The 2021 season is barely visible from the horizon, but that doesn’t stop people from predicting how the entire season will play out. One place that tries to do this with some analytics to support their view points is ESPN’s Football Outsiders.
They use “numerous factors, including personnel changes, three-year performance, standard regression toward the mean and schedule strength,” Aaron Schatz says in his article for ESPN.
This formula doesn’t favor what the Cincinnati Bengals did this offseason as it still has them ending up with the fifth overall selection in 2022. First, lets take a look at how this system has the offense improving:
Joe Burrow tore his ACL in Week 11 of last year.