Another crazy week in the NFL, with some really unexpected upsets. That put PPYA at 7-6 last week. Not so hot but really, who predicted Houston over Jax, TB over Philly or KC over San Diego? Excuses excuses. heh
That puts the year to date record (weeks 2-7) at 50-34 (.595) or #12 on King Kaufman's Panel O' Experts.
As for this week's rankings, saw some shuffling near the top. Some surprises, some teams hanging around teh top 10 despite losses. But remember, these rankings are based on year long stats and losses in close games (or even bad losses) can be offset by dominating performances in other games. No tweaking or opinionating here. See this diary for what these rankings are based on. Saying that, I am considering trying out a manually calculated ranking where strength of schedule is taken into account just to see how that changes things around. We'll see.
Now on to the rankings!
StampedeBlue.com PPYA Power Ranking, Week 7
PPYA Power Rank (last week) | Team | OPAPY | OPSPY | PPYA |
1 (1) | Chicago Still #1 by a pretty good margin. Dominating wins over Green Bay, Detroit, Seattle and Buffalo are keeping their PPYA up there. |
0.03632 | 0.08 | 0.04368 |
2 (6) | New England Their last two big wins over Cincy and Miami have helped boost their ranking. A well rounded team will do well in PPYA. |
0.04121 | 0.06773 | 0.02653 |
3 (2) | San Diego The loss to KC dropped them enough to lose #2, but big margin wins over Oakland, Tennessee and San Fran are keeping them up. This is a team that could be very negatively effected by a strength of schedule adjuster. |
0.05597 | 0.08191 | 0.02594 |
4 (5) | Denver Denver's defense is the reason for their #5 ranking. They rank #1 in OPAPY (Offensive Points Allowed per yard) even above Chicago. This should take a hit as their schedule has some better offensive teams comign up (indy, Pittsburgh, San Diego and KC ore 4 of their next 5) |
0.02696 | 0.04436 | 0.0174 |
5 (8) | Indianapolis Okay, so they are 6-0 yet only #5. What gives? While they've been pretty balanced in points per yard terms (#10 Defense, #3 Offense) they haven't been spectacular enough on offense to prop them up like they have been in years before. This ranking is all about efficient and they have not been the most efficient team at times this year. They are also almost statistically tied with Denver. |
0.05636 | 0.07373 | 0.01737 |
6 (3) | Jacksonville The loss to Houston didn't hurt them as much as I had thought. I think that 41-0 spanking of the Jets is still helping them. |
0.05413 | 0.06926 | 0.01513 |
7 (9) | Baltimore An early easy schedule (TB, Oakland and Cleveland) allowed them to build some good stats and weather tough losses to denver and Carolina. Still a solid team, but another that would be hurt by schedule strength. |
0.04563 | 0.05889 | 0.01325 |
8 (4) | Dallas This is my WTF ARE THEY DOING IN THE TOP TEN ranking of the week and just reinforces that I need schedule strength. Their three wins are against teams ranked #22, #23 and #26. |
0.06265 | 0.0734 | 0.01075 |
9 (10) | Cincinnati Good wins, one loss to a good team (#2 NE) and a close loss to a bad team (#23 TB). |
0.05777 | 0.06777 | 0.01 |
10 (7) | Philadelphia A solid team with all three losses by 4 points or less. |
0.05481 | 0.06439 | 0.00958 |
11 (11) | Atlanta | 0.04808 | 0.05543 | 0.00735 |
12 (12) | St. Louis | 0.06287 | 0.06711 | 0.00424 |
13 (13) | Cleveland Another oddity. #13 has 1 win and5 losses, and the one win was against #32 Oakland. They've been just balanced enough on offensive(#16) and defensive(#11) rankings to reach this. |
0.05638 | 0.05982 | 0.00344 |
14 (15) | New Orleans | 0.05929 | 0.06256 | 0.00327 |
15 (17) | Arizona | 0.05873 | 0.05802 | -0.00071 |
16 (14) | Seattle | 0.0682 | 0.0664 | -0.0018 |
17 (19) | Kansas City | 0.06474 | 0.06282 | -0.00192 |
18 (18) | Carolina | 0.05695 | 0.05469 | -0.00225 |
19 (16) | Pittsburgh | 0.06797 | 0.06423 | -0.00374 |
20 (21) | New York (A) | 0.06638 | 0.06264 | -0.00375 |
21 (23) | New York (N) | 0.06606 | 0.06033 | -0.00573 |
22 (26) | Houston | 0.06655 | 0.05972 | -0.00683 |
23 (25) | Tampa Bay | 0.0531 | 0.04552 | -0.00758 |
24 (27) | Minnesota | 0.057 | 0.04903 | -0.00796 |
25 (24) | Detroit | 0.0698 | 0.05765 | -0.01215 |
26 (22) | Washington | 0.06896 | 0.05611 | -0.01285 |
27 (29) | Green Bay | 0.06672 | 0.05312 | -0.0136 |
28 (20) | Buffalo | 0.06591 | 0.05145 | -0.01446 |
29 (28) | Tennessee | 0.06929 | 0.04732 | -0.02197 |
30 (30) | Miami | 0.06869 | 0.04506 | -0.02363 |
31 (31) | San Francisco | 0.08379 | 0.05956 | -0.02423 |
32 (31) | Oakland | 0.07753 | 0.04025 | -0.03728 |
Biggest Upgrade: Tie, New England up 4 spots from #6 to #2 and Houston up 4 spots from #26 to #22.
Biggest Downgrade: Buffalo, down 8 spots from #20 to #28
Highest Ranked Loser (current ranking): #3 San Diego lost to #17 Kansas City
Lowest Ranked Winner (current ranking): #32 Oakland beat #15 Arizona.
Negative Line: #14 New Orleans (0.00327), #15 Arizona (-0.00071)
Week 8 Games:
#31 San Francisco @ #1 Chicago
#11 Atlanta @ #9 Cincinnati
#15 Arizona @ #27 Green Bay
#22 Houston @ #29 Tennessee
#16 Seattle @ #17 Kansas City
#7 Baltimore @ # 14 New Orleans
#23 Tampa Bay @ #21 New York Giants
#6 Jacksonville @ #10 Philadelphia
#12 St. Louis @ #3 San Diego
#20 New York Jets @ #13 Cleveland
#5 Indianapolis @ #4 Denver
#19 Pittsburgh @ #32 Oakland
#8 Dallas @ #18 Carolina
#2 New England @ #24 Minnesota
We'll see how it goes. Look for a possible schedule strength adjusted ranking just to see what it looks like if I have the time to do it.