byau
Active member
This will be quick because I'm short on time ... here ya go!
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
"Got a lot of football ahead of us. Hopefully, we can keep winning and keep finding ways to win" - Russell Wilson
The Seahawks are in that elite mix now, helped by sustaining their defensive greatness. Combined with a fall by the Packers and questionable health of Payton Manning, the Seahawks are solidly in the conversation of current best team in the NFL with the Patriots.
From the 49ers game: Questionable offensive play will continue to keep some analysts in doubt. Solid defensive play, especially after half-time adjustments, keeps them at the top
Oh, and so does being the Super Bowl champions. That keeps them at the top.
A lot of the talk on the radio is whether or not this team, this team of questionable offense and superior defense, can win the Super Bowl. While that would normally keep a team possibly down in the rankings, this specific team of questionable offense and superior defense did win it last year.
And while questions arise that the receivers are possibly even MORE pedestrian, Marshawn does not seem to have slowed down and Russell is getting even better and seems to come through more often than not when the offense needs to do *something*.
That being said, it's easy to get ahead of ourselves and look towards NFCCG matchups, seeding, and even SB matchups.
The reality is that the Seahawks still have yet to clinch a playoff spot, and maybe more important than ever it is a 1-0 mentality the Seahawks still need to have. Each game is important and cannot be overlooked.
The Seahawks need to go undefeated in the playoffs to become SB champs, might as well start now with two games left in the regular season.
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
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300000 ... bills-rise
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Seahawks
4. Packers
5. Cowboys
3. Seahawks (+1). Everyone wants to know: Is the bully back? It appears that question has been answered. The offense might not have reflected the glory days of Krieg-Warner-Largent in Sunday's 17-7 win over the rival 49ers, but going 8-for-14 on third down is huge, particularly in this kind of offense, and especially with a defense that needs nothing but occasional rest in order to dominate.
SBNation
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/12/16/ ... ks-packers
1. Patriots
2. Seahawks
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Packers
2. Seahawks (+1).
The Pats may have one of the most potent offenses in the NFL, but the Seahawks are back up there among the best defenses right now as winners of four in a row. In those four wins -- against the Cardinals, Eagles and 49ers twice -- their opponents are averaging 6.8 points and just 188 total yards per game. Defensive domination pushes Seattle to No. 2 in our rankings this week, its highest spot since Week 5. The Seahawks are winning with the formula they used last year on the way to a Super Bowl victory, and they appear to be peaking at the right time.
ESPN
http://espn.go.com/nfl/powerrankings/_/ ... 14/week/16
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Seahawks
4. Packers
5. Cardinals
3. Seahawks (+1). The two highest rushing yards and yards-after-contact totals allowed by the 49ers' defense this season have come in the two games against the Seahawks.
CBS Sports
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/pat ... -to-pounce
1. Patriots
2. Seahawks
3. Broncos
4. Cardinals
5. Packers
2. Seahawks (+1). Brady's heroics aside for a moment, the real story may be the defending Super Bowl champs. The Seahawks have won four straight and roll into Arizona, which remains the NFC's top seed, for an NFC West Battle Royale in Week 16. With Seattle's defense reaching similar heights to last season and the Cards riding their third-string QB, the Seahawks' outlook is pretty favorable. And if they manage to wrest NFC home field away from the Cards and the Packers -- losers Sunday at Buffalo -- well, we're all well aware of the advantage the 12th Man can bring in the Pacific Northwest. The Seahawks have beaten the Broncos, Cardinals and Packers -- limiting them to a combined 40 points. If they get home field throughout the playoffs, watch out!
FOX Sports
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/power-rank ... =16&view=1
1. Patriots
2. Seahawks
3. Broncos
4. Packers
5. Cowboys
2. Seahawks (+2)The Seahawks have once again become the league’s model for elite defense. Rookie Paul Richardson is emerging as a top target for Russell Wilson, but in the immediate future, the Seahawks are riding Marshawn Lynch in a run-first offensive approach.
Yahoo Sports
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutd ... 09392.html
1. Patriots
2. Seahawks
3. Broncos
4. Packers
5. Cowboys
2. Seahawks (+1) It's almost strange how the defending champs have been so good the past few weeks to relatively little fanfare. And they've been dominant.
Washington Post Fancy Stats
aka the only numerical analysis non-subjective based power ranking
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fanc ... p-to-last/
1. Broncos
2. Patriots
3. Seahawks
4. Cardinals
5. Packers
3. Seahawks (+1) The defense once again held an opposing quarterback to 150 yards or less, making it five straight games of shutdown play. The Seahawks have allowed an opponent to score 10 or more points just once in the past four weeks and held the 49ers to seven points and 245 total yards on Sunday. It was also the fifth straight game where an opposing quarterback didn’t break 150 yards passing. Seattle’s defense ended the game six sacks and 25 stops against the run, led by linebacker Bobby Wagner, who sidelined 49ers running back Frank Gore with a concussion after a collision away from the ball. According to Sports Club Stats, the Seahawks have a 38 percent chance at winning the NFC West before next week’s matchup against the division leader Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
NFL Combined Rankings Using Relative Placement
1st: New England Patriots (last week: 2nd)
VOTES: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1
2nd: Seattle Seahawks (last week: 4th)
VOTES: 2,2,2,2,3,3,3
3rd: Denver Broncos (last week: 3rd)
VOTES: 1,2,2,3,3,3,3
4th: Green Bay Packers (last week: 1st)
VOTES: 4,4,4,4,5,5,5
5th: Arizona Cardinals (last week: 6th)
VOTES: 4,4,4,5 novote, novote, novote
6th: Dallas Cowboys (last week: unranked)
VOTES: 5,5,5 novote, novote, novote, novote
Fell Out Of Rankings:
aka no 1st through 5th votes this week
Indianapolis Colts
Philadelphia Eagles
Detroit Lions
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
Big rankings shakers!
Packers (#1) @ Bills (unranked): BILLS WIN 21-13. While an upset win, Aaron Rodgers looked terrible and likely had his worse game ever. Ranked #1 for career TD/INT ratio of above 4.0 (#2 through #5 are all around 2.5), he throws 0 TDs and 2 INT. Not to mention lots of uncharacteristic drops. And since none of the other elite teams lost, this dropped the Packers pretty fast.
Cardinals (#6) @ Rams (unranked): Cardinals win 12-6 in a defensive game. With a convincing win, they likely could have been placed above the Packers. But now having QB #2 go down, there are a lot of questions such as: which QB #3 to go with? And ... does it even matter? How important is their QB position? The Cardinals defense held the opposition to 6 points.
Cowboys (unranked) @ Eagles (#7) Cowboys win 38-27. With a gunslinger game, it looked like the Cowboys were always in control and Mark Sanchez was a bit exposed here.
Lastly...
49ers (unranked) @ Seahawks (#4) Seahawks win 17-7. More than anything, another defensive masterpiece (at least after halftime adjustments) puts the rest of the league on notice.
Natural Breaks from a Tally perspective
Natural Break # 1 Patriots are the clear 1st. And from what we knew, even though the natural breaks have been Packers by themselves at #1, and Patriots by themselves at #2, it was pretty clear the Patriots were really not that far behind the Packers. With a Packers loss anda very convincing Patriots win against a somewhat-better-than-average Dolphins team, they are now far and away the top ranked team. Dominating offense with a solid defense.
Natural Break # 2 Broncos and Seahawks are in that second group. Not surprisingly. While the Seahawks almost match the Patriots but in reverse (dominating defense and solid offense), the Broncos have surprisingly and quietly continued to keep their name in the conversation. They have evolved into a running team the last few weeks and the defense continues to quietly improve.
Natural Break # 3: Packers, cardinals, Cowboys. The Packers fall out of the elite with a very bad game, dmoeting them to the great but not elite group. There are a few more teams that could be in here as well such as the Lions and even the Colts and possibly even the Eagles.
For the most part, I like these natural breaks and find the most volatile group that Natural Break # 3 as in the next two weeks we could see this revolve even if all the teams in this group do not lose.
Fancy Stats Outliers
Gave the Patriots their only non first place vote. Otherwise, not much because the top 3 teams are still the same: Seahawks, Patriots, Broncos. Just the order has changed.
Relative Placement Fun
The #2 and #3 spots are a fun exercise in relative placement. While the Broncos got a #1 vote (Fancy Stats), they still get 3rd place after the Seahawks who got no #1 votes. This is the idea behind relative placement not giving too much power to any one vote
If you count majorities, with seven votes, a majority is four (4).
The first majority, majority of 1 votes, goes to the Patriots (clearly)
The second majority, majority of 1s and 2s combined, goes to the Seahawks. Because the Broncos only has THREE combined 1s and 2s, the Seahawks have FOUR combined 1s and 2s. What this means is while Denver does have a first place vote, the majority of judges put the Seahawks higher than the Broncos.
Fun exercise in relative placement.
Games To Watch For Week 16: Potential Rankings Shakers
There isn't a lot here for this week except two games to watch. All the others would be uspet material. So here's what the ranked teams and other teams of interest are doing. The short version: I don't see any upsets happening.
Eagles (unranked) at Redskins (unranked): Even with an Eagles win, they likely will not break the top 5 again unless one of the other ranked teams gets upset. Do not see the Eagles losing this one.
Lions (unranked) at Bears (unranked): The Lions definitely are right on the doorstep to that #5 spot. Do not see the Lions losing
Patriots (#1) at Jets (unranked): Nothing to see here
Packers (#4) at Bucs (unranked): Nothing to see here
Colts (unranked) at Cowboys (#6): Probably the second most interesting game. The Cowboys are great on offensive, slightly suspect on defense. The Colts are the same, just not as good as the Cowboys on all fronts. The saving grace: Luck's lightning-in-a-bottle game might be better than Romo's, and you still have to wonder about Romo's injuries. You don't really have to worry about Romo's choking anymore as we've seen for the most part over the last few weeks. Colts of course have a chance, but really would be very very surprised to the Cowboys to lose.
Broncos (#3) at Bengals (unranked): I feel the Bengals record (9-4-1) is much better than the actual team is. The Broncos defense continues to improve, I don't see the Bengals doing more than 14 points. And I can't see the Broncos scoring less than 14 points.
The game of the week:
Seahawks (#2) at Cardinals (#5): predictions aside because I just can't do that, I'll speak from a rankings perspective which means. Winner is #2 or #3, Loser is #6 or #7.
All in all, of course the last thing to say is ...
GO SEAHAWKS!! GO YOU FREAKING SEAHAWKS!!!
