Early Season Success

NFL Teams that Start the Season Strong

The NFL season is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. However, starting the season strong is necessary to have success. Preseason preparation plays a large part in having early season success. When the Detroit Lions were on HBO’s Hard Knocks, HC Campbell was seen telling his team they were going full impact early in camp. His reason, if we don’t do it now, you won’t be ready for the season. No Surprise the Lions made the list of fast starters.

For this analysis, I plotted the year over year season results by week. This type of analysis is typically completed when looking at seasonality in sales, however, it can also be used to see which teams coaches are better at having them ready to play in the first quarter of the season.

Game Results

The first 3 teams are Baltimore, Buffalo and Detroit. These teams have different levels of success to start the season, but all are solid in the opening 4 weeks. Baltimore is almost a sure thing to win in week 1 before playing a pair of toss up games in weeks 2 and 3. The Ravens are also solid in week 4. Buffalo is the opposite of that, with coin flip results in weeks 1 and 4, but dominating performances in weeks 2 and 3. The charts show the improvement of Detroit early in the season after Campbells arrival. The last 2-seasons have seen the Lions have strong performances in weeks 1, 3 and 4. I wonder if they will have same success with new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

When looking at the other 7 teams, there is 1 whose performance jumps off the page, and that is Kansas City. It’s not a surprise they are contending for the AFC West and the Super Bowl each year. They are ready to play come week 1, and while everyone else is still getting ready, they are making adjustments to improve performance. San Francisco is next team that stands out. The 49ers are consistently ready at the start of the season

Minnesota and Green Bay both have every other performance. The Vikings are strong in weeks 1 and 3 but play coin flips in weeks 2 and 4. The Packers are the opposite, close games in weeks 1 and 3 but strong performances in weeks 2 and 4.

The Philadelphia Eagles are solid in week 1, but then are coin flips in weeks 2-4. Seattle is the opposite. the Seahawks have close coin flips in weeks 1-3, but dominate week 4 regularly. Finally, the surprise team, at least to me, was Tampa Bay. It looks like Tom Brady helped turn around preseason preparation in his short stay with the Buccaneers. The last 4 seasons have season Tampa Bay put in solid performances in weeks 1, 2 and 4 and coin flip games just not going there way in week 3.

ATS Results

Of course, it’s not always about winning, covering the spread is the most important thing. Which teams are better at covering the spread to start the season? All but 1 are from the list above, but joining the ATS winners is the LA Rams.

Baltimore and Buffalo follow the same patterns as the win results. Baltimore a sure thing to cover in week 1, while Buffalo crushes the number in weeks 2 and 3. Kansas City also follows a similar week 1 result, but aren’t as good as covering the number in weeks 2 or 3. That’s probably because they dominate week 1 so much they get heavily adjusted heading into week 2 knowing the public will still bet on them. Keep that in mind if you want to lay the chalk with Kansas City in week 2 this season.

The Packers struggle in week 1, but then bounce back for covers in weeks 2 and 3 before being hit with adjustments in week 4. The Rams are good at covering the week 1 line, but then struggle after adjustments are made heading into week 2. Finally, the surprise team, Tampa Bay. They regularly cover in weeks 1 and 2, and then the bandwagon gets full, lines are adjusted and they struggle in week 3 before coin flip in week 4.