"39 of the 87 teams (45%) improved on their record the following year. 15 teams (17%) repeated their seven-win season from the previous year, just like the Cowboys did from 2024 to 2025. 33 teams (29%) finished the following season with an even worse record. 25 teams (29%) made the playoffs the season after finishing with seven wins. And here's a surprising little nugget: Two teams won the Super Bowl (2017 Eagles, 2020 Bucs) in the season after a seven-win season, two more made the Super Bowl (2003 Panthers, 2015 Panthers) but lost."
"The NFL is a closed system in which teams tend toward a .500 record, and eight- or nine-win seasons are mathematically the most likely outcome (with a 17-game schedule). In this system, every win above or below that .500 record is increasingly less likely, and the data above bears that out, even if the data doesn't follow a strict normal distribution curve, spiking both at two and 11 wins."
From 2002 onward, 87 NFL teams finished seasons with seven wins. Of those, 45% improved the next year, 17% repeated seven wins, 29% declined, and 29% reached the playoffs the following season. Two teams went on to win the Super Bowl the year after a seven-win campaign, and two others reached the Super Bowl but lost. The league's closed system pushes teams toward a .500 record, making eight- or nine-win seasons most likely with a 17-game schedule. Fourteen teams recorded consecutive seven-win seasons, and those teams generally faced less favorable Year-3 outcomes despite rare exceptions.
Read at Blogging The Boys
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