Week 13 MNF Review, Are the NFC/AFC South historically bad?

Brady pulls off another miraculous comeback. Hopefully you stayed awake (I didn't)

*The adjusted scores attempt to quantify team play quality, with emphasis on the most stable metrics (success rate), while downplaying the higher variance aspects of play (turnovers, big plays, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). These adjustments to expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, are then used to project adjusted points. The adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores for prior seasons and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

I’ve decided to make all the 2022 Adjusted Scores available to readers via Google Sheet. Check them out. I welcome your feedback.

NO (4-9) @ TB (6-6), 17-16 TB, Adjusted Score: 25-21 TB

The Bucs pulled off an improbably comeback in the fourth quarter last night, and they were fundamentally the better team according to the adjusted scores. The Bucs had the higher success rate (44% vs 40%), worse fumble luck (1-1 fumbles-to-lost vs 2-0), and the most impactful play was a Brady interception (-4.6 EPA), the effect of which gets mitigated in the adjusted scores.

What both teams lacked - severely - was competent fourth down decision-making. Neither team attempted to convert a fourth down when the numbers indicated greater than a 1% win probability gain for doing so (0-1 for the Saints, 0-2 for the Bucs). The combined 5.6% win probability lost on these decisions was the highest game total of the week, and one of only 10 games this season with zero fourth down conversion attempts and at least three projected as strong win probability gains.

Are the NFC and AFC South historically bad?

The two Southern divisions are currently well below 0.500 in combined record (no one in the NFC South even has a winning record) and have massively negative point differentials.

Since divisional realignment in 2002, there were seven instances of all four divisional teams having negative point differentials through Week 13. The 2022 AFC and NFC South are two of those seven. It’s the first time two divisions have fallen into that category in the same season.

By divisional point differential, the NFC South doesn't actually look that bad (-91). In fact, NFC North is worse this season (-101). AFC South, on the other hand, has the seventh worst combined point differential through Week 13 since 2002 realignment (-223, of 168).

Leveraging the fundamental team strength assessments from my adjusted score, we can plot the averages for points for and against this season, producing a visual idea of team quality and tiering.

The Southern divisions are highlighted, and we can see that none of their teams are in the top-two tiers (diagonal lines approximate a 60/40 weighting of offense and defense). But the Bucs, Saints, Titans and Jags aren’t far off, and even the Falcons are in the same neighborhood as the 10-2 Vikings.

If we make team strength adjustments for schedule, the Bucs would rank just outside of the top-10 (11th, 12th hardest schedule to date), the Saints 14th, Titans 15th and Jags 17th. The best teams in the Southern divisions are meh, not awful.

Where it gets ugly is the lower tiers of these divisions, with the Texans, Panthers and Colts in the bottom six for team strength. The Texans are dead last, and really in a tier of their own: my estimated point differential for them facing an average team on a neutral field (a standard power ranking quantification) is multiple points lower than the next worst team.

What we really care about here is the effect on the playoffs. We’ll rid ourselves of six of these teams in a handful of weeks, but the two remaining could go on to log a win or two in the postseason, especially with a home game for the Wild Card round. Presuming that the Bucs and Titans are able to hold onto their respective divisions and go to the playoffs, they wouldn’t be far out of historical norms. Middling teams go to the playoffs fairly often.

Since realignment in 2022, 29 of the 244 postseason participants ranked below average according to my adjusted scores, with the 2017 Bills having the worst seasonal team strength ranking at 31st. In recent memory, the 2016 Dolphins (27th), 2021 Steelers (26th) and 2016 Lions (24th) were all significantly worse teams than the likely AFC/NFC winners this year.

Three teams who finished the regular season with adjusted-scores-based rankings outside the top-20 went on to win their Wild Card matchups: Tim Tebow’s 2011 Broncos (28th), the Beast Quake 2010 Seahawks (27th) and the 2003 Panthers (22nd), who went all the way to the Super Bowl, losing by only three points to the New England Patriots (the luck of Brady, once again).

We’ll likely have a couple less-than-thrilling matchups with the AFC and NFC South hosting playoff games this year, but it’s really nothing new. In fact, both hosting squads will have a good shot of making to the next round, and perhaps further.