NFL

Houston is definitely better as long as CJ MF Stroud continues his sorcery.

It seems most feel the cowboys are just right. Absolutely curb stomping the teams they should cover against (other than Arizona but the OL was in complete disarray) and shooting themselves in every toe against what is believed to be the upper weight class (eagles, 9ers). Kind of peaceful here ngl

Jets are worse and nobody will dispute that I think.

I mean, we are way worse. It's kind of a miracle we won three games and I wouldn't be surprised if we finished with three wins. The roster is incredibly shallow once a few guys got banged up and went down it practice squad caliber players wherever you look.

Somehow it feels like the Bills are both better and worse than their record

RAIDERS RAIDERS RAIDERS.

I hate this sort of question, because it seeks to delegitimize good play from good athletes.

The Steelers and Eagles come to mine for being worse. Philly is probably the most overrated team in the league right now.

These are the current Pythagorean records of all N.F.L. teams.

8—2: Ravens.

7—2: 49ers, Cowboys.

7—3: Bills.

6—3: Browns, Chiefs, Dolphins, Eagles.

6—4: Vikings.

5—4: Buccaneers, Chargers, Jaguars, Lions, Texans.

5—5: Colts, Saints.

4—5: Bengals, Jets, Packers, Rams, Seahawks, Steelers, Titans.

4—6: Bears, Commanders, Falcons, Raiders.

3—6: Broncos.

3—7: Cardinals.

2—7: Panthers.

2—8: Patriots.

1—9: Giants.

Better than record- Bengals Worse than record- Seahawks

I honestly don't think we are above average lucky, the Browns have definitely benefitted from more luck than we have especially from officiating

We can look at Pythagorean expectation, which predicts the expected number of wins based on points scored vs. points allowed at this point in the season. And then teams that are winning more games than they "should" based on points scored vs allowed are "worse than their record", and conversely teams that are winning fewer games than they should are "better than their record."

By 9 or 10 games played in the expansion era (since 2002), 62% of teams are within 1 win of their expected wins. About 87% are within 2 wins. This season, interestingly, 100% of teams are within 2 wins of expected, and 85% are within 1 win.

There is 1 team who is 2 wins below expected (better than their record):

• Buffalo Bills. Expected: 7-3. Actual: 5-5.

There are 4 team who are 2 wins above expected (worse than their record):

• Philadelphia Eagles. Expected: 6-3. Actual: 8-1.
• Detroit Lions. Expected: 5-4. Actual: 7-2
• Seattle Seahawks. Expected: 4-5. Actual: 6-3.
• Pittsburgh Steelers. Expected: 4-5. Actual: 6-3.

Now personally I'd argue that no team is really better or worse than their record, because a team that is getting significantly more wins than expected based on points probably has the benefit of skillful players and coaches who can figure out how to keep games close and exploit advantages to squeak out victories (e.g., the Steelers). And teams that are below expected conversely underperform in such situations by habitually making costly errors in close games (Bills). Also, it can be skewed by big blowout wins or losses which in some cases could be isolated "burn the tape" outlier games that don't really reflect a team's average performance (Lions and Seahawks vs. Ravens). So make of this what you will.

This 49ers team had absolutely no business losing to the PJ Walker lead Browns.

The Vikings and Bengals losses I can stomach... but that Browns loss bothers me.

The Steelers have been like that for a while. In 2020, they started the season 11-0, and everyone said, there's no way this team is really that good. They cruised into the playoffs and got bounced in the wildcard round.

We probably should have lost the two games that we won.

The Seahawks do not pass the eye test.

Panthers, we're much worse than 1-8

Not sure how the Steelers are 6-3 so that’s worse than record.

Denver at 4-5 is better than their record. They have improved dramatically. They have beaten 2 good teams and lost a couple of very close games that could have went either way. Also I’m bias.

Pats have 5 losses by 1 score, and 2 wins by 1 score. Could be 7 and 3 or 0 and 10.

Bills are better than their record, Steelers are worse. One finds ways to lose games they shouldn't, the other wins games it shouldn't.

Falcons. We should be like 6-4, or even 7-3. Our HC is a hack who doesn’t know how to use his best players. Instead he runs jet sweeps to TE2 in the red zone.

Bengals are a much better team than 5-4

Buffalo’s defense deserves to probably be 10-0.
Its offense should be 3-7.

Steelers.

Red hot take, the Bears are better than their record and I anticipate 7 wins.

Cardinals

I'm just happy to be here

Niners are better than their record indicates.

Dolphins have only beat two teams with (at the moment) more than two wins. They have easily the weakest strength of victory in the league. They are not as good as their 6-3 record.

Chargers, Bills, and Vikings take the cake for me. The first 2 are wasting talent because of coaching, the Vikings had a crazy streak of turnovers to start the season.

I think the Jags are worse than 6-3. Not terrible, just 5-4 or so. I firmly believe that this team has the potential to be great but we just cannot play to our potential. Even when we are clearly better than a team we always let them back into the game.

Better : 49ers are still a top tier team that were hurt by injuries

Worse: Jags are getting carried by very good coaching. Trevor Lawrence has not impressed me. Receivers have been inconsistent. They has some huge wins but i never watched a game and being really impressed.