Washington’s breakout year contained plenty of good fortune. An NFL data scientist has the numbers to prove it.
The biggest reason for a dose of pessimism...might be luck. The Commanders’ breakout season included a lot of good fortune the team can’t necessarily count on again.
This goes deeper than the Hail Mary. It goes deeper than Washington’s record in one-score games: 9-4, the sixth-best winning percentage in the league. And it goes deeper than injuries, as Washington finished as the NFL’s fifth-healthiest team by the metric “adjusted games lost,” which attempts to quantify the significance of each.