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Hawk Blogger 2014 Power Rankings: Week 12

THIS WEEK
The Seahawks re-enter the top ten for the first time since week six. They narrowly trail Arizona based on strength of schedule (SOS), and are grouped with two teams that beat them in Dallas and Kansas City. Seattle’s opponent this week is yet another top team.

San Francisco ranks 4th based entirely on a large passer rating differential. They have no advantage in the run game versus opponents and have the slightest of edges in point differential where they average 20.7 ppg and allow 20.5 ppg. No team has defended the pass better this season than the 49ers.

New England and Miami give the NFC East two top five teams. Green Bay continues to sit alone at top.

RANKINGS (WITH SOS)

RANKINGS (WITHOUT SOS)

Scatter

This view helps to give you a view of how teams are grouped together. You will generally see tiers of strength develop as the season wears on.

RANKINGS EXPLAINED
Power rankings are always debatable. I don’t buy into the gut feel methods most places use to determine their rankings, so I developed a formula a few years back that attempts to take at least some of the subjectivity out of the discussion. My approach was simple, I measured offensive and defensive efficiency based on the Yards Per Carry (YPC) and Yards Per Attempt (YPA), as well as points scored and points allowed. The formula to calculate “Team Strength” was as follows:

(YPC (offense) + YPA (offense) + Avg Pts/Game Scored) – (YPC (defense) + YPA (defense)+ Avg Pts/Game Allowed)

The formula has proven to be a pretty accurate predictor of success, but I am always looking for ways to improve it. I read a great article on ColdHardFootballFacts.com. There was one gem in there about predicting championship teams. The article mentioned passer rating differential as the “mother of all stats.” A full 69 of 72 champions have ranked in the Top 10 in this statistic. It is a stat after my own heart, as I believe offensive and defensive efficiency is the key measurable outside of point differential. Turnovers would factor in there as well, but I am not convinced a team has as much control over that. My power rankings use YPA and YPC differentials. I went ahead and replaced the YPA with offensive and defensive passer rating, to give me this:

(YPC (offense) + Passer Rating (offense) + Avg Pts/Game Scored) – (OPP YPC (defense) + OPP Passer Rating (defense)+ OPP Avg Pts/Game)


As of September 23, 2014, I have added a strength of schedule component to the rankings as well. 

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