Buffalo takes over the top spot after a spanking of the Jaguars on Monday Night Football. The Saints dropped precipitously after two blowout wins to start the season. They fall to third place overall.
Minnesota, perhaps the most dominant team on both sides of the ball in the NFC, climbs to the second spot.
Seattle has the worst strength of schedule in the NFL, but that was not enough to keep them from climbing a couple of spots to 7th overall after their easy win over the Dolphins. Their team strength stayed relatively flat, which implies other teams fell more than they improved.
Some of those fallers included: Tampa (-39.7), Arizona (-35.8), and Houston (-53.5).
The 49ers managed to move up despite the loss as their game against the 31st-ranked Rams defied a lot of statistical probabilities. Detroit, the Seahawks next opponent, climbed to 12th after beating the Cardinals.
Seattle is in a good spot for most of the measures, including the magic +10 points per game differential. Scoring 10 or more points per game than your opponent has generally been an indicator of a Super Bowl contender. Seattle is currently scoring 24.3 and allowing 14.3. They now will be tested to see if that can be sustained as the schedule toughens.
It’s after week three! That is when these rankings have historically been pretty good at predicting playoff teams. You can usually bank on at least 7 of the Top 10 teams making it to the dance.
Rankings Visualization
This view shows tiers of strength that develop over the course of the season.
RANKINGS EXPLAINED
Power rankings are always debatable. I don’t buy into the gut feel methods most places use to determine their rankings, so I developed a formula many years back that attempts to take at least some of the subjectivity out of the discussion. The formula to calculate “Team Strength” was as follows:
(Rush EPA (offense) + Passer Rating (offense) + Avg Pts/Game Scored) – (Rush EPA (defense) + Opponent Passer Rating (defense)+ Avg Pts/Game Allowed) x SOS
There are weightings applied to the factors that put a heavier emphasis on passing than running.
The formula has proven to be a pretty accurate predictor of success (roughly 70% of the teams ranked in the Top 10 by week 3 make the playoffs), but I am always looking for ways to improve it.