September 2, 2014 - by Tom Federico
With the NFL season kicking off Thursday in Seattle, here is our annual post outlining our NFL preseason ratings, with season projections added for good measure, for every NFL team in 2014-15. Below the data table is more information on how we rank and project teams.
(By the way, if you’re playing in an NFL office pool this year, don’t forget to check out our 2014 NFL pick’em pool picks and NFL survivor pool picks.)
When we make comparisons to Vegas below, we are using Chase Stuart’s implied Vegas SRS Ratings as the basis for comparison. Those rankings are based on preseason lines that are several months old now, but they should still be close enough for our basic purposes here.
TR Rank | Vegas | Team | TR Rating | Wins | Losses | Playoffs | Division | Super Bowl |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | Denver Broncos | 7.65 | 11.4 | 4.6 | 84% | 70% | 17.0% |
2 | 1 | Seattle Seahawks | 7.27 | 10.8 | 5.2 | 71% | 46% | 13.4% |
3 | 3 | San Francisco 49ers | 6.58 | 10.5 | 5.5 | 67% | 39% | 10.4% |
4 | 5 | New England Patriots | 5.41 | 10.8 | 5.2 | 79% | 66% | 11.1% |
5 | 6 | New Orleans Saints | 4.18 | 9.8 | 6.2 | 59% | 44% | 6.1% |
6 | 4 | Green Bay Packers | 3.54 | 9.6 | 6.4 | 58% | 46% | 5.2% |
7 | 10 | Cincinnati Bengals | 2.90 | 9.3 | 6.7 | 55% | 37% | 4.5% |
8 | 7 | Carolina Panthers | 2.67 | 9.0 | 7.0 | 48% | 34% | 3.9% |
9 | 19 | New York Giants | 1.68 | 8.9 | 7.1 | 50% | 40% | 3.2% |
10 | 20 | San Diego Chargers | 1.24 | 8.6 | 7.4 | 44% | 21% | 2.7% |
11 | 18 | Arizona Cardinals | 0.94 | 7.8 | 8.2 | 27% | 10% | 1.6% |
12 | 11 | Indianapolis Colts | 0.91 | 8.7 | 7.3 | 50% | 37% | 2.7% |
13 | 17 | Baltimore Ravens | 0.80 | 8.6 | 7.4 | 44% | 27% | 2.4% |
14 | 12 | Detroit Lions | 0.65 | 8.4 | 7.6 | 39% | 26% | 1.9% |
15 | 9 | Philadelphia Eagles | 0.38 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 35% | 26% | 1.8% |
16 | 21 | Houston Texans | 0.31 | 9.1 | 6.9 | 56% | 43% | 2.6% |
17 | 15 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 0.23 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 44% | 26% | 2.3% |
18 | 14 | Atlanta Falcons | -0.73 | 7.3 | 8.7 | 23% | 14% | 0.9% |
19 | 22 | Miami Dolphins | -0.99 | 8.1 | 7.9 | 37% | 19% | 1.5% |
20 | 16 | Dallas Cowboys | -1.20 | 7.4 | 8.6 | 27% | 19% | 1.0% |
21 | 25 | St. Louis Rams | -1.39 | 6.7 | 9.3 | 16% | 6% | 0.7% |
22 | 8 | Chicago Bears | -1.46 | 7.1 | 8.9 | 24% | 15% | 0.9% |
23 | 13 | Kansas City Chiefs | -1.98 | 6.9 | 9.1 | 20% | 8% | 0.6% |
24 | 23 | Washington Redskins | -2.36 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 22% | 15% | 0.6% |
25 | 29 | Minnesota Vikings | -2.60 | 6.8 | 9.2 | 19% | 12% | 0.5% |
26 | 30 | Tennessee Titans | -3.02 | 7.3 | 8.7 | 28% | 18% | 0.6% |
27 | 27 | Cleveland Browns | -3.18 | 6.9 | 9.1 | 21% | 10% | 0.5% |
28 | 24 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | -3.25 | 6.2 | 9.8 | 14% | 8% | 0.4% |
29 | 28 | Buffalo Bills | -3.60 | 6.5 | 9.5 | 18% | 8% | 0.4% |
30 | 26 | New York Jets | -4.21 | 6.1 | 9.9 | 14% | 6% | 0.3% |
31 | 31 | Oakland Raiders | -8.05 | 4.0 | 12.0 | 3% | 1% | 0.0% |
32 | 32 | Jacksonville Jaguars | -9.32 | 4.0 | 12.0 | 4% | 2% | 0.0% |
Our preseason process has two steps:
Thanks to randomness, every individual season simulation ends up looking differently. But once we run lots of simulations, the outcomes — such as the projected final win-loss record for each team — start to converge on the numbers that end up being our official 2014 preseason projections. The simulator is sophisticated, even accounting for the fact that our preseason rating for any given team may end up being wrong.
Unlike the vast majority of pre-season rankers out there, we do very little subjective evaluation of teams. This approach generally serves us well. Inevitably some years turn out better than others (occasionally for factors out of our control, like mid-season injuries to key players), but we’ve beaten Vegas at this game several times now, and we typically outpredict almost all of the NFL “experts” you see on TV.
Before you make a comment about where we’ve ranked your favorite team and call us a bunch of no good bleepety-bleeps, please keep a couple things in mind:
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