Ranking The Top NFL Offenses

The Let us state the obvious: the only way to win football games is to score more points than your opponent. Scoring points is the most important behavior an offense can perform in order to win games.

Behaviors, though, can only occur with opportunity. Basic physics. In applied behavior analysis, we call this "Temporal Extent”. 

For an offense, that opportunity is defined as when they possess the ball. Simple enough. Once the offense takes possession of the ball, we can measure how much time it takes for them to complete the act of scoring points within that possession, over the course of a full game.

At Football Behavior, we quantify that with “scoring behavior rate (SBx)”. We are able to determine which offenses are scoring points the most efficiently with the opportunities they have. Below are the top 5 offenses from 2022 in SBx, along with the full list of 32 for Pigeon Picks subscibers.

To see how each and every offense, each and every week, is improving or regressing in SPBx, make sure to upgrade to a Pigeon Picks subscription for that plus:

Top 5 NFL Offenses In SBx

For reference, SBx Rate is measured in points scored per minute of possession time. Possession time for the offense is the finite opportunity an offense has to score the ball. This is more accurate than looking at points per game because the offense does not possess the ball for the whole 60 minutes of game time. These are the teams who make the most of their possessions in both points, and efficiency.

5. Dallas Cowboys

• 2022 SBx Rate: 0.792 

The Cowboys 2022 average SBx Rate is greatly impacted by the Dak Prescott injury in the early part of the season.

• In the five games started by Cooper Rush, the Cowboys SBx Rate was 0.731 points per minute of possession time.

• In the 12 games Dak started after his return, the Cowboys SBx Rate was 0.913 points per minute of possession time, a 25% increase.

• That 25% increase was the third largest increase between one starter who started at least three games, to his replacement who started at least three games.

2022 Result: Made it to the NFC divisional round of the playoffs

4. Jacksonville Jaguars

• 2022 SBx Rate: 0.81

The Jaguars had no major environmental factors impacting their SBx Rate.

The Jaguars appeared to have benefited from their midseason bye week.

• Prior to the bye week their SBx Rate was 0.757. Following the bye week, it was 0.875, a 16% increase.

• Before the bye week, their SBx was getting worse over week, by ~20%. After the bye week, their SBx improved by 14% week over week.

2022 Result: Made it to the NFC divisional round of the playoffs

3. Buffalo Bills

• 2022 SBx Rate: 0.861

The Bills had no major environmental changes impacting their SBx Rate.

As the season went on, the Bills got more inconsistent and performed less efficiently.

• Week over week, their SBx decelerated by a rate of ~7%.

• Week over week, following the bye week, the Bills performance got 10% more inconsistent.

2022 Result: Made it to the divisional round of the playoffs

2. Philadelphia Eagles

• 2022 SBx Rate: 0.877

The Eagles lost starting quarterback Jalen Hurts for two games due to injury in Week 16 and 17.

• In the 14 games prior to the Jalen Hurts injury, The Eagles had a 0.946 SBx.

• In the four games started by Hurts in his return from injury, including playoffs, the Eagles had an SBx Rate of 0.854.

2022 Result: Lost in the Super Bowl

1. Kansas City Chiefs

• 2022 SBx Rate: 0.935

The Chiefs had no major environmental changes impacting their SBx Rate.

• The 0.058 difference between the Chiefs and the number two Eagles is the second largest gap between two consecutive teams (The difference between number 32 and 31 was 0.076).

• The Chiefs SBx Rate remained remarkably consistent throughout the entire season with a league leading ~1% celeration rate from start to finish.

• The Chiefs used the bye week to fix inconsistency issues.

• Heading into the Week 8 bye week, the Chiefs had a bounce rate of x2.5.

• Following the bye week, they reduced their bounce rate by ~50% to x1.7.

2022 Result: Won the Super Bowl

Consider This From The Full 32 Team Rankings

• Nine of the top 10 teams in SBx reached the playoffs

• Seven of the top eight teams reached the divisional round of the playoffs.

• The top two teams reached the Super Bowl.

• The top team won the Super Bowl.

Reminder, this is only the top 5. To unlock the whole list, make sure you subscribe to Pigeon Picks for every team, plus much more.

What Does It All Mean?

Scoring Behavior Rate (SBx) is a way to measure how efficient an NFL offense is at scoring points when they have the ball. In other words, which offenses are making the most of their limited opportunities?

Many factors impact the ability for an offense to score the amount of points necessary to win a game. Some of it can be attributed to the defense, some can be laid at the feet of key injuries to important players, and some of it can be seen in midseason coaching changes.

Coaches and the front office create the environment that the players then go and perform in. It operates best when it is a perfect balance of performance behavior inside of a well constructed environment. Key changes to either side of that equation can result in massive behavior changes from the team as a whole.

Why Is This Valuable?

Using this information, the Pigeon Picks Prediction Model had a betting record of 193-91-7, a net profit of +680.2 units, and a 91.01% ROI during the 2022 NFL season. (All Football Behavior bets tracked publicly by Pikkit)

Full 32 Team Rankings

Subscribe to Pigeon Picks+ to read the rest.