The Vermeil Rule - Winning in the NFL
I was listening to an all-sports talk radio station last week. On the show, they were talking about A little rule of thumb that Dick Vermeil had regarding the offensive balance of a team and it's capability of winning.
The rule of thumb goes like this: If a team's total carries and completions equals 50 or greater, that team will win.
I looked at all the games for season 45, 2010 - 2011, and analyzed this rule to see if it was true.
My findings:
Teams reaching 50 only won 61% of the time, while teams not getting 50 lost 75% of time. So it is fairly accurate for the losers but not accurate enough for the winners.
Teams reaching 50 or just having more than the opponent won 71% of the time. This is a much better correlation. Also, teams that did not reach 50 or did reach 50 but had less than the opponent lost 77% of the time. This also is a very good correlation.
Next I adjusted the number 50 to see if possibly a different number would result in added accuracy. See chart below.
Summary:
Dick was right on the money but for the last season it looks like 49 is the number. Lets see what happens in the SuperBowl.