Action Network’s NFL Luck Rankings — a betting-focused version of NFL Power Rankings developed by Action Network’s Predictive Analytics team — are out for Week 11.
These rankings are designed to help identify which teams’ results have been luckier — or unluckier — than their on-field performance indicates.
For more on how the Luck Rankings work, check out this detailed concept overview. You can also check out our season primer to understand how to use these rankings to bet on the NFL.
An NFL game must qualify for one of the following three criteria to be considered a “Luck Game.”
- A difference of at least 24 places in our weekly NFL Luck Rankings.
- A Luck% difference of at least 50% between two opposing teams at any point in the season.
- A Luck% difference of at least 30% between two opposing teams in Week 13 or later.
The unlucky team in matchups that fit one of those criteria is 126-72-6 (63.2%) against the spread (ATS) in the regular season other than the last week of the season when using closing lines — the hardest lines to beat.
In Week 10, unlucky teams in Luck Matchups that met our thresholds went 1-0 ATS, moving those teams to 13-11-1 (54%) against the spread (ATS) on the season.
Luck Totals must meet one of three criteria:
- A Luck Total above +10 after Week 3.
- A Luck Total above +5 after Week 11.
- A Luck Total below -5 after Week 2.
The three Luck Totals in Week 10 were all Luck Unders that went 2-1 to the under. That moves Luck Unders to 8-8-0 on the season, while Luck Overs are 4-0-0. As a whole, Luck Totals are 12-8-0 (60%) this season.
All luck-based bets meeting any side or total criteria are 25-19-1 (56.7%).
Here’s how our NFL Luck Rankings shake out for Week 11.
NFL Week 11 Luck Rankings
Note: Luck % represents the win probability swing between a team’s expected winning percentage from their on-field performance and their actual winning percentage. Lucky teams may regress and could be overvalued by betting markets.
| RANK | TEAM | Luck % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
29.48%
|
|
| 2 |
22.28%
|
|
| 3 |
18.54%
|
|
| 4 |
18.30%
|
|
| 5 |
16.63%
|
|
| 6 |
14.47%
|
|
| 7 |
12.13%
|
|
| 8 |
11.69%
|
|
| 9 |
10.31%
|
|
| 10 |
7.12%
|
|
| 11 |
5.08%
|
|
| 12 |
4.46%
|
|
| 13 |
3.48%
|
|
| 14 |
2.80%
|
|
| 15 |
0.10%
|
|
| 16 |
0.03%
|
|
| 17 |
-1.70%
|
|
| 18 |
-2.11%
|
|
| 19 |
-3.52%
|
|
| 20 |
-6.98%
|
|
| 21 |
-8.43%
|
|
| 22 |
-8.61%
|
|
| 23 |
-9.77%
|
|
| 24 |
-10.03%
|
|
| 25 |
-11.75%
|
|
| 26 |
-12.96%
|
|
| 27 |
-13.31%
|
|
| 28 |
-14.03%
|
|
| 29 |
-16.47%
|
|
| 30 |
-18.06%
|
|
| 31 |
-18.42%
|
|
| 32 |
-28.63%
|
The Luckiest Teams
1. Kansas City Chiefs
What can we say at this point? The Chiefs keep finding ways to win, in this case blocking a last-second field goal that would have handed them their first loss of the season. Instead, Kansas City remains undefeated at a perfect 9-0, more than two wins above expectation.
To be fair to Kansas City, the fact that it came down to that was a bit unlucky for it. Our Expected Score had the Chiefs winning by about a touchdown.
That said, going a perfect 7-0 in one-score games is unsustainable. We’d expect a team of K.C.’s strength to win around 4.5 of those one-score games when adjusted for the caliber of teams they came against, which almost fully makes up their 2.65 wins over expectation.
2. Green Bay Packers
The Packers remain second in the Luck Rankings after a Week 10 bye.
3. Detroit Lions
In an absolutely whacky game, Detroit beat Houston 26-23 despite Jared Goff’s five interceptions.
The Lions needed a missed Ka’imi Fairbairn 58-yard field goal and then their own made 52-yarder from Jake Bates to secure the win. The Lions are certainly in the argument to be the best team in the NFL, but their 8-1 record is lucky since they’re 4-1 in one-score games with an overtime win and two by a field goal or less.
And we can’t forget about the Lions’ lucky win against Green Bay in Week 9, who dominated them in nearly every predictive stat except the final score.
The Unluckiest Teams
30. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars are back in the bottom three after three straight one-score losses to three solid teams in Green Bay, Philadelphia and Minnesota. Add in Jacksonville’s dominant win over New England in Week 9, and the team nobody wanted to bet on that started the year out 1-4-1 ATS is now 5-4-1 ATS.
Jacksonville has actually outscored their last four opponents 89-86 but is 1-3. Jacksonville should be closer to 2-2 in those games against four teams that, in aggregate, are better than the average NFL team. The public, though, will just see another three-game losing streak and continue to bet against them.
31. Tennessee Titans
The Titans failed to cover against the Chargers as an eight-point underdog, losing by 10 in a game that was closer than that final margin.
Expected Score pegged this as a 7.6-point Chargers win, which certainly seems more fair given the Titans had a better yards per play and held the ball for nearly equal amounts of time. The Chargers won the field-position battle, which certainly helped and is part of why their Expected Score was higher than the Titans.
Titans kicker Nick Folk missed just his second-ever field goal with the team, which was the difference between covering or not.
32. New York Giants
The Giants had the unluckiest result of Week 10 and the seventh-most unlucky result of the season losing to the Panthers 20-17 despite dominating the underlying stats being in their favor.
The Giants had a 54.8%-41.3% in-possession success rate advantage and generated nearly nine full expected points of situational point value. Still, they couldn’t convert that success into points.
The public may laugh and point out it’s the Giants, but the public has also been laughing and pointing out the Panthers for two years now. One of those two had to cover.
It should have been the Giants by a 33.5-18.3 Expected Score. Instead, Carolina gets the win and becomes the ninth-most lucky team in the win column despite a 3-7 record.
On the flip side, that drops the 2-8 New York Giants to dead last in the Luck Rankings.
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