Thursday, 28 September 2006

Composite NFL Power Rankings

I'm not really creative enough to create my own power rankings, but I thought it might be fun to look at some of the more well-known NFL Power Rankings, and find where the teams are average placed. So I loooked up the Power Rankings for ESPN, Dr. Z, CBS Sportsline, and Fox Sports, then I went crazy in Excel to figure out the averages. I'll put them in order (and their averages) and comment afterward:

1.5 - Indianapolis Colts
2.0 - Cincinnati Bengals
2.5 - Seattle Seahawks
4.5 - Chicago Bears
5.3 - Baltimore Ravens
5.5 - San Diego Chargers
7.0 - Jacksonville Jaguars
7.8 - Denver Broncos
10.0 - Philadelphia Eagles
11.5 - New Orleans Saints
12.0 - Minnesota Vikings
12.0 - New England Patriots
12.5 - Atlanta Falcons
13.0 - Pittsburgh Steelers
13.3 - Dallas Cowboys
17.3 - St. Louis Rams
17.5 - Carolina Panthers
17.8 - New York Giants
18.3 - New York Jets
20.5 - Washington Redskins
20.8 - Buffalo Bills
22.3 - Arizona Cardinals
22.8 - Kansas City Chiefs
23.5 - Miami Dolphins
25.3 - San Francisco 49ers
25.5 - Green Bay Packers
27.8 - Tampa Bay Buccaneers
28.0 - Cleveland Browns
28.3 - Detroit Lions
29.8 - Tennessee Titans
30.8 - Houstan Texans
32.0 - Oakland Raiders

  • The Indianapolis Colts got 3 of the 4 first-place votes, with the Bengals receiving the other one. In the ranking that the Bengals were #1 (Dr. Z), the Colts were actually 3rd with the Seahawks coming in 3rd.
  • Colts, Bengals, and Seahawks were the top 3 in all 4 rankings.
  • The Oakland Raiders secured the bottom spot in all 4 rankings.
  • The biggest disagreement for individual teams from the polls was with the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons. Both received a #9 vote and a #15 vote... no other teams had a range bigger than 5.
  • If you had told me before the year that the Saints would be above teams like New England and Pittsburgh and actually deserve to be there, I probably would have laughed.
  • On the same token, if you had bet me the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be below teams like the Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, and San Francisco 49ers and very much deserve to be that low, I would have lost a lot of money.
Anyway, those are just a few of my quick thoughts. If you create your own rankings or know of others I should use, just email me or leave a column, and depending on if I'm abitious enough to do this next week, I'll include that ranking as well.

What's the biggest surprises from this list?