Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Power Rankings (Week 13)

Pretty good shake-up at the top.  Here we go:

Ranking Team Power Ranking
1 Atlanta Falcons 1.000
2 New England Patriots 0.991
3 New York Jets 0.977
4 Pittsburgh Steelers 0.929
5 Baltimore Ravens 0.869
6 Chicago Bears 0.855
7 Green Bay Packers 0.854
8 Philadelphia Eagles 0.849
9 Tennessee Titans 0.782
10 Kansas City Chiefs 0.775
11 New Orleans Saints 0.773
12 Cleveland Browns 0.773
13 New York Giants 0.769
14 Miami Dolphins 0.757
15 San Diego Chargers 0.752
16 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.739
17 Houston Texans 0.732
18 Seattle Seahawks 0.728
19 Indianapolis Colts 0.727
20 Jacksonville Jaguars 0.727
21 Oakland Raiders 0.704
22 St. Louis Rams 0.688
23 Washington Redskins 0.682
24 Minnesota Vikings 0.645
25 Denver Broncos 0.631
26 San Francisco 49ers 0.622
27 Arizona Cardinals 0.617
28 Detroit Lions 0.602
29 Dallas Cowboys 0.576
30 Buffalo Bills 0.576
31 Cincinnati Bengals 0.521
32 Carolina Panthers 0.485

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Power Rankings (Week 12)

This week I looked at home field advantage.  My metric was pretty simple, from 2004-2009, I summed up all the win ratings for home games, and divided it by all the win ratings from away game.  In the end I have a percentage, the average percentage increase for home games (compared to away games).  I'm not truly measuring the advantage a home stadium provides, but rather, the difference in how well a team plays at home vs. on the road.  For instance, I'm not determining if a team's a good home team or a bad road team.  Anyway, below are the breakdowns (ranked highest to lowest):

Team Home Field Increase
Minnesota Vikings 40.59%
Kansas City Chiefs 39.60%
Houston Texans 37.42%
Arizona Cardinals 35.76%
Baltimore Ravens 29.16%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 25.09%
Buffalo Bills 23.19%
Chicago Bears 23.17%
Cleveland Browns 19.23%
Seattle Seahawks 18.51%
Washington Redskins 17.62%
Pittsburgh Steelers 16.80%
Dallas Cowboys 16.66%
Detroit Lions 16.30%
San Diego Chargers 15.28%
New Orleans Saints 15.13%
St. Louis Rams 14.84%
Indianapolis Colts 14.65%
Atlanta Falcons 11.94%
Tennessee Titans 11.80%
Denver Broncos 10.81%
San Francisco 49ers 10.35%
New York Jets 8.84%
Green Bay Packers 6.32%
Oakland Raiders 5.53%
New York Giants 4.38%
Jacksonville Jaguars 3.67%
Cincinnati Bengals 3.34%
Miami Dolphins 2.19%
Carolina Panthers 0.63%
Philadelphia Eagles -0.50%
New England Patriots -3.76%

Can't say I'm too surprised by the numbers.  For instance, 3 of the top 5 home field advantages are domes (providing advantageous playing conditions as well as keeping in the noise); and one of the other top 5 home field advantages is that noted Kansas City crowd.  On the other end of the scale, the Eagles and the Patriots actually play better on the road.  Now for these numbers, I only did one regression, that is, I didn't take into account the home / away disparity for the team a team was playing.  For instance, if Minnesota is a noted bad road team, I did not take that into account when they played Green Bay @ Green Bay (I know, sounds a little convoluted, but like my normal power rankings, I would like to incorporate some recursion).  Another odd note, adding a home field advantage component when trying to pick games using my Power Rankings doesn't help; the pure weekly rankings are still the best way to go.  I'll explore the recursion problem in the near future, and see if I can get the prediction a little better.  And, as always, this week's rankings:

Rank Team Power Ranking
1 New York Jets 1.000
2 New England Patriots 0.989
3 Pittsburgh Steelers 0.940
4 Atlanta Falcons 0.936
5 Philadelphia Eagles 0.885
6 Green Bay Packers 0.877
7 Baltimore Ravens 0.860
8 Tennessee Titans 0.810
9 Chicago Bears 0.794
10 Indianapolis Colts 0.765
11 Jacksonville Jaguars 0.763
12 Cleveland Browns 0.751
13 New Orleans Saints 0.733
14 Kansas City Chiefs 0.728
15 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.723
16 Miami Dolphins 0.722
17 New York Giants 0.721
18 Seattle Seahawks 0.714
19 Oakland Raiders 0.704
20 San Diego Chargers 0.703
21 Washington Redskins 0.699
22 Houston Texans 0.688
23 St. Louis Rams 0.651
24 Denver Broncos 0.637
25 Minnesota Vikings 0.611
26 Arizona Cardinals 0.596
27 Detroit Lions 0.594
28 San Francisco 49ers 0.576
29 Dallas Cowboys 0.568
30 Buffalo Bills 0.545
31 Cincinnati Bengals 0.510
32 Carolina Panthers 0.441

What's surprising is Cleveland is getting a lot of love, best 3-6 team ever.  Raiders took a dive, and still no love for the Chargers.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Power Rankings (Week 11)

So how good is my ranking system, based solely on points per yard (and then put through the regressive formula)?  Well, the obvious metric is how well the ranking system picks winners, how many times the higher ranked team wins.  Below, I iterate through 6 seasons (calculate the power rankings each week, and see how well those rankings pick winners).  I compare it against the most simple ranking system I could think of, based solely on wins / losses (if two teams have the exact same record, I just randomly picked one to win).  Also, I throw out the first two weeks (can't really calculate wins / losses with so few games).  Enjoy:


Year Picked Correctly
Simple Ranking My Ranking
2004 60.7% 70.1%
2005 64.3% 68.3%
2006 58.5% 61.6%
2007 65.6% 69.6%
2008 61.8% 67.9%
2009 62.1% 66.1%


So, as you can see, I'm slightly better than just always picking the team with more wins.  I'm right about 67% of the time, vs. 60% for the simple approach.  Apparently, 2006 was a screwy year.  And below, this week's ranking:

Rank Team Power Ranking
1 New York Jets 1.000
2 New England Patriots 0.964
3 Atlanta Falcons 0.940
4 Pittsburgh Steelers 0.934
5 Baltimore Ravens 0.878
6 Philadelphia Eagles 0.862
7 Green Bay Packers 0.850
8 Tennessee Titans 0.821
9 Indianapolis Colts 0.803
10 Cleveland Browns 0.774
11 Chicago Bears 0.760
12 Seattle Seahawks 0.759
13 New York Giants 0.746
14 Oakland Raiders 0.741
15 Miami Dolphins 0.740
16 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.728
17 Jacksonville Jaguars 0.722
18 New Orleans Saints 0.707
19 Kansas City Chiefs 0.701
20 Houston Texans 0.701
21 St. Louis Rams 0.679
22 Denver Broncos 0.678
23 San Diego Chargers 0.675
24 Washington Redskins 0.657
25 Arizona Cardinals 0.633
26 Detroit Lions 0.628
27 Minnesota Vikings 0.623
28 San Francisco 49ers 0.606
29 Cincinnati Bengals 0.548
30 Dallas Cowboys 0.517
31 Buffalo Bills 0.506
32 Carolina Panthers 0.452


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Power Rankings (Week 10)

And here we go:

Rank Team Power Ranking
1 Pittsburgh Steelers 1.000
2 New York Jets 0.951
3 Atlanta Falcons 0.914
4 Baltimore Ravens 0.891
5 New England Patriots 0.888
6 Tennessee Titans 0.842
7 Green Bay Packers 0.819
8 Philadelphia Eagles 0.816
9 Indianapolis Colts 0.804
10 New York Giants 0.796
11 Cleveland Browns 0.788
12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.758
13 Houston Texans 0.740
14 Oakland Raiders 0.736
15 Kansas City Chiefs 0.732
16 Seattle Seahawks 0.726
17 Chicago Bears 0.719
18 St. Louis Rams 0.718
19 New Orleans Saints 0.716
20 San Diego Chargers 0.680
21 Miami Dolphins 0.674
22 Washington Redskins 0.671
23 Arizona Cardinals 0.666
24 Detroit Lions 0.661
25 Jacksonville Jaguars 0.652
26 Minnesota Vikings 0.632
27 Denver Broncos 0.607
28 Cincinnati Bengals 0.571
29 San Francisco 49ers 0.550
30 Carolina Panthers 0.458
31 Buffalo Bills 0.454
32 Dallas Cowboys 0.445

Still surprising that the Jets still sit up so high.  And it's still showing the AFC's dominance over the NFC.  Lo and behold....the Cowboys are the worst team.  No complaints here.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Power Rankings (Week 9)

Well I can't say the results aren't strange.  Generally speaking, it seems teams aren't punished that much for keeping it close against good teams, it's playing lousy against bad teams that hurts you.  Case in point, the Patriots hold the best record, but could have lost to Buffalo and San Diego.  Still, something about these numbers speaks a little strange, so I'm still going to do some tweaking.  And I'm still interested in coming up with a picks system.  Anyway, here you go.


Rank  Team Power Ranking
1 Pittsburgh Steelers 1.000
2 New York Jets 0.989
3 New England Patriots 0.964
4 Baltimore Ravens 0.889
5 Atlanta Falcons 0.873
6 Houston Texans 0.870
7 Tennessee Titans 0.833
8 Green Bay Packers 0.832
9 Indianapolis Colts 0.817
10 New York Giants 0.796
11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.794
12 Seattle Seahawks 0.771
13 Kansas City Chiefs 0.768
14 Philadelphia Eagles 0.760
15 Chicago Bears 0.743
16 St. Louis Rams 0.724
17 New Orleans Saints 0.718
18 Cleveland Browns 0.710
19 Miami Dolphins 0.707
20 Oakland Raiders 0.703
21 Washington Redskins 0.689
22 Arizona Cardinals 0.688
23 Jacksonville Jaguars 0.667
24 Detroit Lions 0.660
25 San Diego Chargers 0.634
26 Minnesota Vikings 0.617
27 Denver Broncos 0.615
28 Cincinnati Bengals 0.586
29 San Francisco 49ers 0.544
30 Dallas Cowboys 0.493
31 Buffalo Bills 0.481
32 Carolina Panthers 0.478



 So what to make of these?  Well, I think the most useful takeaway is separating good teams from bad teams.  For instance, Jacksonville is a bad team, Tampa Bay is good.  Learn something.