Kansas City Chiefs enter the 2020 NFL season as Super Bowl LIV champions. According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, they also enter the season as the NFL’s best team and favorite to repeat in Super Bowl LV.
FPI is ESPN’s prediction tool for the NFL, which was developed in 2015. It ranks teams but also calculates win totals, playoff and Super Bowl chances. Here is the quick and dirty rundown of how the model works: It predicts offensive, defensive and special teams efficiency for the upcoming seasons based on a number of different factors such as previous team efficiencies, EPA per play, returning starters, and injuries. All of the factors are accounted for in single-game projections. Then each team’s season is simulated by ESPN a total of 10,000 times, providing calculations for win totals, playoff and Super Bowl chances.
The 2020 offseason has been really good to Kansas City so far. They’re returning a 20-of-22 offensive and defensive starters from the Super Bowl. They haven’t had any significant injuries or coaching changes during the offseason. That appears to have helped them in the FPI model.
After running the simulations, the Chiefs are ranked No. 1 and projected at 11.2 wins per ESPN FPI. They also have a 94% chance to make the playoffs with a 21% chance to win Super Bowl LV, which makes them the second-largest preseason favorite since FPI was created. It’s worth noting that Kansas City was also the preseason favorite to win Super Bowl LIV in 2019 FPI with a 15% chance.
One thing that really seemed to help the Chiefs in these rankings is the fact that they’re more than a touchdown better on offense than the average NFL team. ESPN also noted that offense is more easily predictable on a year-to-year basis than defense. They basically expect Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill and the rest of the offensive playmakers to continue to be really good in 2020.
A few other nuggets related to Kansas City from ESPN’s FPI forecast:
- The Denver Broncos are predicted to have the toughest schedule in the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders coming in with the third-toughest. That is in part due to the fact they have to face the Chiefs twice during the regular season.
- The AFC West is tied with the AFC South for the most-likely division in the AFC to boast the seventh playoff team in the NFL’s new playoff format.
The big question that I’m not certain this prediction model or any model can account for — How will the lack of offseason training thus far impact the Chiefs and other teams? The answer to that question could certainly impact ESPN FPI’s forecast.
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