Strength of Victory
» Posted by Vince on March 5, 2008«
The final point spread is not the best indicator of strength of victory. For example, Houston dominated Oakland last year but only won by 7, 24-17. The Texans scored on their first possession and led for the last 52 minutes. They led 17-0 at half and had a 14-point lead until Oakland closed it with a touchdown with 90 seconds remaining that was set up by an awful 10-yard punt.
On the other hand, Chicago won 27-20 in Green Bay, in a game the Packers gave away. The Packers scored on their first possession and lead for 54 minutes. However, Chicago scored 20 second-half points, include 10 in the fourth quarter. The game winning touchdown broke a tie just before the two-minute warning.
While both of these games ended with a margin of victory of 7 points, the Houston victory was clearly stronger then that by Chicago. The GridIronMine Victory Forecast (VF) system offers unique way to evaluate the strength of victory. VF computes the likelihood of victory after each play. If we consider the average VF for the entire game we get a better idea of the strength of victory. Houston's victory comes in at 82.3% average VF, which is the 45th best VF, while Chicago registers 35.2%--the 8th worst victory in regulation.
Below we list the top ten most dominating and least impressive victories of the 2007 season. (All statistics are for non-overtime games.) First, let's get a perspective on VF. Victories ranged from 94.4% to 25.1%. Half of the victories were 71.7% or better. In only 48 games was the winner's average VF less than 50%.
Stomps
Now the top ten biggest stomps.
| Game | Margin of victory | Average VF % | ||
| Game | 4th Quarter | Last 5 mins | ||
| IND 44 @ BAL 20 | 24 | 94.4 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
| MIN 27 @ SF 7 | 20 | 92.8 | 97.4 | 99.0 |
| NE 56 @ BUF 10 | 46 | 92.6 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
| DET 14 @ SD 51 | 37 | 92.5 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
| ATL 3 @ TB 37 | 34 | 92.3 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
| NE 49 @ MIA 21 | 21 | 92.1 | 98.9 | 99.0 |
| SD 14 @ NE 38 | 24 | 92.1 | 96.9 | 99.0 |
| PIT 34 @ CLE 7 | 27 | 92.0 | 98.8 | 99.0 |
| OAK 11 @ JAC 49 | 38 | 91.6 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
| KC 7 @ DEN 41 | 34 | 91.3 | 99.0 | 99.0 |
The number one stomp of 2007 is Indianapolis over Baltimore in week 14. The Colts scored touchdowns on their first four possessions, including a safety on a blocked punt. After 18 minutes of play, they hold a commanding 30-point lead--with a VF of 99%. The second biggest stomp is the Vikings 20-point victory over the 49ers also in week 14. This surprising because there are 23 games with larger victory margins that have a lower average VF. This game is justifiably the second ranked because the Vikings jumped to a 27-point lead in just 21 minutes. While they failed to score again, their VF never slipped below 95%--even after the 49ers lone score midway through the 3rd.
Unsurprisingly, the Patriots appear three times in the list: beating Buffalo 56-10, Miami 49-21, and San Diego 38-14. Interesting New England's 52-7 throttling of Washington in week 8 checks in at number 25 with an average VF of 86.5%. Although this is the second largest margin of victory, the lead was in single digits until almost midway through the second. While it was a true stomp in every sense of the word, there were 24th bigger stomps.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat
No doubt teams and die-hard fans love stomps, but the other end of the scale has the more exciting games.
| Game | Margin of victory | Average VF % | ||
| Game | 4th Quarter | Last 5 mins | ||
| DAL 28 @ DET 27 | 1 | 25.1 | 25.2 | 20.1 |
| DAL 25 @ BUF 24 | 1 | 25.3 | 14.9 | 8.8 |
| BUF 17 @ WAS 16 | 1 | 30.3 | 32.2 | 32.4 |
| CLE 28 @ PIT 31 | 3 | 30.6 | 49.2 | 68.0 |
| NYG 21 @ CHI 16 | 5 | 30.9 | 34.9 | 58.9 |
| SEA 24 @ STL 19 | 5 | 31.9 | 54.6 | 71.4 |
| MIN 10 @ KC 13 | 3 | 33.9 | 61.5 | 81.0 |
| CHI 27 @ GB 20 | 7 | 35.2 | 58.7 | 71.0 |
| NYJ 31 @ CIN 38 | 7 | 36.6 | 71.0 | 95.4 |
| NYG 24 @ WAS 17 | 7 | 37.0 | 59.8 | 82.5 |
The two weakest victories in 2007 were last-second comebacks by the Cowboys. On the road against Detroit and Buffalo, Dallas eeked out a 1-point victories with last-minute touchdowns. Against the Bills, the Cowboys scored twice in the last 20 seconds for a very improbable victory. The Cowboys' VF average only 8.8% in the last five minutes. This means the Bills averaged 91.2% and some how lost! The Super Bowl champion Giants have two games in the bottom 10. In both games, New York scored a pair fourth-quarter touchdowns.
Interestingly, both of Pittsburgh's victories over Cleveland made our lists. The first game is 8th biggest stomp and the second was the 4th weakest victory.
We want to re-iterate that point spread is not the best indicator of strength of victory. Although the three weakest victories are one-point victories, only half of the one-point victories are in the bottom ten. The other three come in at 11, 17, and 62 from the bottom.
A better measure for strength of victory
Fans have always understood that final margin of victory does not always give the true picture of the game. The novel Victory Forecast system from GridIronMine provides solid information to show this and completely new and refreshing way to look at the strength of victory. We think that average VF is a clearly superior way to evaluate the strength of victory.
At the end of the day, all victories are the same. And in fact, it may be that the team that wins games that it did not dominate, is the best team. Witness the Giants two fourth-quarter rallies. In upcoming columns we will look into strength of victory by teams for this season.