The Power Rank started when I developed an algorithm to take the margin of victory in games and adjust for strength of schedule. The algorithm spits out rankings based on a team’s rating, or a predicted margin of victory against an average team.
Here are the rankings based on 5 weeks of data from the 2018 season. The rating comes after the team name.
1. Kansas City, 9.81
2. Los Angeles Rams, 9.25
3. Chicago, 6.43
4. Baltimore, 5.58
5. Cincinnati, 4.93
6. New Orleans, 3.34
7. Seattle, 2.45
8. Pittsburgh, 2.41
9. Jacksonville, 2.40
10. Carolina, 2.19
11. Cleveland, 1.71
12. Los Angeles Chargers, 0.22
13. New York Jets, 0.07
14. New England, -0.08
15. Minnesota, -0.23
16. Tennessee, -0.76
17. Tampa Bay, -1.08
18. Miami, -1.08
19. Detroit, -1.16
20. Green Bay, -1.18
21. Denver, -2.25
22. Atlanta, -2.32
23. Philadelphia, -2.61
24. San Francisco, -2.70
25. Dallas, -3.03
26. New York Giants, -3.47
27. Houston, -3.70
28. Washington, -3.95
29. Arizona, -4.12
30. Indianapolis, -4.89
31. Oakland, -5.55
32. Buffalo, -5.93
You can see the clear noise in these results. For example, these numbers say Kansas City is 10 points better than New England. With about 3 points for home field, this predicts Kansas City to win by about 7. That’s way off the market value that favors New England by 3.5 as of Thursday morning.
In the public NFL rankings on this site, I include a preseason component that gets diminishing weight with each passing week. This gives a prediction of New England by 1.5, closer to the markets.
For my best predictions that I save for members of The Power Rank, I also add data from other sources. To get a free sample of these member predictions, sign up for my free email newsletter.
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