This is an interesting way to look at how well a team actually is. Essentially how many dominant victories vs how many lucky ones.Where a BIG WIN or LOSS is a final margin of 10 points or more & a SMALL WIN or LOSS are those with a final margin of 9 or less.
When you look at this you get a clearer picture of how any team got to their respective records. Did they outright dominate? Or were they just lucky or unlucky? Using this stat you can see who the truly strong teams are.
Teams that are able to consistently outscore opponents by significant margins should be considered to be very strong teams vs. teams that edge out wins by smaller margins. This strength is represented in the Big Win % statistic which measures the percentage of a teams games that are won by 10 or more points.
Additionally, a statistic that can indicate a larger degree of luckiness or unluckiness is the Small Win-Loss Differential which compares the number of small wins to small losses. Wins and losses in the 9 or less point range can be thought of as more random than big wins and losses and therefore a team with a large differential (either positive or negative) can be a sign that the team got lucky or unlucky in close games - something that is unlikely to repeat and can be a sign of a team that could regress.
Looking at last years final results we can see just who had the ball bounce their way and those that flat out couldn't be stopped .At least not very easily.
In 2016...
ATL had a BWP of 43.8% while posting 7 of these types of victories
NE had a BWP of 62.5% while posting 10 of these types of victories
Looking further down the line we can see that...
OAK had a BWP of 18.8%
OAK also had a Small W-L Differential of +7
they had 9 wins in that category & 2 losses.
Basically, OAK got lucky.
Looking at this while keeping in mind that any opponent is only as strong as the teams they beat you can really see the who's who of the league. All in all don't get too hyped about a team that got lucky or get down on a team that was unlucky.
On the "unlucky" end of things this angle show that the Chargers were kind of unlucky. They had 9 losses that were by 9 or fewer points. They may have finished 5-11 but that could easily have been 14-2. Well maybe not easily but you get the point.
Finally, the tag of a really really weak team can be handed to CLE quite easily. The Browns finished 1-15 and 10 of those losses were by 10 or more points.
This is just something to keep in mind when coming up with your week 1 opinions. Probably week 2 and 3 as well. Once teams have re-established themselves into the current season its best to look from this perspective based on the current season.
Well that's that. Hopefully this knowledge is beneficial to all of us who choose to use it. Time will tell.
Regardless of your opinion on this topic BOL this season & MTSBWY