Imaginary NFL Power Rankings
60 repliesEvery week people who don’t mean much to the actual NFL Playoff Picture pontificate on the ranking of each of the 32 NFL teams, stating who the #1 team is, because it means…something. So here at AG.com, we thought we’d do the same. Here’s your weekly AG Power Rankings and some from around the interwebz by people clearly not as smart as us.
The Chiefs are #1 because Kwon Yuri is back. I don’t know that anything else needs to be said. We had a rough week against the Rams when Kwon was cast out into the cold, but now that she’s back in the fold, the Chiefs can return to their winning ways.
Toughest game left: Week 16 at Seattle. The Chiefs, who have won 19 of their past 20 games against AFC West opponents, have three division games remaining. They also have a game against the Ravens at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs are 5-0 with an average margin of victory of 16.2 points. That leaves a road game against the Seahawks, who have a rushing attack that could give the Chiefs fits. — Adam Teicher
The Chiefs are still on top of the AFC, and gained a little cushion in their quest for a first-round bye thanks to Pittsburgh’s loss. Still, they want the top seed and would lose the tiebreaker to New England. Now they have Oakland after a bye week to get back in the win column, and you’ll hear all week about Andy Reid’s record coming out of the bye.
They come off their bye needing to tighten up the defense some. Patrick Mahomes should have a field day this week against the Raiders.
It’s tough to count on a player returning from injury and being his old self, especially for someone who hasn’t even practiced yet this season. But safety Eric Berry is a special player. He’s supposed to practice this week and presumably return sometime in December. It’s possible he’s just not the same player, at least for the rest of this season. But if he is? That changes things for Kansas City.
You may now proceed to fight about respect and whatnot.
Yep. Since I’m here in Washington, I’ll be going to CenturyLink to watch my beloved Chiefs take on the Seahawks. My fiancee will be decked out in her blue and green while I’ll be styling the red and gold. Think it’s gonna be a tough one, but we’ll win as no starters will be resting with the Chargers, Patriots, and Texans vying for our #1 seed.
I’m just hoping that it will be a good venue to wear my colors without getting mauled or dumped upon. It was pretty cool attending a game at Safeco wearing my powder blue Royals Jersey and hat against her Mariners gear. Everyone was really nice and polite. Of course, it helps when you’re nice and polite, too….
But, then again, it was the Royals this year, sooooo……what are ya gonna do?
I thought about getting tickets but wasn’t sure if I could afford it this year
Here’s your real number 1 team (top 4 teams listed) and it ain’t really close.
Weeks 4-11 Off DVOA Def DVOA ST DVOA Total DVOA
KC 36.1% 0.4% 5.4% 41.1%
LAR 32.9% 2.7% -0.2% 30.0%
NO 30.6% -1.6% 4.0% 36.1%
CHI 17.7% -18.9% -7.0% 29.5%
*Chiefs were also no. 1 in Weeks 1-3
In Adjusted DVOA (which looks at recent play) The Chiefs rank no. 1 in Offense AND Special Teams, 26 in Defense.
And now you know the rest of the story.
(I tried to format but it didn’t work out too well)
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2018/week-11-dvoa-ratings
#TuesdayUpdate
Of all the sources listed above, I hope everyone notes that only 1 ranking is supported by the data.
Reuben Foster is going to Washington.
That’s so damn gross.
Ok, here’s my shot at this:
I’ll dispose of the Saints by leaving them at #1. They’re a dome team, so December on the road game(s) still await them.
That leaves Rams vs. Chiefs, then the rest of the field. For brevity’s sake, I’l leave the herd out, too.
I figure that the question of which team is better can be examined in a sort of “alternate history” model: Change one thing about history, and attempt to logically extrapolate what would happen to history, based on that change. I’m not going to try to go through a full analysis of the plays in this alternate history model, but I’ll give a digest of my call after the model.
So, change one thing? It’s kinda cheating, because you’d have to change a lot to actually get there, but put the Rams down by 13, instead of up by 13, in the 1st Q, and let the game play out from there. Same reffing, etc. as before. Then ask yourself, ‘does LA still win?’.
My answer to that is no. I don’t think the refs could bail them out of that hole via bad calls (intentional or not, as I don’t know which, in the real world), and I don’t think their D is good enough for them to beat us via comeback-mode football. They could barely contain us while playing with a lead, after all. I also think that if we were playing with a lead, our D would have performed better than they did in the real game. Maybe not by a lot, but by enough.
Shoot, had the initial drive results had left us down by 13 – 6, I don’t think the Rams could have stopped us. We’re the better team here.
“I’ll dispose of the Saints by leaving them at #1. They’re a dome team, so December on the road game(s) still await them.”
That’s the thing with the Saints. They’ve got:
@ Dallas – indoors
@ TB – outdoors but warm
@ Carolina – outdoors but weather should be OK, right?
Steelers at home
Panthers at home
And if the get the 1 seed in the NFC they’ll play in their dome and then the Super Bowl at Mercedez-Benz Stadium.
They’re number 1, and should be SB favourites.
John Dorsey… what is this. Explain.
Yeah, I’m gonna need more info on what this means.
Mike McCarthy is my guess
Mike McCarthy rumors is what it sounds like in the wink wink fashion.
I sure dont miss the talking heads over at AP MD. They couldnt diagnose a fart.
This will sound like a homer comment to some, but I still think the Chiefs are comfortably the best team in the NFL right now. Their offense is producing similarly impressive numbers as the Saints but against much tougher defenses. Their defense is showing a very good passrush and has slowed down WR’s for most of the season. They aren’t good, but with a dominant offense, it may well be enough anyways. This is before we start talking about ST’s. The Chiefs losses are both on the road to the #2 seed in the AFC and the #2 seed in the NFC right now, both on the road. Both by 3 points.
I don’t see how you can put the Chiefs “comfortably” at number 1. The Saints look really good. I think the Chiefs can beat anybody at home, and should be ranked at number 2. If we meet the Saints, it will luckily be on a neutral field, so we can see who the best team is without any excuses.
I think if you compare the schedules and look at the data, the case is there for it. It’s very good to play the AFCN and NFC South this year if you’re about padding the stats as an NFC South team. Heck, they even played the Brown pre-firing of Hue Jackson.
I’m not saying the Chiefs couldn’t be ranked number 1, but no way they are comfortably head and shoulders above everyone. Home field advantage or not, the Saints just beat the same Rams team the Chiefs lost to.
It’s super bold and even bordering on arrogance, I get it, but it’s not delusional either.
Right now on weighted DVOA:
Chiefs: 42.1%
LAR: 31.4%
NO: 25.3%
Excuse my ignorance, but what is DVOA?
I see it referenced frequently.
From Football Outsiders (which I highly encourage everyone to take a look at):
These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings for 2018, measured by our proprietary Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system that breaks down every single NFL play and compares a team’s performance to a league baseline based on situation in order to determine value over average. (Explained further [See link at bottom].)
OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted based on strength of opponent as well as to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver) and week of season. WEIGHTED DVOA represents an attempt to figure out how a team is playing right now, as opposed to over the season as a whole, by making recent games more important than earlier games.
As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods#dvoa
Argh! Maths, my old nemesis!
Ah, proprietary.
Thanks!
Brees is probably the favorite to win MVP. The Saints are awesome this year.
Probably. There’s a good case for Mahomes though based on schedule, however. And lowkey, amongst the generational offenses that have existed, the Chiefs aren’t that great as a roster compared to some of them, particularly on the OL.
Saints are clearly #1 THEN the debate over #2 Chiefs or #2 Rams can begin. I give it to Chiefs. Because, In a FAIRLY called game, Chiefs would have won. The referee advantage last week was insane for the Rams. If that game gets called how it should have, take 25 points away from LA and give KC +21. Thats the reality of it.
If the Rams had been on the road to Arrowhead, committed 5 turnovers, and had shit officiating against them, there is a zero percent chance they only lose to the Chiefs by 3. I think the Chiefs are clearly the better team after watching last monday’s fiasco.
We’re the better team if Mahomes doesn’t turn it over 5 times. ‘Cept he did. I find the rationalizing here comical. I’m not shitting on the chiefs but let’s be real here. They beat us. I’m not saying I don’t like our chances on a neutral field. But the fact of the matter is, until then…Scoreboard.
I re-watched on All-22 and it was even worse. I saw at least 2 drops by LA that went for 1st downs (1 I caught on the broadcast, but the other was actually far more egregious from the other angle). That was hands down the most poorly officiated game I’ve ever seen, especially early on which set momentum. Great job battling back and never quitting like teams of the past!
That was why I honestly didn’t feel too bad after the loss. Literally everything was going against the Chiefs, and they still fought back multiple times. On a neutral field with neutral penalty calls, the Chiefs win by more than 3.
The blatant false starts not called was unbelievable..
On that one offsides by Nhadi, the center also changed his signal cadence. Previously, he turned his head left as a signal and snapped the ball 1 sec later. The D began to key on it and On that play he turned his head but didn’t snap the ball; Nhadi jumped. The next play, he stopped the head turn all together. Our center did the same head turn signal on every snap and it became clear their D began keying on it for better get-off.
If it were the other way around and we were Rams fans – we’d be laughing our asses off at the losing team claiming they’re better after JUST HAVING LOST. Rams are the better team until we beat them.
Having us #3 seems right since we lost to LA and LA lost to New Orleans. But we win that game in LA if the refs didn’t hand them easy first downs and points with their BS penalties in that 1st half. Of our remaining games, the Chargers will be tough. They’ve improved since we beat them in Week 1, and getting Bosa back could really put to test our makeshift o-line. The Seahawks will be interesting since they have one of the most potent rushing attacks in the league and people are now starting to realize that Russel Wilson is a legit quarterback (now that all the attention isn’t on the Legion of Boom). Our rushing defense has been abysmal all year, yet we somehow managed to hold Gurley to 55 yards on 12 attempts (which should have been enough to destroy LA since that’s a better average than the Saints held him to). So it’ll be interesting to see if we get the defense we’ve seen all season or the one that we saw against LA.
If they go back to Flacco I will laugh my ass off.
That would be almost as big a fail as when the Bills went to Peterman over Taylor in a playoff chase.
Or when they chose Grbac over…. Oh. Right.
too soon…
Fwagged!
I hope they go back to Flacco. I’d rather play them with Flacco in a couple weeks than with Jackson starting.
Flacco is wacko.
1. Saints
2. Chiefs
3. Rams
4. Patriots
5. Steelers
After that …… who the fuck cares?
The AG ranking definitely has running gag potential
Its only weird if it doesn’t work.
I like the article title too. Much better than those other, supposedly “true” power rankings.
Only 2 games I am worried about are chargers and Seahawks. We probably only have to win 1 to lock up top seed however (I am assuming we win every other game and the pats don’t run the tables.)
I’m worried about the Ravens as well. They seem like the type of team who can beat anybody while also being able to lose to anybody.
I’d be worried if it weren’t at arrowhead.
Less so on the road tho…
Seahawks game will be tough, but we need to prove we can win a big prime-time game on the road.
We have. We beat Den and Cinny in Primetime.
Cinny was at home. Denver is not even at .500.
Denver is only not a .500 team because they lost to the Chiefs twice. And barely. Denver has beaten the Chargers and the Steelers, they are not a bad team.
That’s the issue with SOS, you beating a team makes them worse, thus making your own SOS worse. You should remove your own wins against your SOS to actually get a good measurement.
That makes sense.
Denver was:
A road game
A divisional game
Against a team that, at the time, was 2-1
A come-from-behind win
It counts twice.
Teams running the ball down our throat plays into our game plan of score fast, make them score slow.
Keeping my fingers crossed for a 17-2 season here.
First in the AFC is great. Let’s keep it that way.