Quick Hits: 2022 NFL win totals and championship expectations
By: Stephan Teodosescu
It's almost fall and that means football is back. More than seven months removed from the Los Angeles Rams' Super Bowl victory in February, they kicked off this season with a Thursday night home opener at SoFi Stadium this week, which they lost to the Buffalo Bills 31-10.
I'm sure the NFL schedulers knew what they were doing pitting last year's champs against what is widely considered to be a top contender for this year's Vince Lombardi trophy in the Bills. According to oddsmakers, the Bills are slated to win 11.5 games1, tied for tops in the league alongside ageless Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs, for their part, dispatched the Cowboys 19-3 on Sunday Night Football to wrap up the Week 1 slate of games.
While the Bills and Bucs are expected to be the class of the NFL heading into the regular season, the Los Angeles Chargers, aforementioned Rams, Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens are expected to win double digit games as well this season.
On the flip side are the Atlanta Falcons and Houston Texans, both of whom lost in Week 1. They would surprise many if they won more than five games this season.
The teams expected to improve most over last season are those that struggled the most in 2021. The New York Giants, Jacksonville Jaguars, Detroit Lions and Broncos are all slated to win more than three games above their win total from last year.
Of the already upper echelon squads that made the playoffs last year, the Bills, Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles are all expected to have their win totals trend positively in 2022.
Overall, the Bills and Bucs are the two teams with the highest chance to come out of the AFC and NFC, respectively, to battle for the Super Bowl come February. When averaging bookmakers' and Pro Football Focus' season projections there's about a six percent chance we'd see that matchup, as the implied odds of each of those teams winning their conference are about 23 percent.
Buffalo has around a 10 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, according to FiveThirtyEight, and 12 percent according to PFF's rankings. PFF has Tampa Bay as the most likely Super Bowl champ giving the Bucs a 14 percent chance to win it all this season.
One interesting thought experiment analytically-minded folks like to play with is identifying whether the Super Bowl winner will come from either the top few teams or from "the field" that makes up the teams behind them. In the AFC, the Bills, Chiefs and Bengals make up around 50 percent of the composite championship odds, while the Buccaneers, Packers and Rams comprise a little more than 55 percent of the odds in the NFC.
To dive into more of these similar types of questions and answers, I've revamped my NFL Analytics website for the 2022 season. Check it out if you're interested in NFL advanced stats and data visualizations to help tell the story of the upcoming NFL season.
In sports betting having a total with half a win (0.5) ensures no ties -- or a push -- because teams cannot win half of a game (obviously).
Data and code for the above graphics can be found on my Github.