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The Effect of Playoff Expansion

The Effect of Playoff Expansion

The 2010 Packers, the 2007 Giants, the 2005 Steelers, the 2000 Ravens, the 1997 Broncos and the 1980 Raiders. What do they have in common? They’re all wildcard teams teams that prior to the AFL-NFL merger would not have made the playoffs. And yet all won the Super Bowl.

And that list doesn’t even include Eli Manning’s 2011 Giants, which were technically division champs, but went 9-7 and set the record for the team with the worst regular season record to go on to win the Super Bowl. It just goes to show you don’t have to be the best to be crowned champion. You just have to be good enough to scrape by and then at your best when it really counts.

But what does it mean to be “good enough?”

Historically in our league, playoff teams on average win 8.5 games, have a TW% of .592 and score 92.4 ppg. Of course, that’s average. Worse teams have made it in. Last year, Erik eked his way in with a 7-6 record, the worst ever. And still worse teams like Greco’s in 2014 with a TW% of .304 (the equivalent of a 4-9 team) have lucked their way into the playoffs. Still, we’ve never had a team with a losing record make the playoffs. Something the Seahawks did at 7-9 in 2010.

But suddenly, all that could be changing. Our league is more competitive now than ever as this is the first season in which no undefeated teams nor winless teams exist just three weeks into the season. And with the playoffs expanding to six teams—yes, THE PLAYOFFS HAVE EXPANDED, in case you were not aware, to six teams over three one-week rounds from Weeks 14-16 with the top two seeds getting byes to the semifinals—the question of what’s good enough is suddenly up in the air.

So as you look ahead to the playoffs, it’s important to keep in mind what your win-goal should be, how many losses you can afford, and at what point you should be scrambling to avoid another loss at all costs. So grab a coffee or save this tab for your lunch break, because we’re going to take a deep dive into the effect of playoff expansion. Ready? Let’s go.


As we approach Week 4 with approximately one quarter of the regular season in the books, we can begin for the first time to look ahead to the playoffs.

With a relatively small sample size on the season, it’s still a little early to have full-blown playoff projections, at least as far as estimating individual odds for specific owners. But I think we can begin to discuss the broad strokes of what the playoffs will look like, if not which teams we expect to make it there.

Specifically, the question I’ve been wondering is what effect playoff expansion will have on the profile of teams that qualify. Now that six teams (or half of the league) will make the playoffs for the first time in league history, how does that affect the record you need to achieve in order to make the playoffs. Certainly, making the playoffs just got easier. But how much easier? How many games do you need to win? Can you lose 6 games? 7? Could a 5-8 team make the playoffs?

First let’s start with where we’ve been.

For the league’s first seven years, we operated with a four-team playoff consisting of two rounds of two-week matchups from Weeks 14-17. Under those rules, only a third of the league made the playoffs. That’s a pretty selective group, especially when you compare it to some of the other top sports leagues. Our playoff rate matched the MLB (where just 10 of the league’s 30 teams make the playoffs), but was less than the NFL (37.5%), NHL (51.6%) and the NBA (53.3%).

By moving to a six-team playoff, we more closely mimic the playoff rate of the NHL and NBA in which approximately half the league makes the playoffs. However, the result of that change is a round-by-round format that more closely mimics the NFL with first-round byes and single-game eliminations replacing multi-game rounds (or series).

Okay, so what does a playoff team look like?

Over the course of the last seven years, 28 teams have made the playoffs. Their records have ranged from 11-2 to 7-6. The median and by far the most common record for a playoff team is 8-5 with 9-4 teams coming in a close second.

In fact, five losses has kinda been the cutoff point for making the playoffs with only a few exceptions—The Mendoza Line if you will. On the low end of what’s playoff-worthy, we’ve seen two 7-5-1 teams make the playoffs and one 7-6 team—Erik last season—though that’s been exceedingly rare. Just 1 of 14 teams with a 7-6 record have gone on to make the playoffs. By comparison 12 of 13 teams with an 8-5 record have made the playoffs. (The lone exception is Greco in 2011.)

One of the best ways to visualize this is with the chart below. Using historical data, we can plot out the probability of a team making the playoffs given any possible record in any given week. Here we see what we’ve described above in that 92% of 8-5 teams make the playoffs compared to just 7% of 7-6 teams.

But even more interesting about this chart is that we can see the historical playoff odds of all teams at any point in the season. For example, in Week 3, we see that 32% of teams with a 2-1 record have gone on to make the playoffs compared to just 25% of 1-2 teams. There’s really not that much of a distinction between these two records, especially when we compare to the playoff prospects of 3-0 teams (91%) and 0-3 teams (just 8%).

Scanning the chart, we also see a pattern where teams that are at least three games over .500 tend to have much greater odds of making the playoffs. Whether your team is 3-0, 5-2, 8-5 or anywhere in between, the odds of you making the playoffs are upwards of 75% and in most cases higher than 90%. In the past seven years, the key to making the playoffs has often been crossing that three-game threshold.

Meanwhile, on the low end, teams that fall to two games or more below .500 tend to have very poor odds of recovering. That would be teams that are anywhere from 0-2 to 1-3 to 3-5. Though they have technically not crossed the 5-loss Mendoza Line, these teams are all but eliminated with odds ranging between 4-17%. Of course, once you’ve gotten that sixth loss, it’s almost universally 0% across the board. Remember, only one team has come back from six losses.


So now that we’ve recounted the playoff picture of years past, the question remains what effect a six-team playoff will have on the quality of playoff teams. While we can’t look into the future, we can examine the past. Specifically, we can look back at the records and point totals of teams from 2011-17 to determine who would have made the playoffs had six teams been allowed in. Remember, that’s an extra two teams per year.

So without further ado, these are the team owners (with records) that missed the playoffs in reality, but would have made the playoffs had a six-team playoff existed.

2011: Greco (8-5), Trevor (6-7)
2012: Trevor (7-6), Brandon (6-7)
2013: Geoff (6-6-1), Erik (6-6-1)
2014: Trevor (7-6), Erik (7-6)
2015: Terryn (7-6), JT (7-6)
2016: Nick (7-6), Jess (6-6-1)
2017: Jess (7-6), Gray (7-6)

Welcome to the party 7-6 teams! There’s eight of them. Not only that, but we see a couple teams with losing records at 6-7 that make the cut. Nothing as bad as 5-8, but certainly the bubble has gotten softer. It’s also interesting to note who would have benefited the most from this playoff format. Specifically, Trevor has the most added appearances (with three) followed by Jess and Erik (both benefiting twice). Also of note is that Nick would have made his first playoffs in 2016 had this format been instituted.

Now that we know which teams would have made a six-team playoff, we can backtrack and recreate the chart, reflecting the altered fates of the above 14 teams.

What do we notice?

Not much has changed at the top of the chart. We still see a similar benefit to teams that are three games over .500. And yes, 8-5 teams are now historically locks. But the effect has not entirely migrated to teams that are two games over .500. Those 2-0 or 3-1 or 5-3 teams see a modest increase in playoff odds of 5-15%. In other words, the three-games-over-.500 threshold for becoming a lock is still in play.

But the middle of the chart tells a much different story. Look at all that yellow! That essentially means more teams are in contention later in the season. And there’s more room for error. Suddenly, getting to two games below .500 is not the death knell it’s been previously. Those teams still have between a 26-44% chance of making the playoffs. Even teams that are three games below .500 have a decent shot of rebounding to make the playoffs. For example, 36% of 1-4 teams would have gone on to make a six-team playoff compared to exactly 0% in a four-team playoff. Heck, even 1-6 teams have a 33% chance! (Granted, that’s largely due to small sample size.)

And the Mendoza Line? That has moved from five to six losses. Suddenly, a six loss team is more than likely a playoff team. In fact, 64% of 7-6 teams would have made a six-team playoff compared to just 7% before expansion. Certainly, that’s no lock. And it likely means points tiebreakers will play a huge role for 7-6 teams. But it drastically changes the playoff picture.


Finally, perhaps the best way to evaluate the effect of playoff expansion is to examine the difference in playoff odds for a six-team vs. four-team playoff for each record. We can do that by subtracting the first chart from the second chart above. The result is below.

The darker the cells, the greater the change due to playoff expansion. As we can see, the biggest change occurs for 7-6 teams whose playoff odds increase by 57%. Remember, there have been 14 teams with 7-6 records in league history. Before expansion, just one of them made the playoffs. With expansion, that number would have been eight, or more than half.

Other big changes are for the six-loss teams whether 6-6, 5-6, 4-6 or as we mentioned, even 1-6. Formerly, these teams would have crossed the Mendoza Line into the point of no return. Now, they’re still in the running. As for that 1-6 team, it was Nick in 2016 who responded after a 1-6 start to win six straight games down the stretch and finish 7-6. Of course he missed the playoffs. But were that to happen this year, he’d be in.

Overall, we see a general increase in playoff odds down the middle of around 20%. In the past, operating a .500 team has been a risky proposition. Formerly, by Week 4 a .500 record gave you just a 23% chance of making the playoffs. Now it’s closer to a coin flip. All of which means that if you can just hang in there, you’ve got a shot to make the playoffs.


This season following Week 3, we’ve got a bunch of 2-1 and 1-2 teams. For 2-1 teams, their odds have increased from 32% to 45%. But perhaps more unexpectedly, the 1-2 teams have seen their odds jump even more, from 25% to 50%. Does that really mean 1-2 teams have a better chance of making the playoffs than 2-1 teams? No. Remember, this is still a relatively small sample size and if we played this out over several more seasons, I think eventually the numbers would regress to the true mean, which is probably somewhere in between.

But what it does mean is that whatever advantage 2-1 teams have over 1-2 teams at this point is slim. Given these odds, we’d expect for three teams from the group of Josh, Alex, Erik, Jess, Nick and Trevor and three from the group of Brandon, JT, Geoff, Samantha, Gray and Greco to make the playoffs. I know I keep saying this and I promise I’ll stop as certain team owners emerge and the playoff picture begins to take shape, but it’s still truly anyone’s game.

And as Eli Manning has taught us, if you can make the playoffs, anything can happen.

Week 4 Power Rankings

Week 4 Power Rankings

In Two Trades, Gray Acquires Lamar Miller, Sterling Shepard

In Two Trades, Gray Acquires Lamar Miller, Sterling Shepard