Well, I think I may have finally done it. I'm obsessed with the various NFL Power Rankings that come out each week but I've always thought that they were flawed. Most Power Rankings lean too much on a teams win-loss record and where the team was ranked the week before. I thought about trying to find a way to come up with a set of Power Rankings that would not rely heavily on those two things and I believe I may have done it. It was a simple solution in the end. I want to get a clear picture of how the teams in the NFL stack up overall through this point in the season and I figured the best way to do that was to take my opinions of how good I thought each team was and toss them out the window. These Power Rankings are based strictly on the numbers. I came up with a simple formula using all of the important factors in determining how well a football team is performing.
Basically, I added each teams winning percentage, net yards, net points and total giveaways/takeaways and then averaged the total to come up with a score for each team. I'm not convinced that it's perfect as it still ignores special teams but I think it's a good start. Here are the results of the first run through:
1. New York Giants - 285.100
2. Tennessee Titans - 257.925
3. Pittsburgh Steelers - 218.400
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 218.275
5. New York Jets - 210.425
6. Carolina Panthers - 201.850
7. Arizona Cardinals - 194.500
8. Baltimore Ravens - 190.650
9. New England Patriots - 182.275
10. Washington Redskins - 177.45
11. Atlanta Falcons - 175.125
12. Dallas Cowboys - 174.425
13. New Orleans Saints - 161.750
14. Indianapolis Colts - 159.875
15. Philadelphia Eagles - 150.225
16. Chicago Bears - 144.375
17. Minnesota Vikings - 143.125
18. Miami Dolphins - 141.825
19. Buffalo Bills - 139.425
20. Green Bay Packers - 125.600
21. Denver Broncos - 122.775
22. San Diego Chargers - 88.275
23. Houston Texans - 87.600
24. Jacksonville Jaguars - 85.725
25. Cleveland Browns - 63.025
26. San Francisco 49ers - 42.175
27. Oakland Raiders - 24.775
28. Seattle Seahawks - -5.425
29. Cincinnati Bengals - -24.150
30. Kansas City Chiefs - -33.550
31. St. Louis Rams - -35.900
32. Detroit Lions - -69.550
I'm not sure they came out exactly as I would have placed the teams if this was done based on my opinion but it's not terribly off either. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks about the results and any suggestions on how to make the formula more accurate are always welcome.