Kenneth here, everybody! I’ll be honest–the reason I start every post with my name is because I love the giant “K” that shows up at the start. I’m sure you’re all very interested. Let’s go to the rankings!
| Rank | Team | Notes | Last Week | EdgePower |
1 |
 |
(Bye) If you’re looking at the graph, right now would be a good time to bring up the old “placement in the graph does not necessarily indicate one team is better than the other”. The Broncos look like they’ve fallen behind the Colts and others, but in truth their power is as strong as ever. |
1 |
84.66(61 – 0) / 88 #1 – #7 |
2 |
 |
(Beat STL) Which is not to say that the Colts didn’t improve their standing–they did, considerably. Well, it wasn’t them, exactly—did you expect points for beating the Rams? No, they got helped by Arizona’s rise up the charts and losses by some other high profile teams, like the Vikings and Falcons. |
6 |
77.84(49 – 0) / 88 #1 – #11 |
3 |
 |
(Beat MIA) The Saints also move up due to reasons similar to the Colts, but not as high because their most impressive win is the Giants. |
5 |
75.00(44 – 0) / 88 #1 – #13 |
4 |
 |
(Beat NYG) Cardinals boost themselves up a bunch by beating the Giants. See, the Colts beat the Cards who beat the Giants (and some other teams), while the Saints don’t have the Cards underneath. See? |
9 |
73.86(43 – 1) / 88 #2 – #12 |
5 |
 |
(Beat TB) Beatpaths says the same thing we all do: nobody’s impressed by you beating the Buccaneers. |
2 |
72.16(40 – 1) / 88 #2 – #12 |
6 |
 |
(Beat CHI) If you think this leap seems bizarre, keep in mind that 2 weeks ago Cincy was ranked 3rd, so this is more just them returning to where they were before. Pourquoi, you ask? Well, the win over Chicago created a 5 team beatloop (CIN=>CHI=>SEA=>JAC=>HOU=>CIN), which removes the HOU=>CIN game at the 5 level. This game was critical, you may remember, to 3 different 6-team beatloops that took away 3 of Cincy’s wins (over GB, BAL, and PIT). Now they’re back, and Cincy has their resume back. |
17 |
71.59(39 – 1) / 88 #2 – #14 |
7 |
 |
(Lost to PIT) The loss gets looped away, but costs them their win over Green Bay. Oh! Look who they get to play this week! How convenient! |
3 |
70.45(36 – 0) / 88 #1 – #14 |
8 |
 |
(Lost to ARI) The Giants actually put themselves under a few teams now with this loss, but they are kept propped up by their beatpath to the Cowboys, who look more impressive this week. |
7 |
69.89(38 – 3) / 88 #4 – #14 |
9 |
 |
(Beat ATL) You might remember the Falcons as being relatively impressive. Well, they still are, and that moves the Cowboys up the rankings. |
12 |
65.91(33 – 5) / 88 #6 – #15 |
10 |
 |
(Beat MIN) Pittsburgh gets out from under the Bears, which helps them somewhat. Steelers looked pretty good on D; is Polamalu that big of a difference maker? |
16 |
65.34(29 – 2) / 88 #3 – #17 |
11 |
 |
(Bye) It feels weird that the Ravens are at .500. I feel like they’re a better team than that. But that division is murder. |
15 |
62.50(27 – 5) / 88 #5 – #18 |
12 |
 |
(Lost to DAL) Falcons don’t really lose any support, they just ended up heaping a ton of other teams on top of them. Good for everybody else, bad for Atlanta. |
4 |
61.93(29 – #8 – #16 |
13 |
 |
(Beat KC) The only thing keeping the Chargers up here is their win over Miami. It’s a very tenuous position, and they can’t improve it by beating up on the Kansas Citys and Oaklands of the world. |
10 |
57.95(23 – 9) / 88 #7 – #20 |
14 |
 |
(Beat CLE) Pittsburgh beating Minnesota means Green Bay loses its win over Chicago, but gets rid of its loss to Minnesota (and regains their loss to Cincy). I would have expected a drop to result from that, but no. Believe it or not, beating the Browns helps out. |
14 |
55.11(11 – 2) / 88 #3 – #25 |
15 |
 |
(Lost to NO) The Dolphins seem to have the misfortune of playing every high powered offense in the league. Still, losing to the Saints is no shame, and the CIN=>CHI result–remember how it destroyed 3 6-team beatloops? Well, MIA=>NYJ was in two of them, so they get that win back, which helps. |
19 |
50.00(20 – 20) / 88 #14 – #21 |
16 |
 |
(Bye) Yeah, I was confused too. But when your only beatlosses are to IND (#2) and ARI (#4), I guess you something going for you. Or rather, not that much going against you. |
21 |
49.43(2 – 3) / 88 #3 – #30 |
17 |
 |
(Lost to CIN) Well, I can’t stop myself from saying something about that game. Pathetic. However, I’m really annoyed by the people saying that Jay Cutler somehow was a problem with 3 interceptions. Folks, they were down 28-0 with 2 minutes left in the 2nd quarter when he threw the first INT. That’s not his fault. The front 7 was awful and the O-Line was worse.
As for the graph, Chicago loops out losses to CIN and GB, but loses wins over PIT and SEA. If they could somehow loop out the ATL=>CHI=>DET path, they’d be out of the graph together. How cool would that be? |
11 |
47.16(4 – 9) / 88 #9 – #28 |
18 |
 |
(Beat OAK) Beating Oakland is meaningless (in the graph). What matters is the reappearance of MIA=>NYJ=>HOU. That gives the Jets more…what are we calling these? Beatwinedges? Anyway, they have more of those but more losses too, so their edgepower drops but not enough to move them down the rankings.. |
18 |
46.59(16 – 22) / 88 #15 – #23 |
19 |
 |
(Lost to GB) The increasing respectability of the Bills improves the Browns lot–or makes them more likely to lose that win, depending on you look at it. Why did people think hiring Mangini would be a good idea, again? |
25 |
46.59(7 – 13) / 88 #8 – #27 |
20 |
 |
(Lost to HOU) Losing to Houston loops away their win over Arizona, which causes the 49ers to crater. That talk of them running away the NFC West sure has subsided, huh? |
8 |
46.02(3 – 10) / 88 #10 – #30 |
21 |
 |
(Beat SF) Houston slowly looping away their losses, but they get hurt by NYJ=>HOU reappearing. Getting rid of that would help too, but so would paths to quality teams. |
13 |
44.32(13 – 23) / 88 #16 – #24 |
22 |
 |
(Bye) I don’t know what to say about this team. They were on a bye, nothing interesting happened to them graph-wise; they’re basically in the same position as last week. |
24 |
43.18(1 – 13) / 88 #11 – #31 |
23 |
 |
(Bye) Ditto the Lions. At least the Lions have an interesting (in terms of awful spectacle) game coming up against the Rams. If they lose that game…ouch. |
23 |
42.05(3 – 17) / 88 #14 – #29 |
24 |
 |
(Lost to NYJ) This game just brings up more questions about the next team. |
20 |
40.34(11 – 28) / 88 #17 – #26 |
25 |
 |
(Beat WAS) Seriously, what happened 2 weeks ago? I realize the Eagles’ wins are awful (CAR, WAS, TB, KC), but you’d still think they’d add OAK to that list. They could help themselves a lot starting this week against the Giants. |
22 |
38.07(9 – 30) / 88 #18 – #27 |
26 |
 |
(Beat CAR) It seems like the bad teams this year are all playing each other. That makes it hard for them to move up the ranks, but I guess that won’t last forever. |
27 |
36.36(6 – 30) / 88 #17 – #28 |
27 |
 |
(Bye) Titans are helped out by not having lost to any truly terrible teams. Seriously, that’s what the consideration is at this level. |
28 |
32.39(0 – 31) / 88 #18 – #32 |
28 |
 |
(Lost to SD) I’m curious if Larry Johnson saw what happened to Priest Holmes and considered that it could–heck, would–happen to him. |
29 |
31.25(3 – 36) / 88 #19 – #29 |
29 |
 |
(Lost to BUF) The Panthers actually did some damage to themselves by losing to the Bills. Carolina seems to have made the big mistake of not having a potential QB of the future ready when your season is falling away. Unless that Moore kid is still the plan. |
26 |
27.27(4 – 44) / 88 #22 – #29 |
30 |
 |
(Lost to PHI) Surely at some point Daniel Snyder realizes that the problem is what he’s doing, right? |
30 |
16.48(2 – 61) / 88 #26 – #30 |
31 |
 |
(Lost to NE)Does anyone here read Peter King? He was going off about how wrong it was to deny Tampa Bay fans the right to see Tom Brady play in their stadium for 8 years, and instead the NFL should have sent a Bucs-Falcons game over there. Yes, the local fans shouldn’t care about a game against their supposed rivals, they should want a chance to see TOM BRADY IN PERSON! Because Tampa Bay fans can’t travel someplace Brady might play more frequently, like, say, Miami. I like PK overall but when he does stupid he puts extra syrup on the waffle. |
32 |
11.36(0 – 68) / 88 #27 – #32 |
32 |
 |
(Lost to IND) I feel like the Rams are playing well enough that they will definitely win at least one game this year, but they probably won’t get better chances than this week. |
31 |
7.39(0 – 75) / 88 #30 – #32 |
/ 88
Yeah, I agree about Cutler – I listened to the first part of the game on the radio while driving from Seattle to Portland. Cutler was hardly even on the field, and when he was there, there was just nothing he could do.
As far as Kobayashi Maru scenarios, I’d say it is in character for Cutler to throw many interception rather than sacks, incompletions, or pointless checkdowns. But that doesn’t really say much.
The other thing is that I think Football Outsiders was talking today about quarterbacks’ records in blowouts versus close games, and Cutler’s is somewhat unnatural – but that might be a matter of being on teams with lousy defenses.
He’s a tough one to figure out. How are his press conferences, has he started looking like he cares yet? He never quite got there in Denver, it was always this blithe yada-yada I’m-accountable-but-not-really kind of air.
As for the Eagles, the problem they had against Oakland they actually reproduced in their game against Washington. In neither game did their offense show up–a complete inability to drive down the field. In fact, I think it got worse against the Redskins. Against Oakland they had 14 first downs, whereas against the Skins they only had 11. The only reason the Eagles won against Washington was because of their defense and special teams. Tellingly, Jamarcus Russell had a better QB rating than McNabb, *and* Jason Campbell had a better QB rating than McNabb.
Andy Reid needs to fix the offense or they’ll stand no chance against the Giants. The one saving grace is that the Giants seem to be weak against heavy-passing teams (New Orleans and Arizona), so Andy Reid’s pass-happy play calling might work out.
I don’t necessarily watch a ton of press conferences, but Cutler seems a little aloof. It’s hard to judge, though, because that’s how Lovie is, too, and the whole team sort of takes that vibe. It’s frustrating because you don’t tend to see guys raise their voice, but that’s the way it is.
Added commentary to my graphs.
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