Advanced Stats: 2015 El Grupo de la Muerte

Second only to gifs (jifs?) of pretty young ladies, the one thing that [DFO] Commentists seem to live for is analytics. So, cutesy intro aside, here’s an unbiased look at which divisions in 2015 were truly the Best of the Best (Plus the NFC East).

I subscribe to the “you are what your record says you are” school of NFL analysis. I wouldn’t lean on it in college ball but, ignoring our annual cumulative insistence that Alabama/Ohio State/Baylor could defeat Detroit/Tampa Bay/Tennessee, NFL players and NFL teams are the cream of the crop. So, above, I’ve posted the first 20 picks of the 2016 (all non-playoff teams).

Hold on — before we go any further, I feel like I have a journalistic duty to remind any readers that the New England Patri*ts do not have a first round draft pick this year as punishment for their role in the equipment tampering scandal known as Ballghazi.

Ok, moving on now. So, upon cursory glance, half the divisions sent two teams to the post-season while the other half sent three. Those more opportunist divisions were the AFC/NFC West and AFC/NFC North. To check that this is a reasonable starting point, we can also compare the total wins of each division.
We see that the NFC North, NFC West, and AFC West had above-average win totals so we’ll assume they’re good candidates. The AFC North, however, was an absolute disaster at the bottom of the division with CLE (3 wins, 1 in-division) and BAL (5 wins, 3 in-division) and fell below the league conference average. They were one of three conferences with two double-digit loss teams. Further weakening their case, their wildcard team (PIT) accounted for the division’s only playoff win by defeating their division champ (CIN) in the wildcard round.

The AFC South and NFC East, each with 9 and 7 champions, were the other two conferences with two double-digit loss teams. They’re out of contention.

Round 1: 2015 El Grupo de la Muerte: AFC West, AFC North, AFC South, AFC East, NFC West, NFC North, NFC South, NFC East

In further narrowing the field, we see that the two divisions with most cumulative wins each only sent one team to the playoffs — AFC East and NFC South. This is not entirely unexpected as, with the case of the AFC West, the top two teams feasted on the bottom of the division to get the wild card bid (KC lost only one division game, to the division champions, DEN). Historically, the idea of the AFC East as the strongest division in football seems silly and has typically been NE hammering on three bad teams to pad their numbers. Instead, the AFC East had the only 10-win non-playoff team (NYJ) and was the only division with three teams at-or-above .500. Additionally, their playoff representative was within two points of making the Super Bowl.

Now, has the guy who threw that pick been a career cheater? I don’t know. Maybe. Regardless, the numbers don’t lie and, head to head, that division looked better than the AFC North.

The NFC South is 2015’s ultimate outlier. 15-1 and undefeated outside the division with a ludicrous +192 point differential, the Carolina Panthers made 2014’s weakest conference the winningest in the NFL last season. Now, if you replaced CAR with an average division champion (approximately 11.1 to 11.6 wins), the three game swing would put the NFC South at 33 wins (more likely 34, as you’d expect one of those losses to be in-division), still very respectable and, given this is a worst-case scenario for the division, not yet a reason to eliminate them.

I’ll admit, that even feels weird to consider that this point.

Round 2: 2015 El Grupo de la Muerte: AFC West, AFC North, AFC South, AFC East, NFC West, NFC North, NFC South, NFC East

Of the remaining divisions, the playoff teams are really the determining factors. Only the NFC North champions, MIN, lost on wildcard weekend, while GB beat WAS in the wildcard before losing in the divisional round. The division won zero playoff games in which they were not favored.

Round 3: 2015 El Grupo de la Muerte: AFC West, AFC North, AFC South, AFC East, NFC West, NFC North, NFC South, NFC East

Now, I’m not going to get all Zymm about this, but here’s the representatives of the remaining divisions with their postseason win count and total division win count:

DEN + KC (4, 34)
NE (1, 36)
ARI, SEA (2, 35)
CAR (2, 36)

Very weak for the NFC West, where both ARI and SEA lost at CAR. NE was the only other team without a conference championship, so they’re out too.

Round 4: 2015 El Grupo de la Muerte: AFC West, AFC North, AFC South, AFC East, NFC West, NFC North, NFC South, NFC East

At this point, even without KC’s wildcard win (not surprisingly shutting out a, literally, fictional team), DEN’s domination in the Super Bowl alone gives the clear edge to the AFC West as the 2015 Group of Death winner!

Also because the Chargers are basically dead and Raiders fans will kill you.

As a bonus, if you flipped things over to look for the worst division in 2015, the AFC South is the clear favorite with two of the first five draft picks, including first overall; 0 post-season points, and 13 cumulative out of division wins. And thanks to the foolproof science that is NFL scheduling, the AFC South will be playing the AFC West next season. So, you know, enjoy that.