Are the 2024 Vikings One-Score Frauds?
In 2022, the Vikings were widely regarded as frauds because of their 11-0 regular season record in one-score games. This moniker ultimately proved to be somewhat deserved, as the Vikings dropped their first one-score game at home in the wild-card round of the playoffs to a Daniel Jones-led Giants team.
This season, the Vikings are again excelling in one-score games, posting a 6-1 record. Does this mean that the 2024 Vikings are fraudulent?
In my opinion, one of the most misleading ideas that has come out of the NFL analytics community is the notion that one-score wins are entirely luck, whereas bigger wins are skill.
There is a kernel of truth to this myth: if you want to assess the skill of a team and project their future success, point differential matters. Indeed, point differential is a slightly better predictor of future success than a win-loss record. So, a team that consistently wins by a large margin (such as the 2024 Lions) is more likely to win late-season and postseason games than a team that consistently wins tighter contests (such as the 2024 Chiefs).
However, there is nothing magical about a 9-point win that distinguishes it from an 8-point win. The dividing line between luck and skill isn’t black and white: even narrow wins have some predictive power, and even consistently large wins don’t guarantee future success (just ask the 2007 Patriots).
There is a widespread idea that the record in one-score games will eventually regress toward 50%, and while this is more or less true, it ignores the crucial fact that virtually every statistic in NFL football tends to regress — a consequence of small sample sizes and high variance.
So far this season, the Lions have an average margin of victory of 18.1. Undoubtedly, this is a result of their incredible skill — there is nothing at all fraudulent about the Lions’ start to the season. Yet, the smart money says that this, too, will regress toward the eague average in the remainder of the season.
On the flip side, as recently pointed out by @greerreNFL on X, the five QBs with the best all-time records in one-score games are all excellent QBs: Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Jim Kelly, and Ben Roethlisberger. Consistently winning one-score games takes skill.
When it comes to the 2022 Vikings, then, the biggest problem wasn’t the 11-0 record in one-score games — it was the 2-4 record in games decided by more than one score amidst a relatively easy schedule. As a result, the 2022 Vikings accomplished the unlikely and ignominious feat of finishing the season with a 13-4 win-loss record despite a negative point differential.
In contrast, the 2024 Vikings have posted a 3-1 record in games decided by more than one score, and they have done so despite a moderately difficult schedule. The 2024 Vikings have a point differential of +77, which is already better than the 2023 Lions’ point differential.
Given the postseason success that the Lions had last year, there is no reason why the Vikings should be kept off the list of serious Super Bowl contenders this season.
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