The 2018 Buffalo Bills finished their season with a 6-10 record. Struggling between Nate Peterman, Derek Anderson, and rookie Josh Allen, the team suffered a host of blowouts, had a few decisive wins of its own, and went 3-3 in close, one-score games. Could a luckier season have earned them a playoff berth?
While good teams win more games than bad teams (this is essentially a tautology), they mostly do this through a higher number of decisive wins (a margin of nine points or more). Successfully coming out on top in close games each year isn’t a repeatable skill (unless you’re Peyton Manning’s Colts), so the average expectation is that a team would perform just like the Bills did, with a .