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 3!
These rankings are designed to help you 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 it 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 115-63-5 (64.2%) against the spread (ATS) in the regular season other than the last week of the season when using closing lines — the hardest line to beat.
In Week 2, the four Luck Matchups went 2-2-0 (50%) ATS with the two road unlucky teams covering and the two home unlucky teams failing to cover, which matched trends from previous years.
Here’s how our NFL Luck Rankings shake out for Week 3.
NFL Week 3 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 |
56.96%
|
|
| 2 |
55.14%
|
|
| 3 |
55.02%
|
|
| 4 |
52.54%
|
|
| 5 |
46.37%
|
|
| 6 |
30.26%
|
|
| 7 |
24.26%
|
|
| 8 |
22.72%
|
|
| 9 |
17.10%
|
|
| 10 |
16.94%
|
|
| 11 |
15.66%
|
|
| 12 |
13.52%
|
|
| 13 |
3.11%
|
|
| 14 |
2.68%
|
|
| 15 |
2.59%
|
|
| 16 |
2.11%
|
|
| 17 |
1.48%
|
|
| 18 |
-3.06%
|
|
| 19 |
-3.75%
|
|
| 20 |
-4.40%
|
|
| 21 |
-7.29%
|
|
| 22 |
-7.99%
|
|
| 23 |
-14.51%
|
|
| 24 |
-20.39%
|
|
| 25 |
-22.88%
|
|
| 26 |
-38.62%
|
|
| 27 |
-39.68%
|
|
| 28 |
-52.12%
|
|
| 29 |
-51.22%
|
|
| 30 |
-53.99%
|
|
| 31 |
-54.24%
|
|
| 32 |
-61.51%
|
The Luckiest Teams
1. Kansas City Chiefs
It should be no surprise that the Chiefs top our Week 3 Luck Rankings since they beat Baltimore by an Isaiah Likely toenail. Then, Kansas City needed a late and long pass interference penalty on fourth down to give Harrison Butker a chance to hit a game-winning field goal as time expired against Cincinnati.
The Chiefs could just as easily be 0-2 but are 2-0, putting K.C. atop our Luck Rankings for the first time since the 2020 season.
2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Amazingly, the Buccaneers won against Detroit in Week 2 in a game our Expected Score had 33.7-20.3 in favor of Detroit. The Lions win that game an expected 79% of the time.
One of the driving factors behind that was Detroit’s superior success rate. A team with a success rate like the Lions in Week 2 should convert drives into touchdowns more often than Detroit did, so we’d expect positive regression for the Lions in that department.
Detroit had drives reach the Buccaneers’ 3, 17, 9, 13, 18, 11 and 26-yard lines, coming away with a combined nine points from those drives.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers
They’re baaaaaaack.
The Steelers rank inside the top three in our Luck Rankings for the first time since two weeks ago.
Once again, Pittsburgh are one-score merchants, technically winning both games by one possession. The Steelers had a lower offensive success rate than their opponents in both games, an unsustainable formula over the course of an entire season.
The Unluckiest Teams
30. Indianapolis Colts
After spending much of last season near the top of the Luck Rankings, the Colts find themselves near the bottom early in 2024.
Two one-score losses will do that, but both games were essentially coin flips. Our Expected Score for the Colts’ most recent game was 21.9-21.2 in favor of the Packers, so a six-point loss is definitely on the unlucky side of things.
31. Tennessee Titans
The Titans have two losses by identical 24-17 scorelines.
In Week 1, the loss came despite Chicago scoring zero offensive touchdowns. This past week, it was at the hands of Aaron Rodgers and the Jets.
The Titans fumbled inside the Jets’ 10-yard line, and their final drive also reached the Jets’ 10. The Titans were expected to come away with more than a touchdown’s worth of points from those two drives instead of zero.
32. Denver Broncos
After losing to Seattle in Week 1 in a game they won the field position battle by nearly 25 yards, the Broncos backed that up with another defeat in which they were expected to win based on the underlying data.
When talking about the Steelers, I mentioned that Denver had a better offensive success rate, but it just didn’t turn into points. A Bo Nix interception at the Steelers’ 6-yard line should have turned into at least three points — if not more. The two drives that did end in field goals had higher expected points, as well.
In Week 3, the unluckiest Broncos head to the second-luckiest Buccaneers in one of the rare 30+ Luck Differential games!
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