I noticed that an extra 6.5 wins had been inserted into the preseason NFL win totals lines. Now that the regular season has ended we can look at this a bit more.

more winners than you might expect

despite the burden of 6.5 wins in the aggregate winlines, 18 of 32 teams came in over. 13 teams were under. Only one team, Miami, was right on its number.

more bad teams
in the preseason winlines only two teams were projected to win fewer than 6 games. Jacksonville and Oakland were both 5.

on the field 7 teams finished 5-11 or worse in 2014.

more skew on bad teams
looking at variance between the winline and the actual results, there was a fat tail of teams that performed well under expectation, the "wheels came off". in general it's easier to lose than to win and if a team gets into disarray then things can go really bad.

on the winning side only 2 teams were 3 or more above expectation

Team	Winline	2014 Record	Diff
Arizona Cardinals	7.5	11-5	+3.5
Dallas Cowboys	7.5	12-4	+4.5

while on the losing side 6 teams were 3 or more below expectation

Team	Winline	2014 Record	Diff
Chicago Bears	8.5	5-11	-3.5
New Orleans Saints	10	7-9	-3
New York Jets	7	4-12	-3
Tampa Bay Bucs	7	2-14	-5
Tennessee Titans	7	2-14	-5
Washington Redskins	7.5	4-12	-3.5

so that's where the extra 6.5 wins went. it was quickly absorbed by teams that were well under expectation

thinking about 2015

originally I thought there may be value in going with unders. as it turned out in 2014 only 13 of 32 teams hit the under.

for 2015 a strategy might be to look for bad teams, those likely to go 5-11 or worse. but I suspect this can be tough. it may not easy to tell when the wheels are about to fall off on a franchise. perhaps the best than can be done is to make a blanket play and take the under on teams with an opening winline of less than 6. that combined with some analysis of teams that may be ready to tank that are priced favourably.

meh I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I may leave off team totals and try to focus on getting more and better weekly game picks in.