All 256 Regular-Season NFL Games, Ranked According To Watchability

I really root for only one NFL team, and that NFL team plays 16 games in the regular season. I watch way more games than that, though, because I am an American, damn it, and football games are awesome. Unfortunately, not every game is equally watchable—for every wild Colts-Lions finish you have a Cardinals-Jets snoozefest. So what were the best games of the 2012 regular season, regardless of rooting interest?

To investigate, I put together a very simple model to measure "watchability." Feel free to quibble in the comments, but to me the best NFL games are close, high-scoring, meaningful, and have an unexpected result. Each game was scored (out of 25) in these four categories:

• Closeness: Based on score differential entering the fourth quarter. Differentials greater than three possessions (24 points) netted a game zero points, a tie game entering the fourth was worth 25.
• Scoring: Based on total number of points squared. The highest-scoring game of the year got a 25, the lowest scoring got a zero.
• Meaningfulness: Based on the playoff chances of each team entering the game, courtesy of coolstandings.com. The closer the teams' odds were to 50 percent, the higher the score. No credit was given to clinched teams playing for byes.
• Result: Based on the difference between the final result and the Vegas spread. True upsets got a significant bonus, while underdogs beating the spread received a small bonus.

These four scores were then combined into a Watchability Rating (out of 100 points). No games were strong in all four of these categories, so the highest Watchability Rating was a 70, and the average was a 42. For a list of these ratings for all 256 games, broken down by category, click here.

On to some superlatives!

Top/Bottom 5 Games:

The highest-scoring game this season had a four-point differential going into the fourth and ended in a minor upset. It also came early enough that the Lions and Titans (who finished a combined 19-13 in 2011) were still playoff relevant. Seriously, I'd completely forgotten about this game but it was fucking nuts. Also topping the list: the Eagles' 19-17 win over the Giants that ended with a missed field goal, the critical Week 15 matchup that dropped the Steelers to .500 and pushed the Cowboys (briefly) to the top of the NFC East, and two more early-season shootouts between teams with tough paths to the playoffs.*

At the bottom are a variety of meaningless late-season blowouts. Outside of determining AFC byes and sinking the Giants' sad, sad season, these games accomplished nothing and were decided well before the second half began.

Top/Bottom 5 Teams:

Poor Cowboys. During their late-season surge, the team recorded a dramatic victory against the Steelers in the third-most watchable game of the year. Unfortunately, back-to-back also-dramatic losses to the Saints and Redskins—the 10th- and 7th-most watchable games of the year—kept them out of the playoffs. Including that Week 17 clincher, the Redskins had their fair share of awesome games this year.

At the bottom of the pile, you have two terrible teams in a terrible division, and then second-, third-, and 5th-best defenses in the league. Sorry guys! The model likes points on the board.

Watchability By Week:

No surprises here. Watchability dropped as the season wore on, as teams either clinched or got bounced from playoff berths and the number of completely irrelevant games grew. Week 3 took most-watchable-week honors, highlighted by Lions-Titans, Bengals-Redskins, the notorious Packers-Seahawks, and Chiefs-Saints, the first-, fifth-, 12th-, and 22nd-most watchable games of the year, respectively.

Watchability By Network:

Tough year for Monday Night Football. ESPN's most watchable game (Packers-Seahawks) was a publicity disaster for the NFL, and other than that the network got stuck with a bunch of high-profile blowouts. NBC got six top-50 games for its Sunday night slot, including the flexed Week 17 super-matchup between the Cowboys and Redskins, the seventh-most watchable game of the year.

The AFC sorted itself out a lot quicker than the NFC this year, meaning that Fox games were 7 percent more watchable than CBS games. Also not a great year for the NFL Network, which proved incapable of choosing good games and got stuck with just three in the top 100: Steelers-Titans (25th), Chiefs-Chargers (75th), and Buccaneers-Vikings (96th). Short-rest football: maybe a bad idea.

Here's the full slate, ranked by watchability (click here for a sortable version):

[Google Docs]