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Chase Stuart over at Football Perspective calculated each teams weighted win percentage and the Denver Broncos came out the second-best team in the NFL. He explained his process here:
So I took the Patriots 2016 winning percentage and multiplied that by 57, New England’s 2015 winning percentage and multiplied it by 56, its 2014 winning percentage and multiplied it by 55, and so on, and dividing the total by (57*56*55…..*1). Doing this results in New England’s 2016 season being worth 57 times as much as the team’s 1960 season. This methodology results in the Patriots having a weighted winning percentage of .609, which is about 6% better than the overall mark.
The New England Patriots, obviously, came out number one. The Broncos are in the second slot, while their AFC West rivals are far down the list. The Kansas City Chiefs are 14th, Oakland Raiders 19th, and Los Angeles Chargers 21st.
This process helps negate the long rise to prominence the Broncos needed from 1960-1975 and gives much more weight towards the Pat Bowlen era which saw the Broncos become one of the winningest teams in the NFL over that 33-year span.
Weighted Win %
| Wtd Rk | Team | Wtd Win% | Yrs | Avg Win% | Avg Rk | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wtd Rk | Team | Wtd Win% | Yrs | Avg Win% | Avg Rk | Diff |
| 1 | New England Patriots | 0.609 | 57 | 0.549 | 5 | -0.059 |
| 2 | Denver Broncos | 0.588 | 57 | 0.533 | 12 | -0.055 |
| 3 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 0.57 | 84 | 0.511 | 15 | -0.059 |
| 4 | Dallas Cowboys | 0.566 | 57 | 0.573 | 2 | 0.007 |
| 5 | Baltimore Ravens | 0.561 | 21 | 0.54 | 9 | -0.021 |
| 6 | Green Bay Packers | 0.558 | 96 | 0.569 | 3 | 0.011 |
| 7 | Indianapolis Colts | 0.54 | 64 | 0.531 | 13 | -0.009 |
| 8 | San Francisco 49ers | 0.539 | 71 | 0.544 | 7 | 0.005 |
| 9 | Miami Dolphins | 0.538 | 51 | 0.565 | 4 | 0.027 |
| 10 | Minnesota Vikings | 0.538 | 56 | 0.543 | 8 | 0.005 |
So though Stuart titled his post “It’s a good time to be a Patriots fan”, I figured I would share his data with Broncos fans using a much better title than the one he used.