NFL Power Rankings Week 4
By Keith Myers
It’s time for another installment of my mathematical power rankings. Since we have so many new readers, here’s the basics of what this is. About a year ago, I started a massive project looking at tons of different stats and looked for correlation to winning. The result, after months of work, was a mathematical model of how each thing a team does that effects winning. I’ve parlayed that knowledge into a formula for that determines a “power” level for each team based on their stats.
This week, Houston takes over the top spot. From what I’ve seen, I don’t expect them to relinquish it for quite a while. They might not be a sexy team for the national media, but they are easily the most complete team in the league right now.
The Seahawks, and their very sad performance against the Rams, dropped from 4th to 9th. The fact that they were that high to begin with, and that they didn’t drop way down after playing so poorly, should show you why I’m so high on this team making a playoff run if they can fix their passing offense. The rest of Seahawk team is playing well enough to play deep into the playoffs.
The biggest movers with week were Denver in the positive direction, and the Bills in the negative direction. I can’t say that either surprised me. My expectation for the year was that the Bills would end up in the bottom third in the league, and that the Broncos would end up in the top third. I figured that these 2 teams would sort themselves out eventually, and it appears to have happened now.
Interestingly, 4-0 Arizona actually dropped 3 places down to 13. They are currently winning games that they probably shouldn’t be winning statistically, but in the NFL only the W counts. There’s no style points. That said, look for them to come back down to Earth soon as they regress back to where their talent level and performance say they should be.
Rank |
Last
Team
Yds
PTDif
TO
ST
Power
1
2
Houston
0.8
17.5
7
-9.22
95.8
2
7
New England
1.5
10.5
8
7.74
90.8
3
1
Atlanta
-0.45
12
10
15.24
91.0
4
9
San Francisco
4.2
9.7
4
-22.2
88.9
5
6
Chicago
0.9
10
7
10.12
88.2
6
3
Baltimore
2.75
9.5
4
-2.68
87.9
7
16
Denver
1.45
7.7
-4
6.24
79.1
8
11
Minnesota
1.25
4.5
1
17.26
78.6
9
4
Seattle
1.8
3
0
17.42
76.6
10
13
San Diego
0.05
7.2
3
-16.12
76.6
11
5
NY Giant
-1.7
6.8
3
18.38
76.2
12
12
Washington
1.15
0
7
-5.14
72.6
13
10
Arizona
-1.75
7.5
4
-9.52
73.5
14
15
Miami
3.2
-1
-5
12.42
71.5
15
17
Green Bay
-1.1
1
-1
14.06
66.9
16
18
Pittsburgh
-1.95
0.7
0
2.76
64.7
17
26
Cincinnati
-0.8
0
-3
12.66
64.1
18
21
St. Louis
-1.3
-3
2
-2.82
61.0
19
8
Buffalo
0
-4
-3
18.4
62.8
20
23
Philadelphia
2.4
-4.3
-5
-25.48
60.6
21
20
Tampa Bay
-1.95
-2.3
3
-11.58
59.5
22
24
Carolina
1.4
-7.3
-6
2.76
57.5
23
19
Dallas
-0.1
-5.7
-7
5.2
56.0
24
29
New Orleans
-2.5
-5
0
-3.94
55.2
25
27
Cleveland
-0.95
-6.2
-1
-11.4
54.7
26
14
NY Jets
-2.85
-7
-2
17.22
53.2
27
22
Detroit
-0.85
-3.5
-3
-48.08
53.1
28
25
Jacksonville
-1.35
-8.8
0
-14.24
51.1
29
30
Indianapolis
-2.1
-7.4
-4
-6.34
50.6
30
28
Oakland
-2.1
-14.5
0
5.1
44.5
31
31
Kansas City
0.2
-12
-13
-17.2
42.9
32
32
Tennessee
-1.1
-17.5
-6
10.52
40.1
PtDif = point differential
YDS = yards – this is a collection of offensive and defensive yards per play stats. Due to massive small sample size problems, I had to use a similar form of my algorithm this week for this rating.
TO = turn over differential
ST = special teams rating, calculated from kicking, punting and returning stats
The model also uses 3rd down efficiency, time of possession and a host of other stats that aren’t included in the chart above.