Fox power rating!!!

[Sarge]

I am continually amazed at how people even give a rats elbow when it comes to these rankings.

They're not unlike the guy across the street saying your teams sucks. It's one's point of view.

Who cares?

 

[playit12]

It's interesting to compare the DVOA rankings to the Sagarin rankings, since they're comprehensive formulas but with completely different considerations. The Sagarin rankings are based only on the results of the games (who wins, who loses and the scores), no matter what happens during them. The DVOA rankings are based only on what happens on each play during a game, no matter who wins or loses or what the final score is.

Since the Sagarin rankings are based on the full season, the best comparison is to use the DVOA full-season rankings instead of the overall rankings, which are weighted toward recent games. (It should be noted that the DVOA full-season rankings list two teams tied for 20th but no team 19th. I've changed that to two teams tied for 19th, since it's either that or a typo.)

As you can see, they're pretty similar for most teams -- 17 teams are within one spot in both rankings, and eight more are within two spots. The four biggest outliers (teams with the biggest difference in the rankings) are the Cowboys (10th in Sagarin, 14th in DVOA), Patriots (12th in Sagarin, 19th in DVOA), Rams (24th in Sagarin, 30th in DVOA) and Titans (30th in Sagarin, 25th in DVOA). But I have yet to pinpoint one particular reason why those teams' rankings can be so different using different methods, so it's probably a different reason for each team. The Cowboys, for example, might be better than their DVOA because they have the highest penalty margin in the league, and as far as I can tell, DVOA doesn't account for penalties.

Personally, I think combining the two rankings produces a more accurate ranking than either one on its own.

I like Sagarin (especially for NCAA Basket ball, where the sample size is far too large to get a full grasp over the quality of a win) but I don't know how effective I think it is here.

The problem, for me, is teams like the Commanders. They are probably better than their record would suggest right now. I think if you even took wins and losses then pulled in some of the statistical abnormalities into the equation from DVOA, you'd probably have a more accurate stat than either. By that I mean things like fumble recoveries (which do not trend but certainly effect the overall game decision).

As for DVOA hurting teams like the Cowboys, I think the Cowboys have been guilty of playing up or down to the level of the competetion this year (except the one Philly game). The same can be said of the patriots as well, and it's not suprise to me then that both are sitting under their respective quality wins rankings.

As for penalties, I think I remember reading that they are not taken into consideration. I imagine that is just because it would be very difficult to do, but they might make the reasoning sound more elloquent. Of course both stats have their problems. Both have too much inertia by the middle of a season. When McNabb goes down you drop out his contribution to the offense, but you have to also consider that the relatively high DVOA for other players on the offense is artificial at that point. Instead, it take several weeks of downward trending to start to level out. Human stats probably do this aspect of guessing better, but DVOA does it better than Sagarin (which makes no adjustments).

 

[playit12]

I am continually amazed at how people even give a rats elbow when it comes to these rankings.

They're not unlike the guy across the street saying your teams sucks. It's one's point of view.

Who cares?

I look at it more like a third party audit, then I do a ranking. It really helps to find problems in your team that you might otherwise miss. For instance, the cowboys are statistically very poor at covering a team's 1WR, while above par for both the 2nd and 3rd WR. Knowing that Newman is having a great year, I think this points to a problem in the usage of our CBs. Perhaps the cowboys need to consider having Newman follow the first WR instead of playing just slot and side of field. Especially when you face teams like Carolina, that according to DVOA only have one effective WR.

I think it's a good measuring stick of performance. I look at other stats in equal light. I like QB rating, Sacks, Pressures, Ints, exc... This is just one of them.

Also they occasionally find the "diamond" in the rough teams. Last year the Bills started out horrible and lost (I believe) their first 4 games. At 0-4 most media list had them somewhere near the Texas, but not DVOA. They consistently ranked them up above the Cowboys. As it turns out they were right. The Bills were a combination of unlucky and playing good teams. When the season played out, they finished at 9 wins I think in a very good AFC conference.