Kenneth here, saying welcome back to the Rankings! There’s been a lot of activity on the site lately, and a lot of talk about how to improve the formula for beatloop removal and ranking, but for now we’re using the old reliable. And speaking of old reliable…
| Rank | Team | Notes | Last Week | BeatPower |
1 |
 |
(Lost to SEA) Guess Who! Yes, the Jets lost last week, but the three teams that were ahead of them (CAR, DAL, TB) all lost, too, and none of them were able to loop away their losses. So, yes, the Jets are lucky and in a flimsy position on top. But the way I look at it, if you were okay with them being 4th last week, you shouldn’t be upset that they’re first now. |
4 |
98.2(27/28 – 0/28) |
2 |
 |
(Beat PIT) Meanwhile, the Titans wish that someone could just loop away that loss to the Jets for them, please? |
5 |
96.3(26/27 – 1/27) |
3 |
 |
(Beat JAC) Beating Jacksonville helps, in a weird way. It caused a season split, which removed a 3 team loop between Jacksonville, Minnesota, and Indy–and instead, brought in a 4 team beatloop between Minnesota, Indy, Carolina, and Chicago. So, instead of the Vikings win getting rid of the Jaguars loss, it gets rid of the Chicago loss, which helps a great deal. Although they still would have lost it, because it gets looped away in a 4 team beatloop between Tampa, Chicago, Indy, and San Diego. Beatpaths can be confusing sometimes. |
12 |
87.5(23/28 – 2/28) |
4 |
 |
(Lost to TEN) Losing to the Titans doesn’t really hurt much. Not being under the some of the collapsing NFC teams helps, which lets them rise. |
6 |
86.5(22/26 – 3/26) |
5 |
 |
(Beat CAR) Beating the Panthers, plus other movers, finally puts the Giants at the top of the NFC. And yet they’re 5th overall. For awhile we were talking about how the NFC had finally caught up to the AFC in strength, but here we are at the end of the year and it looks like the AFC outclasses them again. |
7 |
92.5(17/20 – 0/20) |
6 |
 |
(Lost to ATL) The loss really doesn’t hurt them–it gets looped away from Carolina and Denver–and they hold steady otherwise, so they rise a bit while others fall. I’d like to take a moment here to disagree with site proprietor TT and say that I don’t think this is a good team, Tavaris Jackson will not keep this up, and I do hope that the Giants play to win this Sunday.  |
9 |
78.8(17/26 – 2/26) |
7 |
 |
(Beat DAL) Beating the Cowboys puts a lot of NFC teams underneath the Ravens that really helps them and the other AFC teams above them out. Which is what leads to this rise. |
13 |
80.4(18/23 – 4/23) |
8 |
 |
(Lost to NYG) CRASH! It’s too bad that they fell this far; the game was really close, and they don’t appear to be significantly worse than the Giants. But, when you get a beatloss, you usually go down in the rankings. |
1 |
77.5(12/20 – 1/20) |
9 |
 |
(Lost to BAL) I find it odd that the Cowboys fell down an exact same amount as the Panthers, yet for mostly completely different reasons. Good luck next week, boys–you’re going to need it. |
2 |
72.7(15/22 – 5/22) |
10 |
 |
(Lost to BUF) Denver doesn’t really lose anything on the loss, but Atlanta beating Minnesota meant that they no longer have a beatwin over the Falcons. I have to admit that I was really rooting for the Bills and Chargers last week, mostly because I wanted to see a week 17 fight to the finish for it all. Still, a really awful few last weeks for the Broncos. |
8 |
76.3(10/19 – 0/19) |
11 |
 |
(Lost to OAK) Texans lose to Oakland, move up 3 spots. WHUUHH??? Well, the Raiders loss gets looped away, and the the two teams they’re directly under–Minnesota and Baltimore–both moved up this week, giving them room to grow, too. |
14 |
69.0(14/21 – 6/21) |
12 |
 |
(Beat MIN) Beating the Vikes gives the Falcons no beatlosses, but they only have visible beatwins over the Chargers and Packers, so their support is weak. Major props to Matt Ryan for trying the Elway to get the TD there, though. It didn’t work the way he planned, and almost cost them any score, but it looked cool. |
10 |
75.0(7/14 – 0/14) |
13 |
 |
(Beat ARI) Arizona still has a lot of teams underneath them, so the beatwin over them helps. Hardly seems fair to get credit for so little effort–do the Cardinals understand that they still have to play after the regular season is over? |
17 |
70.6(11/17 – 4/17) |
14 |
 |
(Beat CLE) Whoosh! You didn’t think that beating the Browns would help so much, did you? But it caused a season split, which meant that they busted up the loop between the Browns, Bengals, and Redskins, which put the Bengals on top of the Redskins, and THAT helped a lot. Regular commenter doktarr seems to think that the Bengals might have been an average team hurt by a good schedule this year–the Steelers effect, but without being able to rise to the challenge–and beatpaths seems to agree. I’m doubtful, but there’s no doubting that they had a tough schedule this year. |
24 |
59.1(13/22 – 9/22) |
15 |
 |
(Beat GB) Bears lose their beatwin over the Colts due to San Diego beating Tampa Bay. However, they also lose their beatlosses to Tampa and Carolina–the latter because a loop with Indy, Minnesota, Carolina, and Chicago reappeared because the season split between Indy and Jacksonville and blah blah blah. Listen. How great was that game! I was on my feet watching it the ENTIRE time. I’ll say one thing for the Bears, they don’t ever make it easy. |
11 |
60.0(5/15 – 2/15) |
16 |
 |
(Beat PHI) This is the kind of stuff that leads credence to the “Bengals aren’t bad” theory. How do you lose to Cincy one week and beat the Eagles the next? Not allowed. Redskins get a beatwin over the Eagles due to the sweep, which gives them some more support. |
18 |
54.3(12/23 – 10/23) |
17 |
 |
(Lost to NE) Another day, another beatloss. I’m sure Arizona is hoping it doesn’t snow there for their playoff game. |
16 |
52.5(9/20 – 8/20) |
18 |
 |
(Lost to SD) SPLAT! The loss to the Chargers loops away their wins over the Bears and Vikings (though the latter was already in a loop from the Broncos), and after you remove their splits with all of their division opponents, their remaining wins are against the Chiefs, Seahawks, Pack, and Lions. Not a particularly impressive bunch. What a huge collapse Gruden is presiding over there. |
3 |
47.2(5/18 – 6/18) |
19 |
 |
(Lost to WAS) Philly loses to the Redskins, and now are under their thumb. |
15 |
45.7(9/23 – 11/23) |
20 |
 |
(Beat KC) Oakland beating Houston loops away the Dolphins’ loss to the Texans, but they’re still under the Cardinals, so they don’t move much. |
22 |
43.2(7/22 – 10/22) |
21 |
 |
(Beat TB) Chargers lose their beatloss to the Saints (and others) for their efforts, which lets them rise a bit. Still under the Falcons, though. |
25 |
40.6(2/16 – 5/16) |
22 |
 |
(Beat DET) Of course, the flip side is that not having the Chargers underneath them hurts the Saints. Still, it’s got to feel good to squash the Lions so thoroughly–none of this 1 score BS that teams have been letting them get away with. |
19 |
42.3(9/26 – 13/26) |
23 |
 |
(Beat STL) Beating the Rams affects the 49ers almost not at all. As it should be. |
23 |
30.0(7/25 – 17/25) |
24 |
 |
(Lost to CIN) Buffalo beating Denver removes the last beatwin the Browns had, so they slide down the charts. |
21 |
10.0(0/15 – 12/15) |
25 |
 |
(Beat DEN) Meanwhile, removing the Browns beatloss doesn’t really help the Bills so much. I’m surprised that there’s so much talk of firing Jauron, but he’s not a great coach, and I don’t have any other ideas on how to improve the team other than “get Edwards to play well the entire season”. |
26 |
26.8(6/28 – 19/28) |
26 |
 |
(Beat HOU) Raiders beat a quality team, and still don’t get much out of it. I admit this game went right past me–how did this even happen? |
27 |
7.5(0/20 – 17/20) |
27 |
 |
(Lost to IND) Jaguars lose to Indy, so the universe is kept stable. They move up one due to GB falling. |
28 |
17.3(4/26 – 21/26) |
28 |
 |
(Lost to CHI) Speaking of whom, they fall back under the Jaguars due to the loss to the Bears breaking up a 3 team beatloop. That result brings them back down the graph. |
20 |
11.1(3/27 – 24/27) |
29 |
 |
(Lost to MIA) My song remains the same: Do Not Trust Tyler Thigpen After A Half Season. Hey, maybe I can make all of my rankings reference Led Zeppelin lyrics. |
30 |
2.1(0/24 – 23/24) |
30 |
 |
(Beat NYJ) They came from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow. Of course beating the Jets would cause the Seahawks to fall a spot! What are you, crazy? Okay, here’s the scoop, as far as I can tell: the re-emergence of the Pack as the league’s whipping boy means that there are just that many more teams on top of the Seahawks, as opposed to the Chiefs who are under less. That gives the Chiefs an advantage…I think. |
29 |
3.8(1/26 – 25/26) |
31 |
 |
(Lost to NO) So last week, I mentioned that I doubted we had a Lions fan reading the site. Turns out that we have TWO, at least! That makes me feel good, for some reason; like I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been. Lions move up a spot more or less for the same reasons the Chiefs do, as they’re not under the Seahawks and the Rams are. |
32 |
0.0(0/25 – 25/25) |
32 |
 |
(Lost to SF) The thing is, this team has wins over good teams this season. I have to imagine that there’s some base to build with here, but what is it? Oh, and also: I’m packing my bags for the Misty Mountains, where the spirits go. |
31 |
0.0(0/26 – 26/26) |
I wouldn’t say that I think they’re an average team hurt by a tough schedule. I’d say that, thanks to their tough schedule, they COULD be an average team, and we wouldn’t really know.
Subjectively, I do think they are a bad team. But given the win-loss data, I don’t think #14 is totally unreasonable for them.
After the whole dust-up over the Jets, this seems like as good a time to revisit the iterative versus standard rankings, to see where there are major disagreements. Note that Moose’s “tiebreaker” (to decide which team to rank higher if they’re isn’t a beatpath) is different, but in iterative the graph is a lot more vertical so this doesn’t make a huge difference.
Anyway, here are teams different by more than four spots:
Denver, 10->19: Denver’s loss to Miami has reappeared in iterative.
Chicago, 15->5: Chicago is actually pretty disconnected from the standard graph, so their ranking in parallel is more a funcion of TT’s tiebreaker than anything else. Chicago does hold onto its win over Indy in iterative, though, so their ranking there is unambiguous, albeit tenuous.
Aaaaaand… that’s it. For all our debate about the relative merits of different approaches, that’s pretty close agreement.
[...] Tom here with the “confidence” rankings of this week’s picks, based on comparing the BeatPower scores of each match-up. The picks took a beating last week, but nevertheless, the high confidence picks still did twice as well as the low confidence picks, even on a bad week overall. Here are this week’s: [...]
I’ve been critical of you guys before, saying that your formula is flawed and nothing proves my point more than seeing you’ve ranked the Jets #1 in the last week of the season when they’re about to miss the playoffs.
Why is our formula flawed? Because it doesn’t predict the playoff participants? That was never the point of this exercise.
More specificity would help.