byau
Active member
For the stats and numbers guys and for anyone that likes this type of discussion, here are the NFL Combined Power Rankings this week.
How The Seahawks Did This Week
From a rankings perspective, not too many "rankings games" where ranked teams played each other. Not a lot of upsets either so as expected, didn't see a whole lot of movement. The natural breaks in relative placement are starting to pan out so you'll see a lot more movement where the natural breaks have more teams. It's not as easily reflected here since I am only counting scores of 1st through 5th.
The teams that were supposed to win, did, though there were a few close calls. The one exception was unranked Seattle beat the ranked Arizona which finally caused some bit of movement out of the "elite" for AZ, and a bit of movement closer to the top 5 for Seattle.
As far as how they did, well, whatever you want to say about the numbers on offense, if you watch the game, every player was in it until the end. While this was easy to see on the Seahawks defense limiting the Cardinals offense to 3 points in the 2nd quarter only and one of their lowest outputs, if you read between the lines, the Seahawks offense did a spectacular job. They got better as the game went on and the Cardinals defense got more tired.
Overall, the Cardinals defense prides itself on turnovers, and the Seahawks offense gave them none despite being sacked heavily throughout the game
Overall, the Cardnials offense prides itself on pushing the gas as the game goes on, and the Seahawks defense gave them nothing at all
Rankings wise, lots of analysts giving the Cardinals some benefit of the doubt, but it drops them out of the elite class. At the same time, huge bump to the Seahawks, not just for the win, but for possibly finding that swagger back
NFL Combined Rankings Summary
Take the scores of 7 rankings and combine them. I use a system called "relative placement" which is advantageous in this type of subjective judging. I have used it many times in the past as a head judge of dance competitions which are pretty much all purely subjective judging.
Here are the source NFL power rankings
NFL.com
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
9. Seahawks (+1). While it's still worrisome that Seattle's offense relies so much on Russell Wilson's legs (over 70 yards rushing for the third straight week), that was a huge win Sunday. Is it fair to say the bully is back, Seahawks fans? Or is that too fair weather? .
SBNation
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Eagles
4. Broncos
5. Cardinals
9. Seahawks (+4). The Cardinals fall from their perch at the top spot after being thoroughly dominated by the Seahawks. Arizona could only muster 204 yards of offense. While the defense remains among the league's best, you have to worry that Drew Stanton can't lead the Cardinals to the promised land. Arizona's 9-2 record is no fluke, but as we go down the home stretch of the season, even a Bruce Arians-coached team needs better than 50 percent passing from the quarterback. The Seahawks' Legion of Boom is finally looking like the group that won a Super Bowl last year, but Seattle's passing game under Russell Wilson is still a huge question mark.
ESPN
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
7. Seahawks (+4). Russell Wilson was 11-of-13 for 153 yards against at least five pass-rushers Sunday. He was 5-of-14 against the Cardinals' blitz in the Seahawks' home loss to Arizona last season.
CBS Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
12. Seahawks (+2). The Seahawks are figuring out defense without Brandon Mebane and the 19-3 win over the Cardinals is a solid start on a run back to the playoffs. A short week with a Thanksgiving Day game in San Francisco will be a very big test. Russell Wilson is 0-2 in San Francisco with one passing touchdown and just 12 yards rushing.
FOX Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Cowboys
4. Broncos
5. Cardinals
6. Seahawks (+5) The Seahawks are beginning to patch up some of their key issues on the offensive line, but their defense heads into December a notch below where it was this time of the year against both the run and pass.
Yahoo Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Cardinals
4. Broncos
5. Eagles
8. Seahawks (+1) For either the Seahawks or 49ers to really get to where they want to go, they'll probably have to sweep the other. That's what makes this Thanksgiving matchup so good. Regarding the Cardinals still having them at #3: Not much reason to downgrade them for the loss at Seattle. It was a desperate Seahawks team, which is still really tough at home, and the Cardinals' offense was shorthanded without Larry Fitzgerald. Nice win for Seattle, but not really a bad loss for Arizona.
Washington Post Fancy Stats
aka the only numerical analysis non-subjective based power ranking
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Packers
4. Cardinals
5. Eagles
7. Seahawks (+1) Arizona suffered a quick reality check against Seattle, where they managed just 204 yards of total offense. Part of the problem was that quarterback Drew Stanton couldn’t solve Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, completing just one of five passes on the right side of the field. The Seahawks looked a little more like the team we saw win the Super Bowl last year. Sherman held Stanton to just a 39.6 passer rating when he was targeted in coverage.
NFL Combined Rankings Using Relative Placement
1st: New England Patriots (last week: 1st)
VOTES: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1
2nd: Green Bay Packers (last week: 3rd)
VOTES: 2,2,2,2,2,2,3
3rd: Denver Broncos (last week: 4th)
VOTES: 2,3,3,3,4,4,4
4th: Arizona Cardinals (last week: 2nd)
VOTES: 3,4,4,4,4,5,5
5th: Dallas Cowboys (last week: 6th)
VOTES: 3,5,5,5, novote, novote, novote
6th: Philadelphia Eagles (last week: 8th)
VOTES: 3,5,5, novote, novote, novote, novote
Fell Out Of Rankings:
a.k.a. no 1st through 5th Votes this week
Kansas City Chiefs (last week: 5th)
Miami Dolphins (last week: 7th)
Some Analysis With Relative Placement and What We Know
None of this is real deep, so if you see a comment and think to yourself "well, duh...", I have no problem with that
Ranking Shakers
Not a lot of ranked games, and while there were some close upsets, the teams that are supposed to win did win.
The one big ranking shaker game was the unranked Seahawks beating the Cardinals (#2). Which, strangely, if you were a betting man, you would have expected since the Seahawks came out as 6.5 point favorites.
Other than that, everything was for the most part status quo. Maybe just the calm before the storm because this week there is a heck of a lot going on.
Natural Breaks from a Tally perspective
Natural Break # 1 Patriots are a clear 1st. Dominating win over the peripherally ranked Detroit Lions. The Lions continued to have major woes, and the Patriots show just how dominant AND versatile they are, mixing up the offense each week.
Natural Break # 2 Packers are the clear 2nd. Basically because you might be hard pressed to find who you would place ahead of them.
Natural Break # 3: Broncos and Arizona. The two previously elite teams that have fallen a bit. An argument could almost be made to put the either of these teams with the Packers in Natural Break # 2. However, the Packers are showing enough momentum and control of the game it seems to eek out the better rankings from all the judges. While the Broncos still might have some questions on the O-line. And Arizona still has questions at quarterback.
Natural Break #4: Cowboys and Eagles. Not to mention many other playoff contenders. Basically almost all the 8-3 and 7-4 teams could be in this break, and it's just that the Cowboys and Eagles are showing the most potential out of that group. These are the only two teams in our tally, by the way, that did not garner a full seven votes which is telling. Also, this makes for an interesting Thanksgiving day matchup since these two teams play each other. (Drool)
For the most part, I like these natural breaks.
Fancy Stats Outliers
Since Fancy Stats is the non-subjective ranking, I like seeing how it matches up with the others. And if you're the curious type you can reverse-engineer a bit the algorithm used to determine these rankings.
The outliers in this case are almost non-existent. As the season goes on I expect the stats to converge. The main outliers are that
Green Bay Packers: the only non 2nd place vote. But they got 3rd.
Denver Broncos: only 2nd place vote. All other votes got 3rd and 4th.
Normally I wouldn't even consider these outliers, except if you look at the numbers these two votes bridge the gap between the clear majorities and natural breaks. It's clear it's Patriots all by themselves, then Packers, then Broncos and Cardinals in the third group. But these two votes bridge the gap between the Natural Break #2 and Natural Break #3 when in reality it seems these two groups are farther apart then that.
Relative Placement Fun
The two main interesting things
1. Teams 1 through 4 (the "Elite") all have seven full votes. This also meant fewer teams to be included in the actual tally. And Green Bay moves themselves fully into elite status
2. Denver and Arizona are bordering on a downtick (sans the Fancy Stats outliers bridging the gap mentioned above)
Games To Watch For Week 13: Potential Rankings Shakers
While there are fewer ranked teams (which means fewer games where both teams are ranked), there are a lot of games where both teams have winning records (and consequently some games where both teams have losing records).
All in all, that makes for some exciting games ahead! But for shaking up the rankings, there may not be that many, only those involving the elite teams and ranked teams.
Philadelphia (#6) at Dallas (#5) Probably will be my favorite game after my own Seahawks game. Division rivals with the same record (7-3) facing off? On Thanksgiving?!! This one is going to be good. Loser is knocked to 8 and 4, possibly out of the top 5.
New England (#1) at Green Bay (#2) I really don't have much to comment on this game. The fact that it is #1 and #2 playing is huge. However, I think New England wins and shows some defincies in Green Bay. If Green Bay loses, this knocks them to 8 and 4, and possibly out of the top 5.
Denver (#3) at Kansas City (unranked) To me, bigger than on paper. If Kansas City wins, I think that puts them right back in the rankings picture. On one hand, they have to be smarting after losing to Oakland. On the other hand, it is beating one of the elite teams. For Denver, losing of course will likely move them out of the top 5. However, bigger than that, winning might put them back on elite ground instead of in this area in between elite and good. While I thought Denver might be on a downtick, they had an impressive showing with the running game which may put their downfall on hold. So a big win against KC with all cylinders clicking might pull them back to # 2, esp. if Green Bay has a poor showing and since Arizona, even if they win, are playing a mediocre Atlanta team that still needs to learn how a play clock works.
And while it may not shake up the rankings, I have to mention:
Seattle (unranked) at San Francisco (unranked) Okay, both are unranked, but this game is huge for a lot of reasons and you'll find that discussion everywhere and elsewhere on this board. Since this is a post about rankings, while normally I don't think two unranked teams at 7-4 playing would case a shake up, considering the games that are on tap:
Philly vs Dallas
New England vs Green Bay
Denver vs Kansas City
The first game, one team is falling to 4 losses. If Green Bay loses, they fall to 4 losses. If Denver loses, they fall to 4 losses.
It's possible that the winner of Seahawks vs 49ers, if it is a dominating win, might finally squeak their way into the top 5. I am doubtful of it and give it a very low chance though
As far as the non-ranking implications of this game .... I only can say
GO SEAHAWKS!!
(that's it for this week)
How The Seahawks Did This Week
From a rankings perspective, not too many "rankings games" where ranked teams played each other. Not a lot of upsets either so as expected, didn't see a whole lot of movement. The natural breaks in relative placement are starting to pan out so you'll see a lot more movement where the natural breaks have more teams. It's not as easily reflected here since I am only counting scores of 1st through 5th.
The teams that were supposed to win, did, though there were a few close calls. The one exception was unranked Seattle beat the ranked Arizona which finally caused some bit of movement out of the "elite" for AZ, and a bit of movement closer to the top 5 for Seattle.
As far as how they did, well, whatever you want to say about the numbers on offense, if you watch the game, every player was in it until the end. While this was easy to see on the Seahawks defense limiting the Cardinals offense to 3 points in the 2nd quarter only and one of their lowest outputs, if you read between the lines, the Seahawks offense did a spectacular job. They got better as the game went on and the Cardinals defense got more tired.
Overall, the Cardinals defense prides itself on turnovers, and the Seahawks offense gave them none despite being sacked heavily throughout the game
Overall, the Cardnials offense prides itself on pushing the gas as the game goes on, and the Seahawks defense gave them nothing at all
Rankings wise, lots of analysts giving the Cardinals some benefit of the doubt, but it drops them out of the elite class. At the same time, huge bump to the Seahawks, not just for the win, but for possibly finding that swagger back
NFL Combined Rankings Summary
Take the scores of 7 rankings and combine them. I use a system called "relative placement" which is advantageous in this type of subjective judging. I have used it many times in the past as a head judge of dance competitions which are pretty much all purely subjective judging.
Here are the source NFL power rankings
NFL.com
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
9. Seahawks (+1). While it's still worrisome that Seattle's offense relies so much on Russell Wilson's legs (over 70 yards rushing for the third straight week), that was a huge win Sunday. Is it fair to say the bully is back, Seahawks fans? Or is that too fair weather? .
SBNation
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Eagles
4. Broncos
5. Cardinals
9. Seahawks (+4). The Cardinals fall from their perch at the top spot after being thoroughly dominated by the Seahawks. Arizona could only muster 204 yards of offense. While the defense remains among the league's best, you have to worry that Drew Stanton can't lead the Cardinals to the promised land. Arizona's 9-2 record is no fluke, but as we go down the home stretch of the season, even a Bruce Arians-coached team needs better than 50 percent passing from the quarterback. The Seahawks' Legion of Boom is finally looking like the group that won a Super Bowl last year, but Seattle's passing game under Russell Wilson is still a huge question mark.
ESPN
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
7. Seahawks (+4). Russell Wilson was 11-of-13 for 153 yards against at least five pass-rushers Sunday. He was 5-of-14 against the Cardinals' blitz in the Seahawks' home loss to Arizona last season.
CBS Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Cowboys
12. Seahawks (+2). The Seahawks are figuring out defense without Brandon Mebane and the 19-3 win over the Cardinals is a solid start on a run back to the playoffs. A short week with a Thanksgiving Day game in San Francisco will be a very big test. Russell Wilson is 0-2 in San Francisco with one passing touchdown and just 12 yards rushing.
FOX Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Cowboys
4. Broncos
5. Cardinals
6. Seahawks (+5) The Seahawks are beginning to patch up some of their key issues on the offensive line, but their defense heads into December a notch below where it was this time of the year against both the run and pass.
Yahoo Sports
1. Patriots
2. Packers
3. Cardinals
4. Broncos
5. Eagles
8. Seahawks (+1) For either the Seahawks or 49ers to really get to where they want to go, they'll probably have to sweep the other. That's what makes this Thanksgiving matchup so good. Regarding the Cardinals still having them at #3: Not much reason to downgrade them for the loss at Seattle. It was a desperate Seahawks team, which is still really tough at home, and the Cardinals' offense was shorthanded without Larry Fitzgerald. Nice win for Seattle, but not really a bad loss for Arizona.
Washington Post Fancy Stats
aka the only numerical analysis non-subjective based power ranking
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Packers
4. Cardinals
5. Eagles
7. Seahawks (+1) Arizona suffered a quick reality check against Seattle, where they managed just 204 yards of total offense. Part of the problem was that quarterback Drew Stanton couldn’t solve Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, completing just one of five passes on the right side of the field. The Seahawks looked a little more like the team we saw win the Super Bowl last year. Sherman held Stanton to just a 39.6 passer rating when he was targeted in coverage.
NFL Combined Rankings Using Relative Placement
1st: New England Patriots (last week: 1st)
VOTES: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1
2nd: Green Bay Packers (last week: 3rd)
VOTES: 2,2,2,2,2,2,3
3rd: Denver Broncos (last week: 4th)
VOTES: 2,3,3,3,4,4,4
4th: Arizona Cardinals (last week: 2nd)
VOTES: 3,4,4,4,4,5,5
5th: Dallas Cowboys (last week: 6th)
VOTES: 3,5,5,5, novote, novote, novote
6th: Philadelphia Eagles (last week: 8th)
VOTES: 3,5,5, novote, novote, novote, novote
Fell Out Of Rankings:
a.k.a. no 1st through 5th Votes this week
Kansas City Chiefs (last week: 5th)
Miami Dolphins (last week: 7th)
Some Analysis With Relative Placement and What We Know
None of this is real deep, so if you see a comment and think to yourself "well, duh...", I have no problem with that
Ranking Shakers
Not a lot of ranked games, and while there were some close upsets, the teams that are supposed to win did win.
The one big ranking shaker game was the unranked Seahawks beating the Cardinals (#2). Which, strangely, if you were a betting man, you would have expected since the Seahawks came out as 6.5 point favorites.
Other than that, everything was for the most part status quo. Maybe just the calm before the storm because this week there is a heck of a lot going on.
Natural Breaks from a Tally perspective
Natural Break # 1 Patriots are a clear 1st. Dominating win over the peripherally ranked Detroit Lions. The Lions continued to have major woes, and the Patriots show just how dominant AND versatile they are, mixing up the offense each week.
Natural Break # 2 Packers are the clear 2nd. Basically because you might be hard pressed to find who you would place ahead of them.
Natural Break # 3: Broncos and Arizona. The two previously elite teams that have fallen a bit. An argument could almost be made to put the either of these teams with the Packers in Natural Break # 2. However, the Packers are showing enough momentum and control of the game it seems to eek out the better rankings from all the judges. While the Broncos still might have some questions on the O-line. And Arizona still has questions at quarterback.
Natural Break #4: Cowboys and Eagles. Not to mention many other playoff contenders. Basically almost all the 8-3 and 7-4 teams could be in this break, and it's just that the Cowboys and Eagles are showing the most potential out of that group. These are the only two teams in our tally, by the way, that did not garner a full seven votes which is telling. Also, this makes for an interesting Thanksgiving day matchup since these two teams play each other. (Drool)
For the most part, I like these natural breaks.
Fancy Stats Outliers
Since Fancy Stats is the non-subjective ranking, I like seeing how it matches up with the others. And if you're the curious type you can reverse-engineer a bit the algorithm used to determine these rankings.
The outliers in this case are almost non-existent. As the season goes on I expect the stats to converge. The main outliers are that
Green Bay Packers: the only non 2nd place vote. But they got 3rd.
Denver Broncos: only 2nd place vote. All other votes got 3rd and 4th.
Normally I wouldn't even consider these outliers, except if you look at the numbers these two votes bridge the gap between the clear majorities and natural breaks. It's clear it's Patriots all by themselves, then Packers, then Broncos and Cardinals in the third group. But these two votes bridge the gap between the Natural Break #2 and Natural Break #3 when in reality it seems these two groups are farther apart then that.
Relative Placement Fun
The two main interesting things
1. Teams 1 through 4 (the "Elite") all have seven full votes. This also meant fewer teams to be included in the actual tally. And Green Bay moves themselves fully into elite status
2. Denver and Arizona are bordering on a downtick (sans the Fancy Stats outliers bridging the gap mentioned above)
Games To Watch For Week 13: Potential Rankings Shakers
While there are fewer ranked teams (which means fewer games where both teams are ranked), there are a lot of games where both teams have winning records (and consequently some games where both teams have losing records).
All in all, that makes for some exciting games ahead! But for shaking up the rankings, there may not be that many, only those involving the elite teams and ranked teams.
Philadelphia (#6) at Dallas (#5) Probably will be my favorite game after my own Seahawks game. Division rivals with the same record (7-3) facing off? On Thanksgiving?!! This one is going to be good. Loser is knocked to 8 and 4, possibly out of the top 5.
New England (#1) at Green Bay (#2) I really don't have much to comment on this game. The fact that it is #1 and #2 playing is huge. However, I think New England wins and shows some defincies in Green Bay. If Green Bay loses, this knocks them to 8 and 4, and possibly out of the top 5.
Denver (#3) at Kansas City (unranked) To me, bigger than on paper. If Kansas City wins, I think that puts them right back in the rankings picture. On one hand, they have to be smarting after losing to Oakland. On the other hand, it is beating one of the elite teams. For Denver, losing of course will likely move them out of the top 5. However, bigger than that, winning might put them back on elite ground instead of in this area in between elite and good. While I thought Denver might be on a downtick, they had an impressive showing with the running game which may put their downfall on hold. So a big win against KC with all cylinders clicking might pull them back to # 2, esp. if Green Bay has a poor showing and since Arizona, even if they win, are playing a mediocre Atlanta team that still needs to learn how a play clock works.
And while it may not shake up the rankings, I have to mention:
Seattle (unranked) at San Francisco (unranked) Okay, both are unranked, but this game is huge for a lot of reasons and you'll find that discussion everywhere and elsewhere on this board. Since this is a post about rankings, while normally I don't think two unranked teams at 7-4 playing would case a shake up, considering the games that are on tap:
Philly vs Dallas
New England vs Green Bay
Denver vs Kansas City
The first game, one team is falling to 4 losses. If Green Bay loses, they fall to 4 losses. If Denver loses, they fall to 4 losses.
It's possible that the winner of Seahawks vs 49ers, if it is a dominating win, might finally squeak their way into the top 5. I am doubtful of it and give it a very low chance though
As far as the non-ranking implications of this game .... I only can say
GO SEAHAWKS!!
(that's it for this week)
