re: Why doesn’t transitive property work?

Because football is sometimes about individual matchups rather than overall record, etc.

Team A might be incredible against the run but be a mess against the pass.

If they play team B who is a run based offense that can’t throw the ball they will look great.

If they play team C who can’t run but throws the ball effectively team C will probably have a huge day even if their record is the same as team B.

It’s why any effective algorithm to predict scores has to take into account relative performance down to the run/pass level on both offense and defense to perform well.