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khazim

My NFL Power Rankings

December 28, 2012 at 07:14PM View BBCode

I got bored and put together a spreadsheet looking at the week-by-week point differentials of all 32 NFL teams, weighting each quarter of the season differently (25% of the differential in weeks 1-4, 50% in weeks 5-8, 75% in weeks 9-13, and 100% in weeks 14-17). I am tired of hearing about "Great offense" beating "Great defense" and vice-versa. Point differential seemed to be the way to do that best. With point differential, a team who wins a lot of close games by scoring points but has a bad defense (think last year's Packers or Pats) gets viewed the same as a team who has a phenomenal defense but an anemic offense (think the 2000 Ravens). A three point win is a three point win, no matter if the score is 3-0 or 51-48.

Anyway, I present you my findings. Positive numbers are good and Negative numbers are bad.

1 Seattle Seahawks 9.70
2 New England Patriots 8.13
3 Denver Broncos 7.33
4 Green Bay Packers 5.35
5 Atlanta Falcons 4.88
6 Cincinnati Bengals 3.98
7 San Francisco 49ers 3.28
8 Chicago Bears 2.72
9 Washington Redskins 2.58
10 Baltimore Ravens 2.13
11 New Orleans Saints 1.73
12 Houston Texans 1.67
13 Minnesota Vikings 1.45
14 Carolina Panthers 1.28
15 New York Giants 0.37
16 Dallas Cowboys 0.12
17 Miami Dolphins -0.03
18 Pittsburgh Steelers -0.28
19 San Diego Chargers -0.87
20 St. Louis Rams -1.02
21 Indianapolis Colts -1.17
22 Tampa Bay Buccaneers -1.83
23 Cleveland Browns -1.92
24 New York Jets -2.87
25 Detroit Lions -3.50
26 Buffalo Bills -5.13
27 Arizona Cardinals -5.65
28 Oakland Raiders -5.88
29 Tennessee Titans -6.00
30 Philadelphia Eagles -6.02
31 Jacksonville Jaguars -7.13
32 Kansas City Chiefs -7.42


Judging by this, I would say the Seattle Seahawks are the team in the NFC that nobody wants to face in the playoffs. New England and Denver are easily best in the AFC judging by this standard.

I know you guys tend to be stat junkies, so please, come poke holes in what I've done here.

[Edited on 12-28-2012 by khazim]
tworoosters

December 28, 2012 at 10:38PM View BBCode

It's an interesting list, I can't really buy into New Orleans and Chicago being ranked ahead of Houston, though Houston has stumbled a bit down the stretch.

I think the biggest issue I have is that Seattle's numbers are greatly skewed by their two huge beatdowns of very bad teams, a combined 108-17 against Arizona and Buffalo.

Most NFL teams take their foot off the throttle when they have 30 point leads but Pete Carroll seems to think he's still in the NCAA . I think a system that "caps" the maximum points differential might be more representative, I mean really is winning 58-0 any more indicative of dominance than winning 38-0 ?

I'm also not sure why a 20 point win in October isn't worth the same as a 20 point win in December .
khazim

December 28, 2012 at 11:15PM View BBCode

When you're looking at who is playing well now, you have to weight the recent stuff more highly than the older stuff.

Look at it this way, every team whose differential is between +3 and -3 are basically the same team, in terms of ability to win games. Besides, Houston actually IS that bad. They peaked too soon and haven't been the same team since they lost Cushing for the year.



[Edited on 12-28-2012 by khazim]
khazim

January 03, 2013 at 03:43PM View BBCode

Here are the final ones for the season with splits for home and away. I did this initially to see just how wide a gap the Seahawks had between their home and away splits, but there's more.

[IMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y154/khazim/NFLPointdiffwithsplits.jpg[/IMG]

Seattle's road split (2.38) is less than Washington's home split (3.63), giving a 1.25 point nod to Washington. If you add in the home field standard (3.5) that Vegas uses, and that shows Seattle losing by 4.75 points to Washington.
tworoosters

January 03, 2013 at 07:59PM View BBCode

You should send this ranking to Johnathan Mara, I'm sure he'd try and find a way to use it to force the NFL to add the Giants to the playoffs.
tworoosters

January 03, 2013 at 08:03PM View BBCode

Vegas has Seattle as 3 point favourites, it opened at pick and has been bet up to three.

Baltimore are 6 1/2 point favourites, no movement, Green Bay opened as 8 point faves and it's now 7 1/2 and Texas are currently 4 1/2 point favoutites after opening as 5 point faves.
khazim

January 04, 2013 at 12:57AM View BBCode

I'm shocked that Houston is favored, as bad as they have been the last month of the season.
folifan19

January 04, 2013 at 06:34PM View BBCode

Houston is fake good. The Bengals will beat them. As a Steeler fan, this causes me much pain... Go Broncos.
paulcaraccio

January 05, 2013 at 11:20PM View formatted

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take the packers, they're gonna win by 20 or 30
tworoosters

January 06, 2013 at 02:05AM View BBCode

Originally posted by khazim
I'm shocked that Houston is favored, as bad as they have been the last month of the season.


By your ratings they should be favoured, they are 8.63 at home while Cinci is 4.5 on the road, a 4 point difference .
folifan19

January 07, 2013 at 03:56PM View BBCode

Stoopid Bengals. All four teams I was hoping for lost this weekend.
dirtdevil

January 07, 2013 at 05:37PM View BBCode

i was 2-2, as far as that goes. seahawks and ravens up, bengals and vikings down.
khazim

January 10, 2013 at 09:48PM View BBCode

The model was 3-1. The one game I missed was Seattle @ Washington.
tworoosters

January 11, 2013 at 09:35PM View BBCode

I think Seattle probably wins that game regardless but it would have been more interesting had Washington had a two legged QB for the final three quarters.

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