Pretty fascinating, this guy is a good follow and has worked for NFL teams:
Full text:
Preseason games don’t matter.
The information edge is in joint practices.
I built a sentiment index for every documented NFL joint-practice series from 2011 through 2025 using all available public reporting, including local beat writers, team sites, national media, film analysis and fan communities.
Each report was evaluated for independence, affiliation, coverage and confidence. Special attention was given to the strongest anti-homer evidence: beat reporters acknowledging that the opposing team won the joint practice.
Over those 15 years, teams that clearly won joint practices exceeded their preseason win totals in 30 of 51 seasons: 58.8%.
Clear losers exceeded theirs only 23 of 52 times: 44.2%.
That alone suggests an edge.
But the real edge appeared when preseason expectations and the practice field disagreed.
Teams projected at least one win worse than their opponent, but that clearly won the joint-practice series, went 13-6 against their preseason win totals and averaged 1.08 wins above expectation.
The favored teams that clearly lost went 7-12 and averaged 0.82 wins below expectation.
Clear losers were also three times as likely to demote their opening quarterback for performance.
And teams conclusively beaten on both sides of the line of scrimmage (offensive line and defensive line) started the regular season 8-19-1 against the spread over the first four weeks.
The edge may not simply be identifying who won practice.
It may be identifying when an unexpected result exposes something the market has not fully captured.
We went into more detail on this study in tonight’s Paganetti and Underhill episode on YouTube:
youtu.be/hiAxIlEJ1-8
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