Rankings crossposted at sk7326's personal site:
Two weeks into the NFL season, and we are able to put out rankings on the NFL teams. For the tens (ok, single digits) who have been following the ratings of college football teams that have been posted, the methodology is familiar. Basically every NFL team is compared to every other on five dimensions and whomever compares favorably to the most number of teams wins (each favorable comparison is a pairwin below). The criteria are the same as in college - as the season goes on, the team's identities and the true caliber of their competition will be revealed. Right now there is enough to rank the teams, but there is still much to be learned:
1. New York Jets (2-0) 31 pairwins
2. Washington Redskins (2-0) 30
3. Green Bay Packers (2-0) 28
4. New England Patriots (2-0) 27
5. Detroit Lions (2-0) 26
6. Buffalo Bills (2-0) 25
7. Dallas Cowboys (1-1) 25
8. Oakland Raiders (1-1) 23
9. Houston Texans (2-0) 23
10. New Orleans Saints (1-1) 20
11. Tennessee Titans (1-1) 18
12. Arizona Cardinals (1-1) 16
13. Cincinnati Bengals (1-1) 15
14. Baltimore Ravens (1-1) 14
15. Chicago Bears (1-1) 13
16. Denver Broncos (1-1) 13
17. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-1) 13
18. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-1) 12
19. San Diego Chargers (1-1) 12
20. Atlanta Falcons (1-1) 11
21. Philadelphia Eagles (1-1) 10
22. New York Giants (1-1) 9
23. Cleveland Browns (1-1) 8
24. Pittsburgh Steelers (1-1) 6
25. Miami Dolphins (0-2) 6
26. San Francisco 49ers (1-1) 6
27. Carolina Panthers (0-2) 4
28. Minnesota Vikings (0-2) 3
29. Indianapolis Colts (0-2) 2
30. Kansas City Chiefs (0-2) 1
31. Saint Louis Rams (0-2) 1
32. Seattle Seahawks (0-2) 0
The limited knowledge of the league schedulewise honestly drives almost all of the quirks at this point - though it is fun to see the quirks. For instance the Chiefs have been absolutely atrocious so far, being outscored 89-10 over two games. (seriously, that is like one of those schools that takes $500,000 to get beaten at Nebraska's homecoming) However, their opponents are a combined 2-0 in their non-Chiefs games, so KC looks a bit better. Seattle by contrast has lost games to opponents who are winless. Either way, Seattle being bad should not be that big a shock at this point.
The Jets at number 1 is definitely the number crunching - I am not a Jets fan (seriously - no, seriously) However, their wins over Dallas and Jacksonville as of this second look quite good. One suspects that Jacksonville will start looking less good with each passing week. The Colts are probably not this bad, but life without Peyton Manning is difficult - if you think that most of the Colts' team was built on Manning's skillset - you have a solid case in your corner.
Anyway - hopefully this is a good firestarter for NFL convo on the Wide World of Sports.
UPDATE: Math mistake here. Since Dick Cheney isn't running this show - openly acknowledged and the previous rankings left up above for mocking. Corrected:
1. Jets 28 pairwins
2. Redskins 26
3. Packers 25
4. Cowboys 25
5. Raiders 23
6. Patriots 22
7. Lions 21
8. Saints 20
9. Texans 19
10. Titans 18
11. Bills 16
12. Cardinals 15
13. Bengals 15
14. Ravens 14
15. Bucs 13
16. Bears 12
17. Broncos 12
18. Chargers 11
19. Jaguars 10
20. Falcons 9
21. Eagles 8
22. Giants 7
23. Dolphins 7
24. Browns 6
25. Steelers 4
26. 49ers 4
27. Panthers 4
28. Vikings 3
29. Colts 2
30. Chiefs 1
31. Rams 1
32. Seahawks 0