And we’re already getting interesting!
What’s interesting: I like how there’s that cell of six teams. All the other teams are interrelated, but those six are off in their own world. And it underscores my point about the NFC East so far. Those plus Green Bay and Miami? It still could be that the entire NFC East sucks. It is not a “stiff test” for the NFC East to play itself! I read articles like this one and it’s almost ridiculous how puffed up it sounds. There is no other division that is written about with such sycophancy. The odes to masculinity read like bad Wordsworth poetry.
On to the power rankings – I might add something in later this week that figures in 2006 games, but I’m going to go ahead and start with the 2007-only games for the official rankings. “Last Week” refers to the “pure” rankings I posted in the last entry. There are no beatloops yet, so every team is guaranteed to be ranked ahead of teams they’ve beaten. The rankings appear a little screwy in places due to it being Week 2, but who’s to say they’re not accurate?
| Rank | Team | Notes | Last Week | BeatPower |
1 |
 |
(Beat BUF) So, who knows about Buffalo. Buffalo might completely suck and this victory could be discounted. And, who knows about Cleveland. Cincinnati’s defense might just be awful. But for now… Pittsburgh looks scary good. |
8 |
100.0(5/5 – 0/5) |
2 |
 |
(Beat STL) Surprise! Last year the NFC West basically round-robined their victories with each other, leading to a big snarl of beatloops. But so far, San Francisco has the advantage. And the Arizona and Tampa Bay victories this week led to a long beatpath that is making the 49ers look strong. |
12 |
100.0(5/5 – 0/5) |
3 |
 |
(Beat TEN) Right now, their victory over Tennessee looks more quality than their victory over New Orleans. But as New Orleans rights itself (that’ll happen, right?), that victory will start pushing Indy up again. |
1 |
100.0(4/4 – 0/4) |
4 |
 |
(Beat SD) NE=>SD=>CHI still looks pretty quality, but it’s possible that San Diego and Chicago might both stumble into being second-tier teams this year. |
2 |
100.0(4/4 – 0/4) |
5 |
 |
(Beat CAR) Let them have their top five ranking while it lasts. Go Houston. |
15 |
100.0(3/3 – 0/3) |
6 |
 |
(Beat MIN) One of the main symptoms of a concussion is being in denial of having a concussion. But it’s fun to see this team feeling optimistic. |
16 |
100.0(3/3 – 0/3) |
7 |
 |
(Beat SEA) Like I said, Week 2. But they deserve a good reward for beating Seattle. |
26 |
75.0(3/4 – 1/4) |
8 |
 |
(Beat CIN) Okay, I don’t know what the hell happened either. And they talk about how Cincinnati’s defense is awful, but Cleveland’s QB numbers were still awful in the first quarter. It was like things went into another dimension there for a while. But, a victory is a victory, and this is the effect the outcome had. |
28 |
75.0(3/4 – 1/4) |
9 |
 |
(Lost to NE) Their victory over Chicago still helps them, but they fall on the loss. |
3 |
66.7(2/3 – 1/3) |
10 |
 |
(Lost to IND) Helped by Jacksonville beating Atlanta. |
7 |
66.7(2/3 – 1/3) |
11 |
 |
(Lost to ARI) Could have been a lot worse had Tampa Bay not upset New Orleans. |
5 |
50.0(2/4 – 2/4) |
12 |
 |
(Beat OAK) Another impressive victory over a probably-bad team. Denver is freaking lucky to have had these couple of team-building exercises while they’re still trying to gel. If they’re any good, they really should beat Jacksonville next week. |
6 |
100.0(2/2 – 0/2) |
13 |
 |
(Beat NYG) There isn’t much to differentiate between Green Bay, Washington, and Dallas, so their relative ranking is determined by looking at the previous week’s ranking. |
10 |
100.0(2/2 – 0/2) |
14 |
 |
(Beat MIA) Two impressive victories over two teams that might be just awful. |
11 |
100.0(2/2 – 0/2) |
15 |
 |
(Beat PHI) Washington might get a real boost in the next few weeks from their victory over Philadelphia, if Philly starts playing up to their potential. But it’ll be short-lived is Washington plays down to theirs and beatloops cancel out the victory. |
14 |
100.0(2/2 – 0/2) |
16 |
 |
(Lost to HOU) Not a lot of data for Carolina in the beatpath graph, so the 1-1 team is right in the middle of the rankings. |
4 |
50.0(1/2 – 1/2) |
17 |
 |
(Lost to CLE) I can’t believe that Cincinnati’s defense is that bad. Their defense can’t be even worse than their offense is good. It’s got to be that Cleveland has at least partially stumbled into some offensive quality. That was such a head-scratcher. |
9 |
50.0(2/4 – 2/4) |
18 |
 |
(Lost to DET) Maybe someone can fill me in on how Minnesota’s quarterback got the starting job? My knowledge on this team is low. Do they have someone else that they are grooming? |
13 |
50.0(1/2 – 1/2) |
19 |
 |
(Beat KC) Beating Kansas City isn’t seen as a quality win, so there isn’t much reason for Chicago to be ranked highly yet. |
17 |
33.3(1/3 – 2/3) |
20 |
 |
(Beat ATL) There isn’t much reason yet to think Jacksonville is very good – beatpaths had them ranked very low for much of last year. Some teams just underperform though. |
31 |
33.3(1/3 – 2/3) |
21 |
 |
(Beat NYJ) No big reward for beating the Jets, and other teams leapfrogged them. |
18 |
25.0(1/4 – 3/4) |
22 |
 |
(Lost to WAS) The best of the three 0-2 teams in the NFC East cell. |
21 |
0.0(0/2 – 2/2) |
23 |
 |
(Lost to PIT) Buffalo hasn’t lost to a clearly poor team yet, so they’re not too low in the rankings. |
23 |
0.0(0/2 – 2/2) |
24 |
 |
(Lost to GB) So, last week I said not to be surprised if Green Bay and Miami play the NFC East tough this week. I was half right. |
25 |
0.0(0/2 – 2/2) |
25 |
 |
(Lost to DAL) And I was half wrong. On the other hand, Miami might legitimately suck. |
27 |
0.0(0/2 – 2/2) |
26 |
 |
(Beat NO) Better than being ranked #32 (which is where I briefly had them last week). |
30 |
25.0(1/4 – 3/4) |
27 |
 |
(Lost to DEN) Some columnists don’t even think before they write. I read an article talking about how Oakland brought a “balanced” attack to Denver. They had 33 freaking passing yards. That’s about as balanced a a unicycle. |
32 |
0.0(0/2 – 2/2) |
28 |
 |
(Lost to SF) All victories matter, and I’m not even so sure that Week 1 victories are much flukier than victories in other weeks. I’m just reminded of the St. Louis over Denver victory in Week 1 of 2006. It seemed so fluky at the time, given Denver’s presence in the AFC Championship game the year before. But by the end of the season, it made complete sense. |
24 |
0.0(0/3 – 3/3) |
29 |
 |
(Lost to CHI) This just seems to be a team in denial. There’s a Tarot card called The Tower, that is about how you get hurt more if you try to keep the crumbling tower from falling down. The lesson is always just to let the tower fall ASAP so you can rebuild faster. No, I didn’t actually just draw a Tarot card, but I just don’t know if Kansas City has a lot going for it right now. |
22 |
0.0(0/4 – 4/4) |
30 |
 |
(Lost to BAL) I see some of that northeast media “I love to see myself write!” bias creep in to some of the Jets coverage too – mainly from the fawning over Pennington’s backup, and pointing out how people cheered Pennington’s injury when his backup came into the game (duh… maybe they were just being supportive of the backup? I remember Denver fans cheering Gary Kubiak regularly whenever he’d come in to replace Elway). |
19 |
0.0(0/5 – 5/5) |
31 |
 |
(Lost to TB) Now this is the NFC South team that seems unnaturally low. |
20 |
0.0(0/5 – 5/5) |
32 |
 |
(Lost to JAC) And this is the NFC South team that doesn’t. |
29 |
0.0(0/5 – 5/5) |
Given the schedule they’ve played, is there a way those 6 teams could not be in a cell by themselves?
Nope, it’s really just a scheduling quirk.
Why did SF jump up so far in your rankings, and why did NE drop?
At this early stage, it’s mostly due to the length of beatpath under the team. Later in the season, a long beatpath means that a team has beaten very good teams, but early on in the season it’s more a matter of other teams not necessarily having been tested yet. NE only dropped because it got leapfrogged.
Re: Minnesota, the guy they have in there now IS the guy they’re “developing for the future”. His name is Tavaris Jackson, and nobody outside the coaching staff seems to think he’s worth much of anything. It’s likely to be a long season for Vikings fans, victories over the Falcons non-withstanding.
I realize it’s only two weeks into the season, but I’m wondering whether it makes sense to always put a team with no paths above it (NE, HOU, SF, WAS, DAL, GB, IND, PIT, DEN, DET) on the top row, and teams with no paths below it (MIA, PHI, NYG, KC, STL, NO, OAK, BUF, ATL, NYJ) on the bottom row. Any teams in between could get averaged.
For instance, the Bears are on the third row, which visually makes them look like they’re better than most of the other teams. However, if KC were displayed on the bottom row, the Bears could logically go on the lower row as well.
I like the idea of this system–keep up the good work!
Since I missed it last week, welcome back.
And I really like the idea of letting 2007 games stand on their own, with last season results just being the initial ranking for the season.
Hey Lee – if you’re talking about the vertical placement within the graph, that’s actually something that I don’t have a lot of control over. Beatpaths is entirely about analyzing all the games, connections, beatloops, etc, to make a directed graph. Then it feeds that directed graph into at&t’s graphviz, which determines the vertical placement. I think they’re probably smarter than what I could come up with, though.
I think I kind of like about how it looks now is that it shows that (given the games so far), the teams that Denver and Detroit have beaten aren’t necessarily very good. But even so, the vertical placement within the graph doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about quality at all – sometimes the placement is just about where the graph will look cleanest in terms of spacing, and minimzing the number of lines that get crossed. So in general, better to look at the graph just in terms of easily seeing what relation the teams have to each other. The power rankings are generally more “accurate”. 
The existence of the six-cell group is not the only thing that is interesting. They actually kept it neat by having three at 2-0 and three at 0-2.