dwmyers
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Some of the best analysis about the NFL comes from the Football Outsiders site. Their power rankings can be annoying, however, as they're a bit too focused on pure stats (i.e yards rushing, yards passing, defensive yards given up, etc). This focus on pure stats leads to some ridiculous conclusions, such as the Philadelphia Eagles ranking the second best team in all of football when they had a 4-4 record in the middle of 2006.
An old fashioned way to rate teams is to use some sort of combination of team record and point spread, as those two statistics are the best two predictors of future team performance. If you use this kind of criterion, Dallas currently is the second ranked team in the NFL, only exceeded by the New England Patriots.
A third method, with some interesting conclusions, is the Beatpaths method (http://www.beatpaths.com/), and they have Dallas (through week 4) ranked third, the New York Giants ranked 4th, and NE ranked 6th. The beatpaths method is purely based on wins and a kind of elaborate "who has beaten whom" analysis, combined with a graphical pruning mechanism. The Beatpaths method is a kind of anti-FO method, as it ignores day to day stats and just looks purely at wins.
Beatpaths hasn't calculated the effects of the Chicago win yet, or the San Diego win .. the last game of the 5th wek hasn't been played yet, but as highly ranked as the Giants have been by this method, I will be curious how the ratings fall out once week 5 is complete. Will New England still be in 6th place?
David.
An old fashioned way to rate teams is to use some sort of combination of team record and point spread, as those two statistics are the best two predictors of future team performance. If you use this kind of criterion, Dallas currently is the second ranked team in the NFL, only exceeded by the New England Patriots.
A third method, with some interesting conclusions, is the Beatpaths method (http://www.beatpaths.com/), and they have Dallas (through week 4) ranked third, the New York Giants ranked 4th, and NE ranked 6th. The beatpaths method is purely based on wins and a kind of elaborate "who has beaten whom" analysis, combined with a graphical pruning mechanism. The Beatpaths method is a kind of anti-FO method, as it ignores day to day stats and just looks purely at wins.
Beatpaths hasn't calculated the effects of the Chicago win yet, or the San Diego win .. the last game of the 5th wek hasn't been played yet, but as highly ranked as the Giants have been by this method, I will be curious how the ratings fall out once week 5 is complete. Will New England still be in 6th place?
David.