Mathematical NFL Power Rankings

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Time once again for my mathematical power rankings. If you’re new here, or haven’t been paying attention, these are based entirely on stats. About 30 season stats, are combined into 1 meta-stat (power) and the teams are ranked accordingly. There’s no popularity contest going on here.

As expected, Seattle jumped up over the 49ers into the #2 spot. The did so by improving in almost every statistical category, which is an amazing feat by itself, especially against a team as good as San Francisco.

I didn’t expect Seattle to be able to make up the entire 8 point deficit and catch the Patriots, who have had a strangle hold on the #1 spot for a month now. They did make it close, and are now just 2 points back. Pretty impressive considering how poorly the Seahawks offense played the first month of the season, and considering that the Seahawks have played a much tougher schedule than the 49ers have.

I want to highlight one statistical category that tells an interesting story for this season. There are 3 teams who average scoring more than 10 points per game more than their opponents. Seattle is one, and the others are New England and Denver. It’s an interesting indicator of dominance, but it doesn’t the tell the entire story here. Both of the AFC teams play in completely awful divisions. If you look at the strength of schedule, the Seahawks have had the substantial more difficult road of those 3 teams.

Rank	Last	Team	PF	PA	PTDif	ST	3rd%	Power
1	1	New England	35.3	22.1	13.2	13.82	8.5	89.6
2	3	Seattle	26.1	15.5	10.6	3.56	0.5	87.6
3	2	San Francisco	24.7	17.3	7.4	4.3	2.1	86.9
4	4	Denver	29.5	19.1	10.4	9.24	13.6	83.7
5	6	Chicago	23.3	16.9	6.4	9.4	2.8	78.4
6	5	Houston	26.7	20.2	6.5	-1.96	6.1	77.7
7	10	Green Bay	26.6	19.9	6.7	10.58	4.6	76.7
8	7	Washington	27.2	24.7	2.5	5.98	-8.4	76.2
9	8	Atlanta	26.8	18.5	8.3	-1.52	6.6	74.6
10	11	Baltimore	25.4	21.4	4	8.1	1.2	73.4
11	9	Cincinnati	24.5	20.2	4.3	4.18	-2	71.7
12	13	Minnesota	22.8	20.9	1.9	4.24	-4.6	69.5
13	12	NY Giant	25.8	22.5	3.3	-3.1	-3.8	67.5
14	15	Carolina	20.9	21.7	-0.8	1.82	5.2	66.4
15	16	Pittsburgh	20.8	20.3	0.5	-5.2	6.5	63.8
16	14	Tampa Bay	24.5	25.1	-0.6	-10.76	-6.3	63.8
17	19	San Diego	21.7	21.9	-0.2	0.18	-2.4	62.2
18	20	Miami	19.2	19.3	-0.1	2.2	2	61.4
19	17	New Orleans	28.2	27.3	0.9	-6.26	8.1	61.0
20	18	Cleveland	19.5	22.9	-3.4	16.58	-7.3	59.0
21	22	St. Louis	19.1	21.9	-2.8	-10.28	-4.5	57.9
22	21	Dallas	23.9	24.8	-0.9	1.5	3.4	56.6
23	23	Detroit	23.2	27.4	-4.2	-8.06	4.8	53.2
24	24	NY Jets	18.1	23.1	-5	1.74	0	51.1
25	28	Indianapolis	21.9	24.7	-2.8	-5.2	4	49.7
26	26	Buffalo	21.1	28.4	-7.3	9.06	-6	49.4
27	27	Arizona	15.8	22	-6.2	-3.28	-8	46.7
28	25	Tennessee	19.5	30.1	-10.6	-2.62	-1.5	46.4
29	29	Philadelphia	18.2	26.8	-8.6	-9.84	-2	44.8
30	30	Oakland	17.9	27.9	-10	-15.62	-6.6	42.1
31	31	Jacksonville	15.7	27.1	-11.4	-9.44	-12.8	40.8
32	32	Kansas City	13.9	25.8	-11.9	-16.2	-4.6	36.1

Concentrating on points in the table this week.

PF – Points for per game

PA – Points against per game

PTDEF – point differential per game.

ST – Special team’s index. Combination os all parts of special teams play.

3rd% – The difference between 3rd down efficiency and defensive 3rd down efficiency.

There are also about 30 other things involved in determining the power level for each team. Those 5 are just the ones I wanted to include in the table this week.