Ranking Professional Football Team Performance

— Advantages —

Awarding up to two GPs for each half of a game would certainly improve strategy, competition and viewer and commercial interest.  For example:
  •  In a tight first half, the final minutes of play would take on the excitement of the last minutes of a close game since the teams would be competing for 2 GPs.
  •  In a game where one team is hopelessly behind in overall score, the closing minutes of the second half might still be interesting if the losing team can outscore the opponent in the second half, earning it 2 GPs.

An additional advantage of GPs is that overtime play to break tied-games would be unnecessary. Why force apparently evenly matched teams to roll the dice on a few extra plays, thus distorting the "win" column? Each team gets one GP

— Test Case —

Using the National Football League 2023 season as an example, Table 1 below shows the teams sorted by %Wins. There are several instances of teams having the same %Wins (shown in the table with identical colors). One way to deal with the ties is by using season Score Differences. For example, in Table 1, we see eight instances of tied %Wins. If we include the Score Difference criteria, the tied ranks are resolved. Only five teams own a individual %Win record (with no color).

— Application —

One way to minimize %Wins ties without relying on Score Differences is to Game Points (GPs) as explained above. Instead of a maximum of 17 possible wins, there would be use17 games times 6 possible GPs per game, or 102 poosible GPs scores... a much better measure to rank teams, minimizing ties. Table 2 below shows the ranking using GPs compared to Wins+Score Diff. Notice that Dallas has moved from second to fourth.

If there are teams with the same GP, then Score Differences can be used to break ties. In the Table 2 below we see three tied GPs ranks. If we add the Score Difference criteria, their rankings are resolved. In all there are three tied ranks using GPs compared to eight using just %Wins (as indicated by colored names), the worst case being 52.9% (9 wins 8 losses)

— Looking at Division Results —

If we realign Table 2 according to Division we see in Table 3 that the GP ranking compares quite well with the %Win column and also with the order found in the %Wins+Score Diff. column. The only difference is in the AFC-West where Denver and Las Vegas has switched places (seen in gray). In addiion, there are no tied GP scores within any of the Divisions as opposed to 5 tied %Wins. This close fit indicates that the GP system of looking at game halves has validity at the division level also.

I suggest that the National Football League, as well as sports statisticians and sports writers, consider posting Game Points on a trial basis for a couple of years and see if it has any validity in sorting out how teams should be ranked. Afterall, sports fans love statistics.

(Also see National Football League Standings History.)

Note: Game Points were derived from team scores by quarter from The Football Database.