From 1929 until the 1970s, sports columnist Dick Dunkel ran the Dunkel Index, which rated and ranked both all NFL teams and all Division I-A (now FBS) college teams. He even ranked them on the same continuum, so that readers could discern how much the worst NFL team was better than the best college team. The ratings were updated weekly, based on whether teams "overachieved" or "underachieved" each week.
Dunkel died in 1975 — and while his son attempted to keep his father's invention alive, it gradually faded into obscurity.
Dunkel's Pro Index was not followed as closely as his college index, but was nonetheless published weekly in newspapers across the country — and both indexes expressed each team's rating in tenths of a point.
Concomitantly, a yearly magazine, called the "Stat-Key Annual," was published for both pro and college football.
Both the Dunkel Indexes and the Stat-Key annuals operated on the same premise — and that was to take the difference between two teams in an upcoming game, and add three points to the home team. The result was what the point spread "should be" — but often the actual point spread deviated by quite a bit.
(Stat-Key carried the concept one step further, with "Offensive Ratings" and "Defensive Ratings" for every team, the latter just the right amount lower than the former, in order to arrive at what Stat-Key called an "Instant Pre-Play" of each game, such as "Favorites 24, Underdogs 17" — but unlike the Dunkel indexes, Stat-Key did not use tenths of a point).
Dunkel's Pro Index and the Stat-Key Annual are survived by a "descendant" of sorts: Madden's pre-season team power ratings — which for the upcoming season are as follows:
Kansas City = 87
Philadelphia = 86
Cincinnati = 85
San Francisco = 84
Buffalo = 82
Baltimore = 80
Dallas = 79
L.A. Chargers = 79
New England = 79
Atlanta = 78
Jacksonville = 78
Minnesota = 78
Las Vegas = 77
Miami = 77
N.Y. Giants = 77
Pittsburgh = 77
Detroit = 76
Green Bay = 76
New Orleans =76
Seattle = 76
Cleveland = 75
N.Y. Jets = 75
Tampa Bay = 74
Tennessee = 74
Washington = 74
Carolina = 73
Denver = 73
L.A. Rams = 73
Arizona = 72
Chicago = 72
Indianapolis = 72
Houston = 71
NFL Average = 77.03
Comparing these ratings with the early lines on the Week 1 games, the Chiefs are the "Best Bet" over the Lions because they are only a 7-point favorite over Detroit when they "should be" a 14-point favorite, in that 11 (the number of points that Kansas City is rated higher than Detroit) +3 (the game is in Kansas City) = 14. Second best is Buffalo, because the Jets are actually 1 1/2-point favorites instead of 4-point underdogs as they "should be" (Buffalo is rated as 7 points better than the Jets, which becomes 4 because the game is at MetLife Stadium), and third best is Atlanta, in that the Falcons, playing at home, are only 3-point favorites over the Panthers, when they "should be" 8-point favorites (Atlanta's rating is five points higher, and 5 + 3 = 8).
If only the games were this easy to handicap in the real world.
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