Super Bowl LII Roundup: Philadelphia Eagles Odds of Winning

Here we are, just two sleeps away from seeing the Philadelphia Eagles dethrone play the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. How favorable do leaders in the world of NFL advanced statistics view the Eagles’ chances?

Let’s start with Vegas (granted, not a leader in advanced stats but bear with me). The Eagles opened as six point underdogs. Historically this translates to just an estimated 31% chance of winning. Since then, the Vegas line has dropped to the 4-4.5 point range. This doesn’t increase our odds by too much though: 35.5%-37%.

Vegas Says

Eagles 37%

PATRIOTS 63%

ESPN’s proprietary Football Power Index (FPI) is based on efficiency stats and expected points added per play. FPI is more bullish on the Eagles chances, giving them a 47.2% chance of winning.

ESPN FPI Says

Eagles 47.2%

PATRIOTS 52.8%

I’m more of a fan of FiveThirtyEight’s Elo ratings. It’s a more elegant way to rank teams based on who they beat, by how much. The Patriots (ELO = 1751) and Eagles (ELO = 1691) are currently ranked one and two, respectively. Win probabilities here are based on 100,000 simulations, updated after every game played. They give the Eagles a 42% chance of winning

FiveThirtyEight Says

Eagles 42%

PATRIOTS 58%

The highly regarded Pro Football Focus (PFF) supposedly has its own ELO ranking. I guess it’s a system based on grades. I’m not entirely sure how it works, and PFF hasn’t put out a Super Bowl projection that I could find, but they had the Eagles ranked third going into the NFC Championship, and the Patriots ranked first. So I assume PFF’s ELO will favor the Patriots here.

Pro Football Focus Says

Eagles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Patriots ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also like Football Outsiders’ (FO) DVOA. While they don’t push out win probabilities, you can glean tendencies. In terms of DVOA, the Eagles offense is ranked 8^th and the Patriots are 1^st. Advantage Pats. The Eagles defense is ranked 5^th and Patriots are *cough* 31^st. Advantage Eagles. The Eagles special teams unit is ranked 16^th and the Patriots are 3^rd. Advantage Pats. Overall, the Eagles rank 5^th and Patriots rank 6^th. So I’ll say that FO gives the Eagles the slight edge here.

Football Outsiders

EAGLES Advantage

Patriots

I’ve done my own work with analytics and have created a calculator that projects win probabilities and scores based on efficiency stats. Check out the viz (and play around with it!).

The pre-loaded values are season averages. The results here seem to agree with most of the other results above: the Eagles have a 43% chance of winning. BUT, if we only include playoff stats, give the edge to the Eagles.

Bleeding Green

EAGLES 52%

Patriots 48%

Now get some rest. Big game Sunday!