Watching preseason football is like going to the strip club. The visuals may fool you into thinking the real thing is about to go down, but 99% of the time at the end of the night you end up sad and disappointed. Although a quick glance at recent NFL preseasons shows that there’s a decent chance this year’s edition of strip club football may be more revealing than you probably think (I know you see what I did there).
In the 2013 preseason, the Seattle Seahawks were a perfect 4-0 and outscored their opponents in aggregate by a league-leading 74 points. The Seahawks went on to win their first Super Bowl five months later. Of the 12 playoff teams from 2013, 10 of them had a .500 record or better in the preseason. All told, their preseason record was a combined 29-19 (.604). Familiar playoff faces who struggled in August like the Steelers and Giants failed to qualify for the postseason. Teams like the Falcons, Raiders and Jaguars who each won one or fewer games in the NFL’s dress rehearsal all went 4-12 in the regular season.
The following year, eight of the 12 playoff participants had a .500 or better preseason mark. Despite landing the #6 seed, the 4-0 Ravens proved to be the second best team in the AFC come playoff time. Meanwhile, the jig was up on the fraudulently 0-4 Indianapolis Colts— they were RKO’d in the AFC Championship game by a Patriots team that used perfectly legal footballs. The 3-1 Packers really should’ve been the NFC representative in the Super Bowl, but a collapse of Golden State Warrior proportions kept them out of the big game.
Overall, playoff teams went 23-25 in the 2014 preseason. This record seems more indicative of what you might expect from the time of year everyone tells you is meaningless. However last year, 11 of 12 playoff teams held a .500 or better preseason record. The Broncos (3-1) defeated the Panthers (3-1) in the Super Bowl, and playoff teams were 31-19 (.620). Even the Jets, who absolutely should’ve been playing in January (they had me fooled) went 3-1. Indy, Miami, B More, Los Angeles St. Louis, New Orleans, Oakland, Cleveland and Dallas all won one or fewer games that “didn’t count”; none of them made the playoffs. Only the Colts managed to reach .500 in the regular season.
For those too lazy to do the math, we’ll do it for you: Over the last three years, playoff teams went 83-63 (.568) in the preseason, while 29 of those 36 teams (80.6%) won at least half of their preseason games. And over the last eight years, all eight Super Bowl winners were .500 or better in the preseason, with an overall record of 21-11 (.656).
Of course, there are outliers. None of this is to say you couldn’t go back through any of these years and discover a 3-1 preseason team that finished a cool 5-11 in the regular season, or an 0-4 team that made a run at a championship. The sample size isn’t the largest either. But for all of the “preseason is a ridiculous waste of time” and, “this unwatchable bullshit doesn’t tell us anything about the NFL season” or the always popular, “don’t get hooked by the preseason— you can’t put any stock into it” rhetoric from articles, Facebook posts and talking heads throughout the entire month of August, the data is fairly jarring.
So as we head into the “most important” of our four auditions this weekend, remember to “keep one eye open like CBS“. The NFL preseason is probably telling you a little more than just which guy you’re going to overdraft like a dope in your eight team fantasy league.