Week Six Results

I've been running a ranking system for a few years.  It weights both offensive and defensive efforts against he strength of the opponent.  I do it at the game level (ie weight each individual games statistical data point)

Based on previous experience, I find that the weighting isn't reliable as a measurement of performance until you accumulate enough data to avoid large swings from week to week.  It's like a volume of water.  When there is a little water in a cup, a little splash shakes everything up, when you have an ocean of water a gallon more hardly disturbs the surface.  The analogy points out that for the last six weeks the weighting system swings teams from the top five to the bottom five to somewhere in the middle with every good or bad outing. 

And while week six to week seven will more likely have a wild swing than in week fifteen, this seems a good point to release the first power rankings of the year. 

And as we've come to expect from the NFL, there are some surprises every year.

		RANK W/OUT WEIGHT		OFFENSE RANK	DEFENSE RANK		RECORD	SCHED STREN
1	HOUSTON	2		10	7		6-0-0	27
2	ATLANTA	4		11	14		6-0-0	30
3	NY GIANTS	3		1	13		4-2-0	23
4	CHICAGO	1		15	1		4-1-0	26
5	SAN  FRANCISCO	5		12	2		4-2-0	10
6	BALTIMORE	7		8	12		5-1-0	25
7	NEW ENGLAND	6		2	22		3-3-0	12
8	DENVER	8		7	5		3-3-0	7
9	MINNESOTA	10		17	16		4-2-0	24
10	ARIZONA	14		25	6		4-2-0	14
11	DETROIT	9		3	19		2-3-0	13
12	SEATTLE	15		26	3		4-2-0	11
13	GREEN BAY	13		4	18		2-4-0	5
14	WASHINGTON	12		5	25		3-3-0	17
15	DALLAS	19		9	10		2-3-0	1
16	ST LOUIS	20		21	8		3-3-0	2
17	PHILADELPHIA	22		20	9		3-3-0	7
18	MIAMI	16		16	21		3-3-0	20
19	TAMPA BAY	18		23	4		2-3-0	22
20	PITTSBURGH	11		13	24		2-3-0	31
21	SAN DIEGO	21		30	11		3-3-0	29
22	CINCINNATI	17		22	26		3-3-0	32
23	NY JETS	23		29	15		3-3-0	14
24	BUFFALO	26		18	30		3-3-0	21
25	CAROLINA	25		28	17		1-4-0	6
26	INDIANAPOLIS	27		14	32		2-3-0	18
27	NEW ORLEANS	24		6	31		1-4-0	28
28	OAKLAND	30		19	27		1-4-0	9
29	CLEVELAND	29		27	20		1-5-0	14
30	TENNESSEE	31		24	29		2-4-0	2
31	KANSAS CITY	28		31	23		1-5-0	19
32	JACKSONVILLE	32		32	28		1-4-0	4

In the Cleveland-centric theme of this blog; note that not only is the Browns defense higher ranked than its offense, it is also ranked higher than Pittsburgh.  A first since I've been tracking NFL data.

**Here to get a brief overview of the methodology.  If people show an interest I'll explain in more detail.