NFL Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 7

October 22, 2015 - by Seth Trachtman

Coming into NFL Week 7, here’s how our NFL predictive ratings see all 32 teams, and how our rankings compare to the human-driven ESPN.com NFL Power Rankings.

Quick Rankings Primer

When we refer to the TR rankings, we mean our NFL predictive rankings, which are our core measure of team strength. These rankings are designed, as the name implies, to predict future outcomes of games.

Our rankings are driven by margins of victory. Unlike human voters and opinions, they don’t care only about wins and losses, which can be highly influenced by luck (e.g. a poorly timed fumble). More specifically, this means:

A team that loses a game can still move up in our rankings (e.g. if they lose by less than expected)
A team that wins a game can still move down our rankings (e.g. if they win by less than expected)
A team with several losses can still be ranked highly (e.g. if they have faced a tough schedule, or potentially just had a few fluke losses)

In addition, our rankings factor in a blend of season performance to date plus each team’s preseason rating, since the results of a small number of early season games can often be misleading. However, the impact of preseason ratings (which you can reference on our NFL rankings page) decays as the season goes on.

General Highlights Entering NFL Week 7

The top four teams remained the same. Despite wins that were slightly closer than expected by Green Bay and Denver, and Seattle’s home loss to Carolina, the top four teams remain unchanged in the TR predictive rankings. But Seattle’s rating drop means that Cincinnati is closing in on them for the No. 4 spot, as the Bengals are now rated only 0.5 points lower. Meanwhile, New England has extended their sizable lead even more, and is now rated as 2.6 points better than No. Green Bay.
Will the real Arizona Cardinals please stand up? The Cardinals are seemingly blowing out a bad team or losing to a non-elite team on a weekly basis. They’ve now lost two of their last three games, with losses to St. Louis and Pittsburgh sandwiching a 25-point win at Detroit. The No. 6 Cardinals have won their four games by a combined 102 points, but certainly aren’t showing much consistency, and their rating dropped by about half a point this week.
Carolina finally made the big jump in our rankings, going from No. 16 to No. 10 as a result of their thrilling win at Seattle. They gained 0.8 points in our predictive ratings, enough to leapfrog a bunch of slightly-better-than-average teams, and are one of five remaining undefeated teams. Of course, the Panthers have a rough schedule ahead, with games vs. Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and Green Bay in their next three.
Dan Campbell’s debut as Miami’s head coach was positive, and the Dolphins were our biggest ratings gainer this week, climbing six spots in the rankings to No. 15 after blowing out Tennessee. Considered one of the league’s most disappointing teams after starting the year 1-3, the Fins are favored vs. Houston this week, but then have to visit the Patriots, Bills, and Eagles in a rough three-game stretch.
The Week 7 schedule is light on top-tier matchups, with Green Bay, Denver, and Cincinnati all on bye. There are still a few good looking games to watch, though, primarily the Jets at Patriots, as well as the Eagles at Panthers on Sunday night.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Miami	0.4	+1.6	15	21	W 38-10 @ #26 Tennessee
Philadelphia	3.4	+0.9	8	8	W 27-7 vs. #17 NY Giants
Carolina	1.5	+0.8	10	16	W 27-23 @ #4 Seattle
Cincinnati	4.8	+0.7	5	6	W 34-21 @ #12 Buffalo
New Orleans	-2.6	+0.7	23	23	W 31-21 vs. #15 Atlanta
Pittsburgh	3.7	+0.6	7	7	W 25-13 vs. #5 Arizona
Houston	-3.0	+0.5	24	25	W 31-20 @ #32 Jacksonville
NY Jets	2.3	+0.5	9	9	W 34-20 vs. #27 Washington
San Francisco	-4.2	+0.4	26	29	W 25-20 vs. #13 Baltimore
San Diego	0.2	+0.3	17	18	L 27-20 @ #2 Green Bay

The Dolphins are back in the top half of the rankings after their 28-point win over Tennessee, in a game that projected as close to a coin-flip according to last week’s predictive ratings. Coming off a bye, Miami had a two touchdown lead at halftime and ran away from the Titans in the second half.
Philadelphia had another week as a top gainer, beating the Giants by 20 points at home on Monday night. Their offense didn’t exactly look impressive, with Sam Bradford throwing three picks, but the Eagles still won the game rather easily with 27 unanswered points. They face undefeated Carolina this week.
Cincinnati had another nice win, albeit against an injury-riddled Bills team. Buffalo was without starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor and No. 2 wideout Percy Harvin, and No. 1 wide receiver Sammy Watkins left late in the first half. Still, the Bengals had no problem dismantling the Bills on the road to remain undefeated, winning by 13 in a game that looked pretty even according to our ratings.
No. 7 Pittsburgh appears to be holding their own without Ben Roethlisberger, winning their second game in a row without him. They were on to their third quarterback by the end of the game, with Mike Vick leaving due to injury. Favored by about one point according to our ratings (but an underdog in Vegas), Pittsburgh’s 12-point win helped increase their predictive rating by more than half a point, but that wasn’t quite enough to jump No. 6 Arizona in the rankings. It sounds like the Steelers could have Roethlisberger back after one more game.

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Tennessee	-5.9	-1.8	30	26	L 38-10 vs. #21 Miami
NY Giants	-0.9	-0.8	21	17	L 27-7 @ #8 Philadelphia
Buffalo	0.4	-0.8	16	12	L 34-21 vs. #6 Cincinnati
Seattle	5.3	-0.7	4	4	L 27-23 vs. #16 Carolina
Arizona	4.6	-0.6	6	5	L 25-13 @ #7 Pittsburgh
Atlanta	0.1	-0.6	18	15	L 31-21 @ #23 New Orleans
Jacksonville	-8.0	-0.4	32	32	L 31-20 vs. #25 Houston
Detroit	-2.6	-0.3	22	22	W 37-34 vs. #30 Chicago
Baltimore	0.8	-0.3	13	13	L 25-20 @ #29 San Francisco
Denver	6.0	-0.3	3	3	W 26-23 @ #24 Cleveland

Tennessee fell to the bottom three of our rankings after getting clobbered by Miami. They’ve now lost four games in a row after beating Tampa Bay in Week 1, and starting quarterback Marcus Mariota also suffered a sprained knee during the game that may cause him to miss time.
The Giants had another costly division loss, this time losing to Philadelphia. The Eagles were favored by about six points, according to our ratings, but beat the Giants by 20. New York has been one of the biggest ratings losers in consecutive weeks (the shaky home win against the 49ers was an under-performance), and they have their second matchup of the season vs. Dallas on Sunday.
Atlanta lost its first game of the season, to New Orleans, and its rating dropped about half a point. Our ratings have considered the Falcons overrated, and only favored Atlanta by about a point, but they lost by 10. Fortunately for them, the Falcons, with the NFL’s easiest schedule, now face Tennessee, Tampa Bay, and San Francisco over their next three games.
Jacksonville still hasn’t reached the bottom of the ocean, apparently. They lost by 11 points at home to Houston in a game where the Texans were favored by one point according to our ratings. Their next three games are against teams all currently ranked in the top half of our predictive ratings, so the Jags don’t have much relief coming.

The TR NFL Rankings: Week 7 Edition

We compared our Predictive Rankings to the ESPN.com power rankings, which were updated on Tuesday, October 20.

Teams We Like Better Than ESPN: Seattle, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Baltimore, Kansas City, Miami, Buffalo, Detroit, Houston, Cleveland
Teams ESPN Likes More Than We Do: Arizona, NY Jets, Carolina, Indianapolis, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, St. Louis, NY Giants, New Orleans, San Francisco, Washington, Oakland, Chicago

The top three teams, and four of the top five, are now the exact same between the two sets of rankings. The major exception is Seattle at No. 4 in our rankings, while ESPN seems has the 2-4 Seahawks at No. 12. Is that an overreaction to a slow start? Time will tell, but it’s worth noting that Vegas futures currently have the Seahawks with the 6th highest odds to win the 2016 Super Bowl.

Other major discrepancies include Baltimore (No. 13 TR, No. 28 ESPN), Kansas City (No. 14 TR, No. 29 ESPN), and Atlanta (No. 18 TR, No. 7 ESPN). As usual, a team’s win-loss record seems to strongly affect its ranking in human-powered systems. Baltimore specifically is a pretty crazy case. The Ravens are 1-5 and the team’s last few results haven’t been great — but is a team that beat Pittsburgh, lost to Cincinnati by 4, lost to Denver on the road by 6, and hasn’t lost any game by more than 6 points really the fifth worst in the league? Or just really unlucky so far?

There were several curious changes by ESPN this week, including pushing Arizona up two spots after losing to Pittsburgh, despite the Cardinals being favored to win, and also pushing the Steelers down by a spot after beating Arizona. Kansas City dropped 10 spots after losing by six points on the road to Minnesota, only slightly worse than Vegas expected, and Cleveland slid seven spots after bringing Denver to overtime. Hmm.

The Complete TR NFL Rankings (as of Tue 10/20)

“Rating” refers to the team’s predictive rating, which indicates points better than an average team on a neutral field
“SOS” refers to the team’s strength of schedule rating for games played so far this season

Team	TR Rank	ESPN Rank	TR Change	ESPN Change	Rating	Result	SOS
New England (5-0)	1	1			9.7	W 34-27 @ #14 Indianapolis	0.9
Green Bay (6-0)	2	2			7.1	W 27-20 vs. #18 San Diego	-1.6
Denver (6-0)	3	3		+1	6.0	W 26-23 @ #24 Cleveland	-0.2
Seattle (2-4)	4	12		-4	5.3	L 27-23 vs. #16 Carolina	1.3
Cincinnati (6-0)	5	5	+1		4.8	W 34-21 @ #12 Buffalo	0.5
Arizona (4-2)	6	4	-1	+2	4.6	L 25-13 @ #7 Pittsburgh	-1.6
Pittsburgh (4-2)	7	10		-1	3.7	W 25-13 vs. #5 Arizona	1.8
Philadelphia (3-3)	8	9		+6	3.4	W 27-7 vs. #17 NY Giants	-0.8
NY Jets (4-1)	9	8		+3	2.3	W 34-20 vs. #27 Washington	-1.5
Carolina (5-0)	10	6	+6	+1	1.5	W 27-23 @ #4 Seattle	-2.4
Minnesota (3-2)	11	15		+1	1.4	W 16-10 vs. #14 Kansas city	-0.6
Indianapolis (3-3)	12	11	-2	+2	1.3	L 34-27 vs. #1 New England	-0.5
Baltimore (1-5)	13	28		-5	0.8	L 25-20 @ #29 San Francisco	1.3
Kansas City (1-5)	14	29		-10	0.7	L 16-10 @ #12 Minnesota	2.8
Miami (2-3)	15	21	+6	+8	0.4	W 38-10 @ #26 Tennessee	-1.9
Buffalo (3-3)	16	17	-4	-7	0.4	L 34-21 vs. #6 Cincinnati	0.5
San Diego (2-4)	17	13	+1	+1	0.2	L 27-20 @ #2 Green Bay	1.7
Atlanta (5-1)	18	7	-3	-4	0.1	L 31-21 @ #23 New Orleans	-1.2
Dallas (2-3)	19	16		+2	-0.3	Bye	1.2
St Louis (2-3)	20	18		-1	-0.6	Bye	3.6
NY Giants (3-3)	21	14	-4	-2	-0.9	L 27-7 @ #8 Philadelphia	-0.9
Detroit (1-5)	22	24		+7	-2.6	W 37-34 vs. #30 Chicago	1.8
New Orleans (2-4)	23	20		+6	-2.6	W 31-21 vs. #15 Atlanta	0.1
Houston (2-4)	24	26	+1	+4	-3.0	W 31-20 @ #32 Jacksonville	-2.0
Cleveland (2-4)	25	27	-1	-7	-3.4	L 26-23 vs. #3 Denver	-0.4
San Francisco (2-4)	26	19	+3	+6	-4.2	W 25-20 vs. #13 Baltimore	2.5
Washington (2-4)	27	22		-1	-4.6	L 34-20 @ #9 NY Jets	0.6
Oakland (2-3)	28	23		-1	-4.6	Bye	-0.1
Chicago (2-4)	29	25	+1	-1	-5.3	L 37-34 @ #22 Detroit	1.4
Tennessee (1-4)	30	30	-4	-3	-5.9	L 38-10 vs. #21 Miami	-2.4
Tampa Bay (2-3)	31	31		-3	-7.4	Bye	-4.4
Jacksonville (1-5)	32	32			-8.0	L 31-20 vs. #25 Houston	-0.6