Time to fire up the practice games. Preseason means different things to different players and coaches, and winning often isn’t the top priority. The best teams in August in recent years, after all, have been Washington and Detroit, and they haven’t had much success in the real games.
Here are the win-loss totals (for preseason games) for the last five years.
Of the five teams that have won over 60 percent of their preseason games, only one has played in a conference championship game. (At the same time, no team under .500 in the preseason over the last five years has played in a Super Bowl.)
On the chart below, if a team played in a Super Bowl, there’s a black dot.
PRESEASON RECORDS (2011-2015) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Franchise | W | L | Pct |
Washington | 16 | 4 | .800 |
Detroit | 15 | 5 | .750 |
Philadelphia | 14 | 6 | .700 |
•• Seattle | 14 | 6 | .700 |
Houston | 13 | 7 | .650 |
• Baltimore | 12 | 8 | .600 |
Chicago | 12 | 8 | .600 |
•• Denver | 12 | 8 | .600 |
• San Francisco | 12 | 8 | .600 |
Minnesota | 12 | 9 | .571 |
• NY Giants | 12 | 9 | .571 |
• Carolina | 11 | 9 | .550 |
Cincinnati | 11 | 9 | .550 |
Green Bay | 11 | 9 | .550 |
Tennessee | 11 | 9 | .550 |
•• New England | 10 | 10 | .500 |
NY Jets | 10 | 10 | .500 |
San Diego | 10 | 10 | .500 |
New Orleans | 10 | 11 | .476 |
Arizona | 9 | 12 | .429 |
Miami | 9 | 12 | .429 |
Cleveland | 8 | 12 | .400 |
Jacksonville | 8 | 12 | .400 |
Kansas City | 8 | 12 | .400 |
St. Louis | 8 | 12 | .400 |
Tampa Bay | 8 | 12 | .400 |
Dallas | 8 | 13 | .381 |
Pittsburgh | 8 | 13 | .381 |
Indianapolis | 6 | 14 | .300 |
Buffalo | 6 | 15 | .286 |
Atlanta | 5 | 15 | .250 |
Oakland | 5 | 15 | .250 |
—Ian Allan