Week Seven Power Ranks

Week Seven has come and gone and Kansas City has vaulted into the top spot with the number one defense.  Also noteworthy is that many of the top young QBs in the league find themselves leading a top ten team at this time.  Two interesting exceptions are Alex Smith and Andy Daulton.  The rest of the top ten QBs are:  Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Rodgers, Kapernick, Cam Newton, Tom Brady and Payton Manning.  Four hall of famers and four of the top talent to enter the league since those hall of famers.

Alex Smith is a fellow with very good physical skills and no sense for the game at the NFL level.  After struggling for years in the coaching wheel of San Francisco he has now worked with two very good coaches and has emerged as a competent game manager and leader.  Certainly he hasn't elevated his game to the point where anyone with any sense would compare him to the rest of the QBs i listed about ten lines up, but he has (for now) shed that horrible reputation he so earned in his earlier years at the position.  Certainly the way KC has started the year makes first year KC coach Andy Reid look like he might be one of the better coaches of his time.  Many coaches can have success once in a situation that is tailor-made for their style; but it is somewhat rare for a coach to have high levels of success with more than one club.  Reid is off to a good start proving his place with this generations greats.  But with a #23 ranked offense, it's really hard to make the case that Alex Smith is the key to the Chiefs success.  It will be interesting to see how the team fares as the schedule becomes more difficult. To this point the team has had the second easiest schedule.

Anyone who has had any sort of NFL conversation with me for more than a few minutes will know that I look for two things to compose a top tier team: (1) Quarterback and (2) Coach.  And yes in that order.  Now most people don't consider Andy Daulton to be in the echelon of great QBs in the league, but I do.  I certainly wouldn't make the case that he has proven to be a hall of famer, nor will I claim that he has proven that he is a great QB.  My opinion is based on what I've seen so far on the field and what I think great QBs play like.  Let's call it a hunch.  I believe that Andy Daulton is easily the best QB in the Queen City since my childhood (ie the tool Boomer Esiason who has become a better than average commentator) and has the potential to be the best to suit up in the horrible black and orange stripes.  And for me Daulton exhibits many of the traits you need to be an elite field general.  In my eyes the problem in Cincinnati is the coaching staff, which should have been replaced years ago.  Marvin Lewis is out coached with regularity and I believe that his system and style is holding back an offense with an incredible amount of talent.  Match up a properly coached offense with a top ten defense and the league would have a powerhouse team in southern Ohio that would terrorize the AFC.  Until then we are stuck with a team that is only better than average because of the talent assembled, but much like the NY Giants, unable to maintain constant and dominating success.

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

Unfortunately for us Browns victims, our team took a tank with a miserable loss to a good team in Green Bay.  This moved the men in brown from 21st to 27th and back behind the hated and terrible Steelers. What a kick to the groin.  The Brown offense continues to slide under Weeden's leadership and now the defense is being beat up as well falling out of the top ten this week.  Something has to change because we've seen this team win.  Hopefully this will be the week.

Strange Fantasy Football Year

Oh how quickly things change.

Of course this will only be interesting at all if you enjoy fantasy football, but to demonstrate just how little anyone knows about predicting professional football let's compare my squad from week one to now in week seven.

Week 1

QB - Tom Brady
RB1 - Doug Martin
RB2 - Gio Bernard
WR1 - Randle Cobb
WR2 - Danny Amendola
TE - Jimmy Graham
FLEX - Mike Floyd
D/ST - SF
K -Dallas


Oh did I feel good about this team.  Tom Brady is always good to prove the nay-sayers wrong.  Doug Martin was a stud last year that my team rode all the way to the Division title.  Randle Cobb emerged as a top notch young receiver in Green Bay (who has the best QB in the league).  I got the best Tight End in the league in the third round.  Amendola was a question because he gets injured, but what were the chances he'd yet again have problems?  And I know Bernard and Floyd were unproven, but I liked their situations. 

Six quick weeks later my starting lineup for this week is as follows:




QB - Nick Foles
RB1 - Danny Woodhead
RB2 - Joseph Randle
WR1 - Alshon Jeffery
WR2 - Harry Douglas
TE - Timothy Wright
FLEX - Gio Bernard
D/ST - KC
K -KC

Hold on, I have to stop laughing.  And yes I am serious with this crew.

Brady and Martin have been major disappointments in the fantasy world.  Graham, Cobb and Amendola are all injured.  Floyd didn't pan out.  SF isn't an effective fantasy defense this year.  The Dallas kicker just doesn't score a whole lot.

But I was right about Gio.

Who would have thought KC would be so tough on defense.  And I'm betting most of you haven't even heard of Harry Douglas or Timothy Wright.  Do you know what teams they are on?  And yet they are viable starts this week.  I'm actually projected to win by 18 points. 

Hold on, I have to stop laughing again.

Well I sure hope I win with this crew this week.  I have a feeling it will be remarkable either way.

Week Six NFL Ranks

So begins another year of NFL team analysis.

Looking back I'm on my fifth year of tracking NFL teams.  Certainly the process has been refined and made more interesting; but this year I'm keeping it simple.  No really new changes yet, however I am starting to track how often offenses go three and out with a field goal kick.  A sort of squandered opportunity stat. 

It may make it into the analysis if there seems to be some sort of statistical relevance.  We'll see.  So far, after six weeks, I'm not convinced that this will be a statistic that will reveal much about a teams worth.  San Francisco leads the league of squandered opportunities with four.  Seattle, Kansas City and Miami all have three.  The rest of the league comes in with less.  As we can see below, none of these teams are clustered in any particular area.  In fact they are very evenly spaced with Seattle at #6 offense and Kansas City at #29.

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

I have been paying attention to overall field goal attempts and successes; and I will say that the perceived rule of thumb where bad teams make more field goals is at best statistically irrelevant or more likely patently false.  Good offenses have, I believe, far more field goal attempts and successes than poor offenses.  The old joke in Cleveland is that if you play fantasy football, take the Browns kicker since we're always settling for field goals.  But the reality seems to be that good offenses end up with far more scoring opportunities.  In many games offenses like the typical Browns team just doesn't end up in the opponents territory very often, thus fewer attempts at field goals.  Good offenses just score more often.  Kind of sounds dumb when you say it out loud, but this assumption must be kept in mind when you talk about field goals.

But on with the rankings this week.

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

SS - Strength of Schedule


As always some notes on where the ranks come from.  The full methodology is here.

Each team has an offense and defense ranking calculated by comparing their teams average against the league in that category; and also against the strength of the opponents each week of play.  Each statistic is adjusted in each game by a weighting calculated from the opponents prowess in each specific category.  Categories tracked include; overall record, offensive specific scoring, defense scoring , offense TDs per game, yards compiled rushing and passing, turnovers and penalties.  Stats are compiled and analyzed for both offensive and defensive units.  Sorry no special teams.  (Perhaps next year).

In order to calculate offensive and defensive ranks and overall power rank each statistic must be subjectively rated for importance.  I have found high correlation between TDs scored and successful offenses, so I have given that stat a little more importance.  For the power ranks offensive and defensive ranks are equal and slightly more important than record.  One may argue that record is the ultimate metric of a team, but I will point out that the whole reason for this exercise from the very beginning was to try to look at a team more holistically and not just total yards and record.  Also I wanted to take into account the specific opponents each team plays and how good these teams are in specific categories.  Finally I have attempted to create a method by which I do not choose or determine the weights for statistical adjustment on each game.  All subjective rulings on my part come in at the power ranking alone in the value of each statistic in measuring a teams strength.

As for analysis of the results, well it looks fairly normal for this time of year.  While valuable in its way, the early ranks can and will be effected dramatically by single games.  There is always a little swinging in the next couple of weeks in the ranks that will not be there in the final five weeks.  But for many teams we've seen enough of a sample to make some specific assertions.

First, Denver's defense is almost as bad as their offensive is good.  Not only is the Denver offense best, but it is 20% better than anyone else at this time.  A large margin indeed in my system when typically we find that there is often a cluster of teams at or near the top.  Usually #1 and #2 are within ten percent of each other (except when New England is in a on year).  Conversely Kansas City is a shocking 25% better than the number two defense (Carolina).  Having KC as the number one defense is surprising enough, the absolute dominance of the league so far is doubly so.

So have fun looking through and as always let me know what you think.

Cheers.