NFL Team Rankings

[NoChance]

I know I am asking for trouble for posting this because you all will flame me but I am going to go ahead and post this anyway because it should create some good discussion.

Anyway, I have a spreadsheet that tracks how each team performs both offensively and defensively compared to how it's opponents cumulative averages. This gives me a percentage of how a team has performed over or lower than the cumulative averages of it's opponents. For offense, a good average would be 1.09 (or 9% more than the other teams usually give up) for example. For defense, a good percentage is usually around 0.85 which means you give up 15% less than your opponents usually score.

Anyway, I use a formula to add winning percentage, offensive scoring percentage, and defensive scoring percentages to come up with a rating. The results are surprising in some cases and I know it's early but it will tweak itself more accurate and more data is applied each week. Note that this formula does not focus completly on a team's record (or even who they beat or lost to) but also how they performed against each team.

This is what last years final ranking looked like:

2.414 New England
1.816 Pittsburgh
1.806 Philadelphia
1.709 Indianapolis
1.494 San Diego
1.426 Buffalo
1.422 NY Jets
1.302 Baltimore
1.073 Denver
0.787 Jacksonville
0.687 Atlanta
0.660 Kansas City
0.629 Cincinnati
0.605 NY Giants
0.518 Carolina
0.518 Miami
0.455 Green Bay
0.429 Minnesota
0.421 Washington
0.346 Houston
0.293 Tampa Bay
0.180 Seattle
0.156 Arizona
0.105 Detroit
-0.079 New Orleans
-0.132 St. Louis
-0.214 Cleveland
-0.249 Chicago
-0.280 Oakland
-0.337 Tennesee
-0.398 Dallas
-1.406 San Francisco


Using the exact same formula, here is the current ranking for this year (including this weekend's games):

2.571 Indianapolis
2.490 Cincinnati
1.790 Washington
1.715 Atlanta
1.698 Philadelphia
1.624 Chicago
1.606 Denver
1.460 Pittsburgh
1.380 San Diego
1.363 Tampa Bay
1.284 NY Giants
1.268 Miami
0.929 Jacksonville
0.775 Seattle
0.624 Cleveland
0.510 New England
0.476 Kansas City
0.325 Dallas
0.137 Oakland
0.003 Carolina
-0.049 New Orleans
-0.327 Minnesota
-0.457 Detroit
-0.505 Buffalo
-0.512 St. Louis
-0.529 Tennesee
-0.552 NY Jets
-0.647 Arizona
-0.712 Baltimore
-0.772 Houston
-0.888 Green Bay
-1.407 San Francisco

Interesting. Pure stats, no bias.