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Factoid

Tennessee Titans

Does preseason success translate into the regular season?

The Titans were the biggest story of Week 1, putting up monster rushing numbers against San Diego. But is that an indication that they’re going to run the ball effectively in the real games? Or are these preseason games very much meaningless?

As for the actual game itself, I’m not ready to comment on it. I’ve only seen the highlight package. I’m just getting ready to watch that game now. So I will speak only in terms of pure stats (how other teams have fared in the past).

Namely, when a team puts up big rushing numbers in the preseason, do those teams tend to also put up good running production in the regular-season games?

It’s easily checked. I pulled up the team rushing stats at NFL.com. The 2009 preseason is missing, so I’ve got only the numbers for the last nine years of preseason football. Then I took out the top 5 teams for each year. To avoid ties, I used not just yards but also touchdowns (using fantasy scoring of 6 points for touchdowns and 1 for every 10 yards). Final step is then to merge those numbers with what happened in the regular season.

Turns out that 24 of the 45 teams that were top-5 rushing teams in the preseason went on and were top-10 running teams in the real games. And 31 of the 45 were at least above-average.

Only 4 of the 45 teams finished the regular season with bottom-5 rushing numbers.

Of course I might be getting ahead of myself here. The Titans aren’t a top-5 running team yet; they’ve still got three games to play.

Also note that Tennessee has been a pretty lousy regular-season running team the last two years, averaging only 92 yards, with 16 TDs in those 32 games. So it makes some sense to also look at the history of teams that run the ball poorly in the regular season, then come back the next year in the preseason and show some ability to run it. How do those teams (which I’ve got tagged with dots) do? Not as well. Numbers show 4 of the 9 ranking 19th or lower and 5 ranking in the top 12. So it’s been more of mixed bag.

HOW GOOD PRESEASON RUNNING TEAMS HAVE FARED
YearTeamAttYardsTDPointsRnk
2006Atlanta5372,9399347.93
2006Denver4882,15212287.213
2006Houston4311,68513246.521
2006New England4991,96920316.95
2006NY Giants4552,15614299.68
2007Denver4291,95710255.715
2007Jacksonville5222,39118347.12
2007New England4511,84917286.96
2007New Orleans3921,46614230.619
2007NY Giants4692,14815304.85
2008• Seattle4171,76810236.824
2008Carolina5042,43730423.71
2008Oakland4591,9879252.720
2008San Diego4211,72613250.621
2008Tennessee5082,19924363.94
2010• Buffalo4011,7206208.028
2010• Detroit4041,61311227.319
2010Pittsburgh4711,92415282.411
2010San Francisco4011,65710225.723
2010Tennessee4061,72713250.714
2011• New Orleans4312,12716308.76
2011Houston5462,44818352.82
2011Minnesota4482,31818339.84
2011New England4381,76418284.410
2011NY Giants4111,42717244.720
2012• Kansas City5002,3959293.510
2012Houston5082,12319326.37
2012Jacksonville3581,3695166.931
2012San Francisco4922,49117351.15
2012Seattle5362,57916353.94
2013Chicago4041,82813260.817
2013Cincinnati4811,75514259.518
2013New England4702,06519320.55
2013Philadelphia5002,56619370.61
2013Washington4532,16414300.49
2014• Baltimore4482,01916297.95
2014• NY Giants4491,60313238.319
2014Denver4431,78515268.513
2014Philadelphia4741,99216295.26
2014Seattle5252,76220396.21
2015• Buffalo5092,43219357.21
2015• Chicago4681,85413263.412
2015Cincinnati4671,80518288.56
2015Philadelphia4421,74315264.311
2015Washington4291,5669210.622

These are just numbers, of course. Let me watch the game and see what they look like.

Detailed scouting reports on all 32 teams are coming tomorrow. By that time, we’ll have had the opportunity to properly digest all 16 of the first batch of preseason games.

—Ian Allan

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