Resilient teams

I had an idea about trying to quantify teams’ resilience and confidence.    So I looked at each team’s wins this season, and noted their largest deficit during the game, and then their winning margin.    (I didn’t include games where they never trailed.)

I assigned values to the deficits they overcame, depending on whether it was one, or two, or three scores.   1 point if they trailed by 8 or less, 2 points for overcoming a deficit of 9-16 points, and 3 points if they ever trailed the opponent by 17+ points.

The main purpose of this is to help with in-game or 2H wagers.    Some teams are more in the habit of overcoming deficits to win a game, compared to others, and may present a good value if they happen to get off to a slow start.

For example……if the Bills fall behind by 14 points, I might be inclined to back them, but probably not interested in putting something on the 49ers if they are down by 14, since they haven’t overcome a two score deficit all season.

NEP 12

BUF 12

JAX 11

PIT 9

HOU 8

LAC 8

CAR 9

CHI 9

LAR 8

SFO 7

PHI 6

GBY 6

First number is the largest deficit in a game

second number is winning margin

BUF

-14 +1

-7 +10

-3 +7

-5 +12

-7 +19

-11 +5

-21 +4

-7 +3

NEP

-5 +6

-6 +29

-4 +3

-3 +6

-7 +18

-4 +19

-7 +5

-7 +13

-10 +6

-11 +4

PIT

-9 +2

-3 +3

-7 +7

-3 +5

-3 +13

-7 +5

-10 +2

HOU

-19 +7

-6 +3

-6 +4

-3 +4

-1 +2

-4 +8

JAX

-3 +5

-14 +3

-6 +1

-3 +29

-4 +3

-3 +22

-3 +14

-10 +6

-7 +34

LAC

-7 +3

-4 +2

-7 +7

-3 +15

-3 +3

-10 +3

-7 +17

PHI

-7 +4

-3 +3

-19 +7

-3 +11

CHI

-8 +1

-8 +1

-7 +5

-10 +4

-3 +2

-7 +3

-10 +6 (vs packers)

GBY

-10 +4

-9 +10

-7 +7

-3 +17

CAR

-17 +3

-7 +3

-3 +3

-14 +3

-7 +3 (vs rams)

-7 +3

LAR

-6 +5

-3 +14

-7 +7

-3 +14

-7 +28

-10 +7

-4 +17

SFO

-3 +4

-3 +1

-3 +10

-7 +10

-1 +18

-7 +21

-7 +4

 nice info. definitely I can use them on some live wagers this weekend. 

@Biscuit

That Buffalo rallied from 21 points down and beat home team New England, AFC #1 team at the time, is quite remarkable to me. Bills can go deep in the playoffs if Allen and company play to that level as at Patriots.  

@Way2Good 

@Europa

 There was a time, 2 or 3 seasons ago, when BUF couldn’t overcome a 7 point deficit.    I forget the numbers, but it was something like, if they were behind in a game by 7+ points, their record was 1-9 SU over the course of a couple of seasons .  Based on that, I never considered them legit SB contenders.    This season, they’ve shown much more resilience, so now they I think they have a decent shot at reaching the SB.   That win @Pats probably gives them confidence that they can beat anyone, even if they’re way behind in a game.

The data above motivated me to look more closely at the eagles and packers, who have relatively few comeback wins.   The packers, especially, seem get out to early leads, then hold on to usually win games.   Here are their 1Q W/L margins this season

PACKERS 1Q results

+10 DET

+7. WAS

+3 @CLE

+7 @DAL

E. CIN

-3 @ARZ

+4 @PIT

E. CAR

E. PHI

-7  @NYG

+4 MIN

+3 @DET

E. CHI

+3 @DEN

E. @CHI

E. BAL

-3 @MIN

obviously that last game @minny isn’t worth consideration, because they didn’t care about winning, but otherwise they’ve been pretty successful in the first quarter.   Based on that my plays are

GBY 1Q ML -118

GBY 1Q -0.5 +136

Playoff team that are losing by more than -3 at the half are 4-59 SU and 12-49 against the pregame line.  

On the rare I occasion a comeback is possible but not to have more comebacks when the deficit is only -4 is remarkable. 

this is very interesting, thanks 

I wanted to take a closer look at this, but could only compile data from the last three season due to time constraints 

Below are playoff games from 2022-24 showing teams with a HT deficit and the final score margin

2024

LAC -4 -20

HOU

PIT -21 -14

BAL

DEN -3 -24

BUF

MIN -21 -18

LAR

WAS

TBY  E -3

GBY -10 -12

PHI

HOU -7 -9

KCC

BAL -11 -2

BUF

WAS

DET -10 -14

LAR -3 -6

PHI

BUF -5 -3

KCC

WAS -12 -32

PHI

KCC -24 -18

PHI

2023

CLE -10 -31

HOU

MIA -9 -19

KCC

GBY

DAL -20 -16

LAR -4 -1

DET

PIT -14 -14

BUF

PHI -7 -23

TBY

HOU  E -24

BAL

GBY -1 -3

SFO

TBY  E -8

DET

KCC -4 +3

BUF

KCC

BAL -10 -7

DET

SFO -17 +3

SFO

KCC -7 +3

2022

SEA

SFO -1 +18

LAC

JAX -20 +1

MIA -3 -3

BUF

NYG

MIN -3 -7

BAL

CIN -1 +7

DAL

TBY -18 -17

JAX -7 -7

KCC

NYG -28 -31

PHI

CIN

BUF -10 -17

DAL -3 -7

SFO

SFO -14 -24

PHI

CIN -7 -3

KCC

KCC -10 +3

PHI

Small sample size, but in the last 3 years of playoffs, teams losing at HT rallied to win 7 of 39 games played, only 18%

I don’t know how to do SDQL queries so I asked ChatGPT the following

In the last 5 years of regular season games what percentage of nfl teams who were losing at halftime rallied to win the game?

Historical & Analytical Context

• Historical analyses — which include regular season data over longer stretches — find that teams trailing at halftime win far less than half their games. One data slice suggested an average somewhere around league mean ~22% win rate when trailing at halftime across many seasons (often cited in analytics communities).

• Inferred Approximate League Average (Last 5 Years)

While exact aggregated league-wide percentages by year 2021–2025 aren’t directly published in one source, combining long-term trends and recent team-level metrics suggests:

• Rough estimate: Teams trailing at halftime in regular season games win the game at approximately ~25–35% of the time across the last five regular seasons.

Also notable, teams leading by 17+ at HT increased their lead only once in the 8 games when that happened

I tried to post my plays last night, as I usually do, but encountered a message BAD GATEWAY so I assumed the site was down temporarily.    But then I saw others had been creating posts, so I’m confused about why I couldn’t access the forum?

well, whatever.   The bears -1’ 2H was one of the easiest plays, ever.    As stated above, some teams are more resilient, and in the habit of coming from behind to win games.

same deal with the bills today.    If they happen to fall way behind, they’re probably a good bet to rally and win SU or at least make it a close game.  A play on the Pats is also worth considering if they happen to fall behind.   We’ll see what happens….

GLTA today