It’s time once again to bring back the computerized NFL power rankings. For those of you who haven’t seen these before, we do our NFL power rankings using a weighted formula that takes into account 7 different stats about a team: record, recent success, strength of schedule, strength of division, scoring offense, scoring defense, and the all important turnover ratio. The point of the ranks, like any power rankings, is to determine who is the best in the league right now, instead of who has been the best all season. Last year, my updated formula did a pretty good job matching real life. The Steelers came out on top at the end, and the Eagles, Falcons, and Dolphins were always ranked much higher than the subjective power rankings out there on the internet, and all 3 ended up in the playoffs, with the Eagles in the NFC championship game.
Since these rankings have no subjectivity, week 1 is always a little weird. Because no real strength of schedule or division has been established yet, teams that won by a blowout and finished the previous season relatively well (“recent success” uses some stats from the previous season for the first few weeks) end up at the top of the ranks. Last year’s week 1 #1 was the Eagles and this year we have a repeat. The Eagles huge win over Carolina propelled them to the top of the initial ranks, and yes, I don’t have a “Is Donovan McNabb injured?” input into the formula, so we’ll see how long this lasts. The Falcons are #2, after shutting down Miami this week. The Patriots are #3 despite their narrow win. They are ranked so high in large part to the strong finish they had in 2008 despite missing the playoffs. The Chargers are #4 for basically the same reason as the Patriots, and the Seahawks are #5 after their dominating shutout of the Rams.
On the bottom side of things, the victims of 2 of the top 5 teams, the Panthers and Rams, come in at #32 and #30, respectively. The Browns are at #31 after being humbled by the Vikings. Houston is #29 after their bad loss to the Jets, and Tampa is in for a long season, coming in at #28 this week. Believe it or not, the Lions are not in the bottom 5, coming in at #27. the formula appreciated the amount of points they were able to score on the Saints in their blowout loss.
Here are the complete rankings:
1. Eagles – 83.39
2. Falcons – 73.55
3. Patriots – 72.42
4. Chargers – 70.65
5. Seahawks – 70.32
6. Steelers – 69.84
7. Jets – 69.84
8. Cowboys – 69.68
9. 49ers – 69.35
10. Vikings – 68.55
11. Giants – 68.39
12. Packers – 67.26
13. Ravens – 66.77
14. Saints – 63.06
15. Broncos – 60.97
16. Colts – 57.90
17. Bengals – 40.97
18. Redskins – 38.87
19. Cardinals – 37.58
20. Raiders – 37.26
21. Bills – 35.81
22. Bears – 33.39
23. Jaguars – 33.39
24. Dolphins – 32.42
25. Titans – 31.77
26. Chiefs – 30.81
27. Lions – 29.19
28. Buccaneers – 28.23
29. Texans – 28.06
30. Rams – 25.65
31. Browns – 23.39
32. Panthers – 22.26
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