Lucky Teams
Paul mentioned in the comments that he thinks the Jets are lucky, and that the Rams are probably better than they are. I disagreed about the latter issue, but he appears to have a point about the former.
Let's start out by defining lucky. Lucky is simply when your record does not seem justified by your other statistics. For simplicity's sake I decided to look at the comparison between Net Points (Points Scored minus Points Allowed) and Net Wins (Games Won minus Games Lost). After looking at the last three seasons, I determined that the most accurate formula appears to be Net Points divided by 18 equals Net Wins. The Jets have 57 net points, divided by 18 means the Jets should be 3.2 games above .500. Since they are actually 5 games above .500, they appear to be lucky by about 1.8 games. Converting that into a Won/Lost record, they should be more like 7-4 than 8-3. Lucky, but nothing unusual. By this measure, Atlanta is the luckiest team in the league. They have 17 net points which should equate to a 6-5 record, not 9-2. By this measure, Pittsburgh, New England, Jacksonville, St. Louis and Dallas are all luckier than the Jets.
The unluckiest teams this year are Kansas City, Miami, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis, Cleveland and Buffalo, each of whom should have at least one more win and one fewer loss given their point differential. Green Bay is the only team that exactly matches its anticipated record, with 54 Net Points and 3 Net Wins.
