Yesterday, I wrote about the peculiar bit of trivia that teams scoring exactly 13 points win more frequently than teams scoring exactly 14 points. There were some great comments in those posts, and today, I want to get a little more granular with the data.

From 1999 to 2016, there were 462 games where a team scored exactly 13 points by two field goals and one touchdown, and 382 games where a team scored exactly 14 points by two touchdowns and two extra points. Note: the data set in today’s post is limited to 13-point games with 2 FG + 1 TD and 14-point games with 2 TDs (and 2 XPs); all other avenues to 13 or 14 points were discarded. In the 13-point games, teams won 26.2% of the time and allowed 19.7 points; in the 14 point games, teams won 14.1% of the time and allowed 24.8 points.

So the 13-point scoring teams allowed 5 fewer points per game than the 14-point scoring teams, which of course explains why they have a better record.  What about when those scores occurred? On average, the 13-point scoring teams produced their three scores at 15.6 minutes, 31.7 minutes, and 47.4 minutes of game play — in other words, early 2nd quarter, early 3rd quarter, and early 4th quarter. Meanwhile, the 14-point scoring teams scored at the 22-minute mark and the 43-minute mark, or midway through the 2nd quarter and at the end of the 3rd quarter.

Does that mean anything? I’m not so sure.  So instead, let’s break things into 5-minute buckets.  How early into the game did these teams first score?

The 13-point teams produced their first score in the first quarter in 53% of games; conversely, the 14-point teams only scored in the 1st quarter in 36% of games.  In 83% of games, the 13-point scoring teams had scored by the 25-minute mark, compared to just 60% of 14-point scoring teams.  Of course, the 13-point scoring teams are often scoring field goals, while the 14-point scoring teams are only scoring touchdowns.

What about their second scores?  For 13-point scoring teams, a whopping one-third of teams scored for the second time in the final 5 minutes of the first half.   For the 14-point scoring teams, 41% of those teams were at 7 points until the final 10 minutes of the game, with 25% stuck at 7 until the final 5 minutes.

Teams that scored 14 points but had their second touchdown come in the final 10 minutes went 20-136, for a 12.8% winning percentage. That dropped to 10.5% — a 10-85 record — when the second score came in the final 5 minutes.

Finally, what about the field goal kicking teams? When did their third score occur?

There were also 9 games where the 13-point scoring team scored in overtime, which were all wins.  But teams also won 35.8% of games where the third field goal came in the final five minutes of regulation, for a 49-88 record.

There’s some evidence that time of possession plays a factor in the 13 vs. 14 phenomenon, and it’s possible (although I am not particularly persuaded) that scoring on three drives may have some marginal benefit above scoring on two drives. But for the most part, I think this phenomenon is the result of survivorship bias.  Teams that score a field goal late are often going to win games, even (especially!) if they don’t score a lot of points overall.