They aren’t.

While a two-word article could get the job done, there’s more to this discussion. While the goal of preseason games is not necessarily to achieve a victory, it can be indicative of where the team is in development and if they are ready to hit the regular season on a roll.

Can a teams preseason record help predict their regular season success?

I decided to dive into the numbers from 2023. With 30 NFL teams playing three preseason games while two teams had four games because of the Hall of Fame Game, there were actually seven different categories of records I looked at from last season. There were teams that went 3–0, 2–1, 1–2–1, 1–2, 0–2–1, and 0–3. There were also two additional records that I grouped together of being .500 because it was teams that went 2–2 and 1–1–1. That’s a lot of variance in records, especially because there is no overtime in the preseason, to look at different data.

First, I wanted to see if preseason success helped to determine a team’s Week 1 outcome. I know this is difficult because it really depends on the matchup. If two teams are undefeated in the preseason play each other the first week of the season, obviously one is going to win and one is going to lose outside of having a tie. So keep in mind this does not give the context of matchups.

I found it interesting that the second-lowest winning percentage of these groups came from teams that went 2–1 during the preseason. I wasn’t surprised that the teams that went 0–3 was the lowest, but it was actually quite close. These were the only two groups that had below a 50% winning rate in the first week of the 2023 season.

So what about a larger sample size? What if we look at the first quarter of the season, meaning the first four games?

Looking at this, it appears the teams who went undefeated in the preseason didn’t really gain large momentum into the first quarter of the upcoming season as all three teams went 2–2 in the first four weeks. Losing every game in the preseason shows the teams were not starting well for the first quarter as the best record of those teams was the same at 2–2. So where did the winning teams land? There was a big bounce back after the first week of teams that went 2–1 in the preseason where five of them went 3–1 over the first four games. But the two teams that were undefeated through the first four games the 2023 NFL season did not have success in the preseason when it came to winning games. Of these two 4–0 teams, one of them only won one of their preseason games while the other one had a tie as their best outcome.

The ultimate goal of every NFL team each season is to win the Super Bowl. In order to have a chance to do so, the team has the first make to playoffs. So did preseason record have a significant effect on teams that qualified for the postseason?

I find it interesting that they were the same number of teams (three) that went 3–0 in the preseason last year that went to 0–3. But yet in each category, one of those three made the playoffs. Interesting enough, the Steelers were the one team that did not win their Week 1 game of the three teams that went undefeated in last year‘s preseason, but they were the only team of those three that made the playoffs. The teams that were 0–3 in the preseason did not find overwhelming success through the first quarter of the season as none of them were above .500, the team that started 2–2 managed to go to the postseason. And despite having the one of the worst Week 1 records of any group, teams that went 2–1 in the preseason were the only group to have more than half the teams make the playoffs, outside of the one group that only consisted of one team.

The simplest way to break down the playoff results compared to preseason records is that eight of the 14 playoff contenders came from teams that finished .500 or better in the preseason while six of them came from teams that were less than .500.

I understand this is just data from one season, but it does go to show how preseason success can sometimes help a team start the regular season, but it is not overly indicative of teams making the postseason. So whether the Steelers finish the 2024 preseason 1– 2, 0–2–1, or 0–3, it will not preclude them from going on and having a successful season. If it does, then Kansas City Chiefs fans can go ahead and put away their hopes of the NFL’s first three-peat Super Bowl winner as they finished up their preseason 0–3 for 2024.