Point differential

Record is a step function: a three-point win and a thirty-point win are both one win. Differential keeps the margin, and margin carries information that the win-loss column throws away.

Over a seventeen-game season the gap between the two is routinely several wins. A team that wins its close games and loses its blowouts finishes ahead of its differential and tends to fall back the following year; the reverse is the classic underrated team.

It is a blunt instrument next to EPA per play, mainly because garbage time counts in full and a defensive touchdown is credited to the offence's ledger. But it needs no model, it is on every standings row, and it is right far more often than the record is.