Results 1 to 11 of 11

Thread: NFL Rankings

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!

    NFL Rankings

    So, after my comment in the Redskins thread where I pointed out they had played a ridiculously easy schedule so far, I decided to check on it. I went to Sagarin's NFL rankings.

    No surprise, the Skins do in fact have the worst rated schedule in the NFL, #32. The gulf between the Skins (10.80 strength of sked) to the #31 team, the Eagles with a 13.23 SOS, is huge too.

    A few other interesting things I noted in the rankings--

    • The Broncos, Saints, and Colts (3 of the 4 undefeateds) occupy the top 3 spots. No surprise there. But guess who is #4? The Falcons!!
    • Folks in the NFC North love to talk about how tough their division is, but they are playing in the lowest rated division in football. The Giants are #11, the Cowboys are #19, and Eagles are #21, and the woeful Skins are #30. The division has really benefited from playing the lousy Raiders and Chiefs from the AFC West. The Giants, Eagles, and Skins have played the 3 easiest schedules in the NFL so far this year. The Cowboys SOS is best in the division at #27. Ugggh!
    • Props to the NFC North for being the toughest rated division. The Vikes (#5), Pack (#10), and Bears (#12) are going to really batter each other all season.


    --Jason "Anyone know of other computer rankings for the NFL?" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
    I think you made a typo in bullet point number 2, Jason. The Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, and Redskins are in the NFC East, not the NFC North.

    Also, does the SOS take into account the entire season, or just so far? Cause, I can say with confidence that once we get to the meat of the season, all of the NFC East teams' schedules are gonna get a heck of a lot tougher. The Redskins, for example, still have one against the Giants and two against both the Eagles and Cowboys, not to mention games against the Broncos, Saints, Falcons, and Chargers. I can't imagine they'll have the easiest schedule by the end of the season.

    The NFC East is not necessarily considered the toughest division in football because they have the best teams. Part of that reputation comes from the style of play that the teams in the division tend to employ. It's smash mouth, run it down your throat offenses against defenses that live to hit. Now, every division has a down year here and there. Just wait until the NFC East starts going though, you'll see guys hitting the injury lists left and right. It's part of the reason the division has trouble winning the big one, they're so beat up by the end of the season. It's a battle of attrition in the NFC East. If your division plays the NFC East, you have to play four games against those teams, and if you have the right kind of team, you can avoid the beating cause you take the team out of its game. However, the NFC East teams play 6 of these types of games, and just about every team is DESIGNED to employ this style, so it's brutal. Instead of running around the wall, they crash right into it. The NFC North may be the highest rated division in the NFL, that doesn't necessarily make it the toughest.
    Last edited by bjornolf; 10-21-2009 at 11:10 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    You are right about the typo. Thanks.

    The SOS is only so far and I fully expect the SOS to get a lot more compressed as the season moves on.

    --Jason
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  4. #4
    Jason's right that there's compression as the season goes along, mostly because the intradivision games work mostly as a net zero. That said, however, Washington's strength of schedule will still be very weak at the end of the season, and I would venture to guess it'll still be last in the league. They may have one more against a top of the NFC team and 4 against decent teams in the NFC East rivalries (and so far that's what Philly and Dallas look to be - good but second tier), but at the end of the year they'll still have played Detroit, Tampa, St. Louis, Carolina, Oakland and Kansas City, all of whom are among the worst seven or eight teams in the NFL. That's six atrocious teams in a 16-game schedule.

    The strength of schedule comes down to just three factors, really - who's in your division, who your division gets matched up with, and who your two wild card matchups within the conference are. The second of those is actually more important than the strength of your own division, as it's half the schedule. The NFC East gets the NFC South and the AFC West. So they all have tough games against Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver and San Diego. But they all also get Tampa, Carolina, the Raiders and the Chiefs to more than balance those out. But the real killer for the Redskins in this conversation is this: the last two games to fill out Washington's dance card go to... the Rams and the Lions. Could not possibly be weaker - literally; those are the worst two eligible opponents. The Eagles, on the other hand, get the Bears and the '49ers, which will make their SOS a little more impressive.

    Bjornolf, I know when I think smashmouth football I think Dallas Cowboys! Joking aside, I don't know that I buy your point. Even if the styles of the Eagles and Giants are demonstrably more "physical" than, say, those of Chicago and Minnesota (and some in the NFC Norris would say it's arguable), that's just four games out of the Redskins schedule that aren't much more pysically taxing than the analogous 4 games the Lions get. And I'd probably rather play Dallas twice than Green Bay. Maybe it holds more water when comparing intra-NFC East to intra-NFC West, but I suspect the more important factor there is simply that those teams are worse, not less tough (maybe the worseness is a consequence of being less tough, I suppose). Regardless, every division has at least one team considered as a black and blue style squad, and most have two.

    Anyway, who cares how "tough" your division is? Isn't it better to be the "best" division?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Yeah -- I've never thought of the NFC East as "tough." Just the division with the most ridiculously behaved fans, and the only division I can think of where all four teams fans seem to hate each other equally.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Mal View Post
    The strength of schedule comes down to just three factors, really - who's in your division, who your division gets matched up with, and who your two wild card matchups within the conference are.
    Correct me if I'm wrong but... the last 2 opponent's you face are the teams that finished in the same place as you did last season within their division in your conference that you aren't already playing. So the Redskins finished last in the NFC East last year, so they play the last place teams from the NFC North and NFC West (Lions and Rams) while the Giants get the teams that finished 1st in those divisions (Vikings and Cardinals). So in some ways your SoS for the following year is based on your finish in the previous year. Obviously it's not as big a factor as which divisions you get paired with but it is still a pretty significant factor. I think it was actually more of a factor when there were fewer divisions (more of your schedule was based on where you finished within your division).

  7. #7
    That's correct; Washington's easy schedule is partly by design. It's a tool the NFL uses to increase the appearance of parity, by giving the weaker teams a lighter load the next year. Generally, it results in getting more marquee matchups, too, with round robins of the division winners. Of course, it's not foolproof as it doesn't account for mobility; Pittsburgh's schedule should be tougher than just about anyone's in the AFC, but in their two unmatched games they end up with the Dolphins and the Titans, one competant team that surprised everyone last year and has fallen back a bit, and one train wreck. Had the Rams and Lions taken significant steps forward (or, in the case of Detroit, not had to take those steps from an 0-16 starting point), the Redskins may have found themselves in a different SOS position.

  8. #8
    It does a pretty good job of making sure that they get a Patriots vs. Colts (aka Brady vs. Manning) spotlight matchup every year .

  9. #9
    Totally! The oddity this year being that they're matched up because they both finished second in their divisions last season. Right now my money's on Indy.

    In most recent years you get the Steelers in there, too. That's like 6 of the last 8 Super Bowl winners, isn't it?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC
    The Skins are the first team ever to have their first 6 opponents be winless when they played them. They are 2-4. Skins opponents had a combined 0-19 record before they played the Skins...and those winless opponents are 4-2 against Washington. Their two losses were by a combined 5 points. That, combined with other factors, make the Skins the worst team in the NFL to me.
    Check out the Duke Basketball Roundup!

    2003-2004 HLM
    Duke | Mirecourt | Detroit| The U | USA

  11. #11
    Okay, first of all, that stat's misleading. Of course the Giants were winless, it was the first game of the season. And it's pretty obvious that the Redskins' opponents are 4-2 against them if they're 2-4. Saying that the Redskins are 2-4 and then saying that their opponents are 4-2 against them as a SEPARATE point against them is kind of redundant and pointless. I think most of us could have figured that out.

    The Panthers are also a little misleading. Yes, they were 0-3 when they played the Skins, but they'd lost to the Eagles at home and the Falcons and Cowboys on the road. That is a BRUTAL opening to the schedule. Since then, they're 2-0 and have a game coming up against the woeful Bills. They have a BRUTAL schedule the rest of the way, too, so their record probably won't be great, but they are NOT a bad team. (except maybe at QB)

    The Redskins are pretty pathetic, yes, but you don't have to skew things like that to make them look MORE pathetic. And how bad do TB and STL feel for losing to them?

    They've lost 8 of their last 11, and only the Giants last season and the Ravens last season were by more than one score, and both of those were by two scores. They don't win by much, and they don't lose by much either. So saying their two wins are by a combined 5 points is a little misleading. Only the Saints are blowing their opponents out by multiple touchdowns every week.

    I would argue that at least the Titans are worse than the Skins. They're 0-6 and have losses by 20 and 22, not to mention 59 in a shutout. The Rams are 0-6, lost to the Skins, AND have losses of 19, two by 28, and 35, including 2 shutouts. The Lions DO have a win against the Skins, but they are 1-5 with losses of 18, 24, and 26 in a shutout. The Skins are pathetic, don't get me wrong, but there ARE worse teams in the NFL. At least the Skins are IN every game in the 4th quarter.
    Last edited by bjornolf; 10-22-2009 at 08:41 AM.

Similar Threads

  1. 2/16 Rankings
    By blazindw in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 02-16-2009, 02:16 PM
  2. FBS Prestige Rankings
    By MADevil30 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 01-21-2009, 09:27 PM
  3. A few rankings
    By Olympic Fan in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 02-08-2008, 05:06 PM
  4. Up in the rankings!!!
    By DavidBenAkiva in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 55
    Last Post: 11-27-2007, 07:13 PM
  5. Recruiting Rankings
    By dcarp23 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 03-22-2007, 04:57 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •