nfl_standings: Compute NFL Standings

Description

Compute NFL Standings

Usage

nfl_standings(
  games,
  ...,
  ranks = c("CONF", "DIV", "DRAFT", "NONE"),
  tiebreaker_depth = c("SOS", "PRE-SOV", "POINTS", "RANDOM"),
  playoff_seeds = NULL,
  verbosity = c("MIN", "MAX", "NONE")
)

Value

A data.table of NFL standings including the ranks selected in the argument ranks

Arguments

games

A data frame containing real or simulated game scores. Outside of simulations, this is simply the output of nflreadr::load_schedules. The following variables are required as a minimum:

sim or season: A season or simulation ID. Normally 1 - n simulated seasons.

game_type

One of 'REG', 'WC', 'DIV', 'CON', 'SB' indicating if a game was a regular season game or one of the playoff rounds.

week

The week of the corresponding NFL season.

away_team

Team abbreviation of the away team (please see divisions for valid team abbreviations).

home_team

Team abbreviation of the home team (please see divisions for valid team abbreviations).

result

Equals home score - away score.

If tiebreakers beyond SOS are to be used, then the actual scores of the home (home_score) and away (away_score) teams must also be available.

...

currently not used

ranks

One of "DIV", "CONF", "DRAFT", or "NONE" to specify which ranks - and thus the associated tiebreakers - are to be determined.

"DIV": Adds the division ranking variable div_rank
"CONF" (default): "DIV" + the conference variable conf_rank. For better performance, it is possible to set playoff_seeds to a value < 16 to make the function skip tiebreakers of irrelevant conference ranks.
"DRAFT": "CONF" + the draft variable draft_rank. This is the actual pick in the draft based off game results. No trades of course.

tiebreaker_depth

One of "SOS", "PRE-SOV", "POINTS" or "RANDOM". Controls which tiebreakers are to be applied. The implemented tiebreakers are documented here https://nflseedr.com/articles/tiebreaker.html. The values mean:

"SOS" (default): Apply all tiebreakers through Strength of Schedule. If there are still remaining ties, break them through coin toss.
"PRE-SOV": Apply all tiebreakers before Strength of Victory. If there are still remaining ties, break them through coin toss. Why Pre SOV? It's the first tiebreaker that requires knowledge of how OTHER teams played.
"POINTS": Apply all tiebreakers through point differential. If there are still remaining ties, break them through coin toss. This will go beyond SOS and requires knowledge of points scored and points allowed. As this is not usually part of season simulations, caution is advised in this case. These tiebreakers should only be used if the scores are real or are deliberately simulated.
"RANDOM": Breaks all tiebreakers with a coin toss. I don't really know, why I allow this...

playoff_seeds

If NULL (the default), will compute all 16 conference ranks. This means, the function applies conference tiebreakers to all conference ranks. For better performance, it is possible to set this to a value < 16 to make the function skip tiebreakers of those conference ranks.

verbosity

One of "MIN", "MAX", or "NONE" allowing the user to set the grade of verbosity of status reports. They mean:

"MIN" (default): Prints main steps of the process.
"MAX": Prints all steps of the complete tiebreaking process.
"NONE": No status reports at all. Do this to maximize the performance.

Details

nflseedR does not support all levels of tie-breakers at the moment. The deepest tie-breaker currently is "best net points in all games". After that, the decision is made at random. However, the need for the last level ("best net touchdowns in all games") is extremely unlikely in practice. Deeper levels than strength of schedule have never actually been needed to resolve season-end standings since the NFL expanded to 32 teams.

Examples

Run this code

# \donttest{
try({#to avoid CRAN test problems
  games <- nflreadr::load_schedules(2021:2022)
})
standings <- nflseedR::nfl_standings(games)
print(standings, digits = 3)
# }