I was told to lead in my posts with a GIF explaining fans reactions in the pre-season, so here you go.
In my previous post, I alluded that the fact that there was little to no correlation between pre-season records and that of the regular season. However, as others have pointed out, a record doesn't tell the whole story and some feel that pre-season point differential might be a more telling story. Fear not, I went back and did comparisons for pre-season point differential. For the 2013 NFL season, the results went as follows:
A reason why point differential is very important in the regular season because it is a very good predictor for a team's success. See here:
As we look at the pre-season point differential, we see that there is little to no correlation between pre-season point differential and how a team fared in the regular season, much like my previous post.
However, some have been worried about the 49ers being unable to score a single TD in the pre-season right now. So I went ahead and looked to see if pre-season TDs had any bearing on how a team performed in the regular season.
Just like with pre-season point differential, there isn't much correlation between pre-season TDs and regular season performance. However, we're 49ers fans. We don't care about the other teams (unless it may interfere with our success), we just care about how we've done. So how have the 49ers fared? Here are the results:
As we can see, the 49ers are no different than the NFL when it comes to how their pre-season performance affects their regular season performance, point differential and all.
As of yet, there hasn't been any resounding evidence (as Karl Cuba and nickbradley have pointed out) that points towards pre-season fate and regular season fate, unless we look at outliers.
That isn't to say that kicorse's point is invalid, it just means there may be a bit of selective bias at work. That is, teams that are have a complete dearth of talent will fare badly regardless if it's the pre-season or post-season. And by selecting points where usually only terrible teams find themselves, we are reinforcing our own point.
We shall see, but so far as I can tell, you should neither be worried or excited for pre-season performance overall, because a good team is just as likely to stink it up (the Broncos were -33 in PD in the pre-season last year and the Packers scored 2 TDs the whole pre-season) as a bad team is to light it up (the Texans and the Redskins with their +31 and +53, respectively) and a good team is just as likely to light it up (Seahawks and 49ers with their +74 and +53 respectively) as a bad team is to stink it up (Jaguars with their -51 and the Buccaneers with their -49).