In 2013, ESPN developed a groundbreaking metric called the Football Power Index (FPI), “designed to measure team strength and predict game and season outcomes.”
ESPN describes FPI as “a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.”
The world-wide leader recently released their 2022 pre-season FPI rankings, and there are some surprises to say the least.
Let’s look through the top-15 teams.