NFL Combined Power Rankings Wk11: Hawks Fall Out

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

Hawks finally fall out and do not get a top 5 vote from any of the power rankings. They did move up as a whole with their convincing win against a sub .500 team.

At this point, they likely won't break the top 5 until the beat one of the top 5. Even with a win against KC, they may scrape in only because there are a few interesting "ranked" games in Week 11 (where two ranked teams play)


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. Cardinals
3. Broncos
4. Eagles
5. Cowboys

7. Seahawks Tweeted this on Sunday, and I’ll say it again: Marshawn Lynch is the most entertaining power back to watch since Earl Campbell. When his touchdown plunge put Seattle up 24-17 in the fourth quarter, you could just feel the crowd get energized. Not sure there is another running back like him in the game today. His lateral moves are awesome for a guy who runs with such brute force.

SBNation
1. Cardinals
2. Patriots
3. Broncos
4. Lions
5. Eagles

10. Seahawks: Don’t look now, but the defending champion Seahawks have rattled off three wins in a row and seem to have rediscovered the identity they rode to a Super Bowl win in 2013. The run game has taken back off, the defense has regained its swagger, and if Russell Wilson can get back to throwing the football like he was earlier in the season, Seattle could find itself back in the conversation as one of the favorites out of the NFC.

ESPN
1. Patriots
2. Cardinals
3. Broncos
4. Eagles
5. Packers

9. Seahawks: Seattle’s 350 rushing yards were more than the Giants’ total yards (324) Sunday. The Seahawks rushed for more yards than any team since the 2012 Chiefs in Week 16.

CBS Sports
1. Cardinals
2. Patriots
3. Broncos
4. Lions
5. Packers

8. Seahawks: The Seattle running game is downright scary right now and it will have to carry the team until the defense gets healthy. A trip to Kansas City this week will be a real test.

FOX Sports
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Eagles
4. Lions
5. Cowboys

10. Seahawks: With top two offensive linemen Russell Okung and Max Unger back, the Seahawks’ ground game was reborn. Going forward, this rushing attack can lead anchor the offense.

Yahoo Sports
1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Eagles
4. Packers
5. Colts

8. Seahawks: The Giants were in that game for almost three full quarters, until Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas combined on a great interception in the end zone. The game turned at that moment. Maybe that’s all to be ignored because the Seahawks dominated the fourth quarter, I’m not sure.


Washington Post Fancy Stats
aka the only numerical analysis non-subjective based power ranking

1. Broncos
2. Cardinals
3. Chiefs
4. Colts
5. Patriots

9. Seahawks: (no comments on site)

NFL Combined Rankings Using Relative Placement

1st: New England Patriots (last week: 1st)
VOTES: 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 5th

2nd: Arizona Cardinals (last week: 2nd)
VOTES: 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, novote, novote

3rd: Denver Broncos (last week: 3rd)
VOTES: 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd

4th: Philadelphia Eagles (last week: 4th)
VOTES: 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 5th, novote, novote

5th: Detroit Lions (last week: 5th)
VOTES: 4th, 4th, 4th, novote, novote, novote, novote

6th: Green Bay Packers (last week: unranked)
VOTES: 4th, 5th, 5th, novote, novote, novote, novote

7th: Indianapolis Colts (last week: 6th)
VOTES: 4th, 5th, novote, novote, novote, novote, novote

8th: Dallas Cowboys (last week: unranked)
VOTES: 5th, 5th, novote, novote, novote, novote, novote

9th: Kansas City Chiefs (last week: unranked)
VOTES: 3rd, novote, novote, novote, novote, novote, novote

Fell Out Of Rankings:
a.k.a. no 1st through 5th Votes this week
Pittsburgh Steelers (last week: 7th)
Miami Dolphins (last week: 8th)
Seattle Seahawks (last week: 9th)

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
Of course the biggest ranking shakers are when a ranked team loses, in this week there were two

1) UPSET: Jets beat Steelers (after the Steelers have two weeks of unbelievable play)
2) RANKINGS GAME: Detroit beat Miami (Miami had a very convincing shutout win against the Chargers)

That was it, so for the most part this was a "status quo" kind of week. The 1st through 5th teams actually did not change this week compared to last week.

Natural Breaks from a Tally perspective

Natural Break # 1 is the 1st through 3rd, though now with Arizona losing their starting QB that does come into question (more on that later). Pretty much these are the "elite" teams. Easy to see why they're up there right now.

Natural Break # 2 From a tally perspective it's 4th by themselves. aka the Eagles by themselves. From a hindsight analysis, it makes sense, not quite good enough to be elite but very close. While they lost their starting QB, many analysts love 2nd string Mark Sanchez who has a long resume and with a convincing win against the Panthers, they make a strong case for getting to the elite. Strong defense and special teams.

Natural Break # 3: Lions, Packers, Colts, Cowboys, Chiefs.

Analysis wise, I'd put the Lions with the Eagles in group # 2. I believe their defense is ranked # 1 in many categories, and they get their top wide receiver back. I think they're just overlooked very easily by analysts. Possibly, not having too strong a schedule has put them down a bit.

For the other teams, it's mostly the teams with a strong QB and lots of potential and momentum. The exception would be the Chiefs, but then again the Chiefs made it in on the Fancy Stats rankings so the numbers somehow got them there.

Natural Break #4: Everyone else in that 7th through 15th bracket that are under performing their high potential or over performing their low potential. These are the teams that pretty much no one ranks in the top five right now but otherwise right up there.

I'm positive Seahawks would be in the Natural Break # 3 if they had stronger showings against the sub .500 teams. After all, the Cowboys got put back in after a convincing win against Jacksonville, and the Eagles did so against Carolina.


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:

Kansas City Chiefs #3 (only score the Chiefs got)

New England Patriots #5 (only non 1st or 2nd vote for the Patriots

Relative Placement Fun

The Arizona Cardinals got 1st and 2nd place votes from five of the seven NFL power rankings. The other two (Fox Sports and Yahoo Sports) did NOT rank them in the top five. That's right, the best record of the NFL was nowhere to be seen in the top five for Fox and Yahoo.

Obvious guess is losing starting QB Carson Palmer is what dropped them out.

Surprisingly, even with two judges not giving them a top 5 vote, the fact the other five judges gave them a first or second still put them at a solid 2nd place. Per the Relative Placement strength: do not give too much power to any one judge, or in this case, any two judges.

Potential Rankings Shakers for Week 11: Ranking vs Ranking

Philadelphia (#4) at Green Bay (#6)
Detroit (#5) at Arizona (#2)
New England (#1) at Indianpolis (#7)


Potential Rankings Shakers for Week 11: Other Games of Interest

Denver (#3) at St Louis: St Louis can always surprise a team, esp a matchup of the Rams' Robert Quinn vs a shaky Denver O-Line (Broncos tried out Richie Incognito today, did you hear?)

Seattle at Kansas City: both 6-3 teams, both on win streaks. And we should already expect some shakeup next week since three games involve both teams being ranked. With that shakeup, it's conceivable the winner of this game could sneak themselves in if it is a dominating win.



That's it

dang...long post

Nice layout, my good man.

Nice summarization.

I never thought I would see a day where Detroit is ranked higher than Seattle. SMH.
Thank god I don't really give a crap about stupid power rankings. Any given Sunday.

These week to week rankings never make any sense. How does a team drop when pummeling a team 38-17 and rolling up 510 yards, of which 350 were rushing yards? I bet Arizona didn't drop and should have...losing to the Rams for 3 quarters.

Nonetheless, Thanks Byau for positng this every week. Much appreciated

Packers skyrocket in the power rankings after beating a garbage Bears team, the media is obsessed with them.

HoustonHawk82":rlq5nb0o said:

Nice layout, my good man.

Nice summarization.

Click to expand...

Thanks

Seahwkgal":rlq5nb0o said:

I never thought I would see a day where Detroit is ranked higher than Seattle. SMH.
Thank god I don't really give a crap about stupid power rankings. Any given Sunday.

Click to expand...

I know some people hate rankings. I understand, because at the end of the day, you win or lose. You make the playoffs or don't. You win the Super Bowl or don't.

In the meantime, the neat things about sports is endless topics of discussion, especially with something subjective such as those "greatest of all time" debates or "X vs Y in their prime" debates. It is also just one of those "craving data" type things too. I personally find them interesting. I can understand why others wouldn't.

hawkfan68":rlq5nb0o said:

These week to week rankings never make any sense. How does a team drop when pummeling a team 38-17 and rolling up 510 yards, of which 350 where rushing yards? I bet Arizona didn't drop and should have...losing to the Rams for 3 quarters.

Nonetheless, Thanks Byau for positng this every week. Much appreciated

Click to expand...

Thanks

As far as your questions, yeah rankings are weird huh? I think that's what happens when there are so many subjective criteria to consider. It's interesting trying to guess what each analyst criteria is. It's not like they explicitly state it on the website why I pick these guys over these guys and what not.

If you think about subjective criteria, you could include

1 ) Team's overall potential
2 ) Team's offense (which can then be divided into run game, pass game)
3 ) Team's defense (which can then be divided into rush D, pass D)
4 ) Time of possession
5 ) Strength of record
6 ) Convincing or close wins
7 ) Point differential
8 ) Points allowed
9 ) Points scored
etc.

And then each analyst will likely favor one specific criteria over the other. For example Fox and Yahoo dropping Arizona out of the top 5. Heck, they STILL have the best record in the NFL. Obviously none of the rankings rely strongly on record otherwise Arizona would have to be #1 but it had to play a factor because playing poorly against the Rams (I didn't see the game, I'll trust you) didn't seem to factor in. Maybe the fact they got the win after Palmer was injured became a plus.

As far as the Seahawks, the devili's advocate says it's a 3-win streak against sub .500 teams and none of them were truly convincing. Against the Giants it was a losing or tying proposition for three quarters AND there was not a memorable pass game.

I'm guessing most people are in a "you still gotta convince me Seahawks" type situation until the Hawks win against a over .500 team. Hey hey... Chiefs this weekend then a lot of playoff contender types the rest of the way.

But until then, totally not surprised about the 7 through 10 range we got, and really the 7 through 15 range are for the most part interchangeable depending on what criteria you favor.

RunTheBall":3ej00tr5 said:

Packers skyrocket in the power rankings after beating a garbage Bears team, the media is obsessed with them.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the Cowboys are back in after beating....Jacksonville with proclamations that Romo is back.

Definitely see evidence of rankings weighted towards QB potential (it is the most important position). The reverse effect is two power rankings dropping the Cardinals after the season ending injury to Carson Palmer (who isn't even a top 5 or maybe even top 10 QB).

For that reason, interesting teams to watch ranking wise because of QB position: Dallas (Romo is back?), Philly (Sanchez can keep it up?), Arizona (Drew Stanton steps in?).

And then teams interesting to watch DESPITE not having the stellar QB numbers: Detroit (#1 defense and return of Megatron) and of course KC and Seattle.

byau":32zyg4zi said:

Thanks
...

As far as the Seahawks, the devili's advocate says it's a 3-win streak against sub .500 teams and none of them were truly convincing. Against the Giants it was a losing or tying proposition for three quarters AND there was not a memorable pass game.

I'm guessing most people are in a "you still gotta convince me Seahawks" type situation until the Hawks win against a over .500 team. Hey hey... Chiefs this weekend then a lot of playoff contender types the rest of the way.

But until then, totally not surprised about the 7 through 10 range we got, and really the 7 through 15 range are for the most part interchangeable depending on what criteria you favor.

Click to expand...

Pete has been conserving injured players for the brutal stretch and trying to do just enough to beat the Panthers, Raiders, Giants. He miscalculated slightly against the Rams, but then 2 trick plays turned the game for them.
So the whole model of beating up on bad teams as a power ranking high-score-getter is just silly for this team. Pete is playing each game with the WHOLE season in mind. He's playing it to beat AZ twice and SF twice. So he's not having painkiller-injected injured starters play against the bottom dwellers. Thus those narrow wins are meaningless in assessing our strength when it matters.

Happy to go in as the #11 team and knock off AZ and SF twice, plus a KC and Phi to boot.

Football Outsiders DVOA

1. Denver
2. Bal
3. GB
4. Seattle
5. Philly

I like this one the best.

hawkfan68":22f4sskx said:

These week to week rankings never make any sense. How does a team drop when pummeling a team 38-17 and rolling up 510 yards, of which 350 where rushing yards? I bet Arizona didn't drop and should have...losing to the Rams for 3 quarters.

Click to expand...

Because we just beat three teams that didn't win a game in their last combined 13 games, and barely beat two of them.

olyfan63":2wjv75f6 said:

Pete has been conserving injured players for the brutal stretch and trying to do just enough to beat the Panthers, Raiders, Giants. He miscalculated slightly against the Rams, but then 2 trick plays turned the game for them.
So the whole model of beating up on bad teams as a power ranking high-score-getter is just silly for this team. Pete is playing each game with the WHOLE season in mind. He's playing it to beat AZ twice and SF twice. So he's not having painkiller-injected injured starters play against the bottom dwellers. Thus those narrow wins are meaningless in assessing our strength when it matters.

Happy to go in as the #11 team and knock off AZ and SF twice, plus a KC and Phi to boot.

Click to expand...

Oh yes for sure. And you're pointing out one reason not to care for rankings, and likely a reason some people might downright dislike them when people put a lot into rankings.

Who really cares when at the end of the season it comes down to the scoreboard?

While I find rankings interesting points for discussion, yeah believe me I'll take a gameplan to win the Super Bowl at the end of the season over being ranked #1 all season.

austinslater25":3ke1mbld said:

Football Outsiders DVOA

1. Denver
2. Bal
3. GB
4. Seattle
5. Philly

I like this one the best.

Click to expand...

Wow ... that would be an outlier.... Baltimore at # 2?!