Analyzing NFL One Score Game Performance
A football is an odd shape, and that causes the ball to bounce in unexpected ways. Sometimes the bounce is favorable, sometimes it’s devastating. A game winning kick as time expires hitting the upright. Will it go in? I like to refer to the way the ball bounces as luck, and some teams have it more than others. How do you measure luck? I like to look at 1-score game performance, and define 1-score games as those decided by 8 points or less.
The chart above shows that 1-score games are pretty common in the NFL with 6 of the past 8 season having more than 50% of the games settled by 1-score. While understanding how a team is doing in 1-score games throughout the season is good to know, it’s an even better predictor of the following seasons results. Luck is hard to capture year after year, and if you’re lucky one season their is a good chance you’re unlucky the next.
The above scatter plot chart shows each teams success in 1-score games against the win change between that season and the following season. The trend line shows the higher the 1-score win rate the prior season, the more the team losses the next season. Of course this isn’t true for every team, but more times than not if a team is lucky this year, they will lose more games next year. The opposite is also true, if a team is unlucky last year, they have a good chance at improving their record this season. To help understand overall impact, lets simplify the results and look at the 3 groups in table format.
Starting with the teams that experience being lucky and unlucky in the same season. The win change into the next season is almost non-existent. Only twice (2020 and 2021) was it close to have a 1-game improvement.
Teams that are lucky in the prior season, don’t have the same success. Most seasons the chance is at least 3 more losses, but a few times it has been only 1. The average win change is 2.5 more losses the following season.
On the other side, unlucky teams the prior season see a small uptick in wins the following season. The win increase isn’t as dramatic as the losses, but the win increase is more consistent from year to year. Expect unlucky teams to win 1-2 more games the next season.
Now that we have a basic understanding of what to expect from lucky and unlucky teams, lets take a look at how teams performed during the 2024-25 season.
The chart on the right shows each team and the number of wins from last season. The teams are grouped by luck classification: Going Down, Flat and Going Up.
At the top of the Going Down list is Detroit and Kansas City. Both of these teams will have added challenges in the 2025-26 season. Detroit lost both coordinators to head coaching jobs, and they took other talented coaches with them too. Campbell has done a good job of hiring replacements, but such a change in continuity, especially on offense could have an impact. Kansas City is coming off a Super Bowl loss, and will have to deal with the dreaded Super Bowl hangover.
The Vikings faltered a bit down the stretch, maybe giving a glimpse into this teams true potential, but massive investment during free agency might offset that. The Eagles won the Super Bowl so will have big target on their back. Both Washington and Seattle surprised teams last year with new head coaches. Of the 2, Washington’s offseason seems better suited to maintain performance since Seattle chose an offensive overhaul.
Looking at the bottom of the chart, we see the list of teams that are forecasted to have some improvement in 2025-26 season. However, based on the wide variance in win totals from 2024-25 season, I want to take a deeper look at how the number of wins impacts the results of 1-score forecasting. The below scatter plot shows all teams from the Going Up categories of prior seasons. It plots them by total wins against the change in wins to the following season.
As you can see, some teams that were unlucky in 1-score games but still managed to win a lot of games in that season, did not have the same luck increase the following season. This shows us that for the Going Up cluster, we should focus on teams with 7-wins or less the prior season. That helps dramatically in removing the noise of the top 4 teams.
Starting with San Francisco and going down, I would expect at least half of these teams to improve over last year. The 49ers suffered the Super Bowl loss hangover last year, along with lots of injuries to star players. They should bounce back and contend for NFC West title this year. Chicago has a new head coach that should be able to improve the offense. If he does, then that team could easily win more than 5 games this year. Jacksonville also has a new head coach that needs to turn around an offense, and if QB Lawrence gets going this year it could easily exceed last seasons 4 wins. New England is another team on the list with a new head coach that should see improvement also based on offseason investment.
On the other hand, the Saints have a new head coach and QB this year, so improvement on 5 wins from last year might be tough. The Jets have a new head coach and QB. I do expect some improvement, but not sure how much since the Jets are a complete rebuild, but fail to admit it. The Giants should see improved QB play with Wilson this year, but can the o-line block for him or get a run game going? Maybe a few more wins, but with that schedule it will be a tough season for the G-men. Finally the Titans, a new QB and improved offensive line should help get the offense going, but can they get to 5 or 6 wins?