Team Rankings: Week Twelve

Before we get to today's rankings, let's talk a bit more about the Houston Texans without Matt Schaub. We talked about the possible ramifications of losing Schaub and replacing him with Matt Leinart, but there was no evidence to where the Texans would be ranked right now. Well no longer is that the case, America. By replacing Schaub with Leinart's career numbers for the Texans' previous ten games, here is the top-10 we would be looking at through Week 10:

RANKTEAMGWPOpp GWPO RANKD RANK
1 GB0.730.44128
2 PIT0.730.4747
3DAL0.700.53314
4 NE
0.690.53226
5 NO
0.660.45618
6 PHI
0.650.54810
7NYG
0.650.51519
8DET
0.640.47201
9HOU
0.630.46192
10 SF
0.600.50115

That's right, Matt Leinart's Texans would still be ranked ninth, despite a below-average offensive attack. The Texans are a good team, and it sounds as if Leinart feels comfortable with their system. We'll see how this actually shakes out, but the above table is a good jumping-off point

Now, on to some notes about this week's actual (and totally not fake) rankings.
  • Michael Vick was on the sidelines for the Eagles' game against the Giants. The Eagles moved ahead of the Giants in the rankings thanks to a win. Correlation always equals causation, folks. Philadelphia is much better off without Mike Vick and his playmaking ability.
  • Assuming the Texans offense will struggle, Pittsburgh appears to be the most well-rounded team in all of football, with a top-5 offense and a top-5 defense. They have a deep threat in Mike Wallace, a power running game, a QB who can extend plays, and an aggressive defense with a knack for getting to the quarterback. Some of the other pieces are questionable, but the Steelers would be my pick to get out of the AFC, at this point. How about you?
  • How far will the Bears fall without Jay Cutler? It depends what you think of Caleb Hanie based on the small pro sample we have for him. I think he can manage an offense just fine, and as long as Matt Forte doesn't get too worn down, the Bears will be able to make the playoffs. The Cutler injury makes the NFC playoff picture even more fun, as Detroit is trying to hang on while Atlanta and the Giants fight to make the postseason.
With all of that in mind, here are your rankings for Week Twelve.

RANKTEAMLAST WKGWPOpp GWPO RANKD RANK
1HOU10.830.4722
2 PIT30.730.4855
3 GB20.720.44127
4DAL40.690.51414
5 NO60.670.47715
6 NE50.650.51328
7 PHI80.640.53912
8NYG70.640.50621
9DET90.630.46201
10 SF100.600.50126
11CHI110.590.54194
12BAL130.560.52149
13OAK120.540.461011
14NYJ140.520.52227
15ATL180.520.501317
16 SD170.490.451126
17BUF150.480.521525
18CIN190.460.451623
19TEN160.460.481716
20MIA230.440.502322
21WAS200.440.532513
22CLE250.400.462418
23CAR220.400.51830
24SEA260.380.53278
25JAC210.380.53323
26STL240.350.553010
27ARI270.350.512124
28MIN290.340.502620
29DEN280.340.502919
30 TB300.330.581829
31IND320.210.502832
32 KC310.190.403131

TEAMOPASSORUNSR%OINT%OFUM%DPASSDRUNSR%DINT%PENRATE
ARI5.8434.11.36.5552.40.54
ATL6.5412.80.96.7613.00.42
BAL6.0382.12.15.8603.30.41
BUF6.3444.50.67.2554.60.35
CAR7.0433.80.87.6542.40.58
CHI6.4382.21.16.2603.60.43
CIN6.2403.50.26.1611.50.41
CLE5.3391.91.05.5522.10.42
DAL7.4412.51.26.1564.00.43
DEN5.0412.81.86.6592.10.42
DET6.5372.50.85.1624.20.48
GB8.5421.50.97.0534.90.29
HOU7.7442.10.55.1594.30.40
IND5.0402.42.67.6531.60.31
JAC4.2393.20.85.6623.20.38
KC5.5393.81.47.5564.40.43
MIA6.1373.01.06.5571.70.34
MIN5.5452.71.16.8561.70.48
NE7.8462.61.07.1533.70.44
NO7.2472.60.56.0561.30.34
NYG7.5362.51.26.2534.00.39
NYJ6.0403.02.06.1584.20.41
OAK7.1414.81.05.7542.80.68
PHI6.7504.81.36.3593.40.40
PIT7.1442.51.35.0571.20.42
SD7.1434.41.37.2603.60.41
SF6.3411.41.05.9633.80.49
SEA5.5323.61.26.2652.80.56
STL4.7401.62.06.2582.50.46
TB6.0433.90.67.8542.80.54
TEN6.4332.20.75.9572.40.56
WAS5.8414.41.56.4602.20.38
Avg6.3413.01.26.4573.00.44






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22 Responses to “Team Rankings: Week Twelve”

  1. Anonymous says:

    I'd like for you to go back and see what effect Gary Kubiak has on a QB's performance.

    If you care to look, each QB that has exceeding career averages under his playcalling.

    Expect the same for LionHeart (Leinart).

    Cheers

  2. Anonymous says:

    How much do the defensive numbers depend on good offensive numbers? In other words, is there any correlation (positive or negative) between having a good offense (or a certain kind of offense) with having a good defense?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Maybe I read this before, but are special teams considered so random, they are predictive?

    When I compare to other sites like FO, special teams are why teams like the Cowboys drop.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Table not sorting for me?

  5. Anonymous says:

    Hello?

  6. Anonymous says:

    These are always very enlightening to read. Very nice job and much appreciated. Considering how mind blowing that Pack offense is though I'm surprised they aren't number 1 overall even if you explained it a few weeks back. The question is can anyone hang enough with the pack to make exploiting that pass defense relevant considering Rodgers does that same thing against anyone at any time at will, while GB still creates turnovers in the secondary.

  7. Anonymous says:

    It seems like special teams are completely ignored, which threatens a lot of the credibility here. Devin Hester consistantly influences the outcome of games. The 49ers have the NFLs best starting drive position, and their opponent's have the worst. Leaving out special teams skews the rankings dramatically. Special teams are typically as consistant as defensive performance, and largely the result of quality special teams coaching. Unless you have Devin Hester, then it doesn't matter.

  8. Anonymous says:

    I'm going to assume that using Leinart's prior numbers with another team in no way suggests those numbers would be the same on this Houston team. I'm going to assume that because I must know that Zach knows the QB position is more interdependent than that.

    So with that I say, good show. Although there's an argument out there that Houston is even better with Leinart (STL was better with Warner?), my money is on that Houston dropping 9 spots.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Aaron Schatz of FO, in his DVOA rankings for this week, writes: "You can see that Houston has absolutely been on fire in its last four games, starting with the 41-7 whipping of Tennessee in Week 7."

    Prior to those 4 games, FO had Houston ranked 16th...ANS had them ranked 5th.

    And with this sample size of awesomeness, I will continue to support ANS over FO.

  10. Pete says:

    Has anyone taken a look at actual success of teams that lost marquee quarterbacks? How do back-ups/teams perform in the first six weeks after the starting quarterbacks go down? Inserting Matt Leinart's career numbers may not make sense except that they might represent the best case scenario for his performance. His first few games might be rough. History might also provide some indication of how well Caleb Hainey will do for the Bears.

  11. Anonymous says:

    These rankings are garbage, San Francisco has only lost one game and look where you rank them. You don't know what you're talking about.

  12. Anonymous says:

    In the SF/Balt Game Prob on Fifth Down, you list SF's DRUN SR% as 60 and Balt is 63. It's the other way on the above chart.

    You also mentioned that SF has a slight edge..does that mean that a lower number in the DRUNSR% is better? I thought the higher number meant the defense had a better success rate than one with a lower number.

    Thanks for your time...enjoy reading your stuff.

  13. Anonymous says:

    ANS is better at predicting than DVOA, right? DVOA's advantage is that it can be broken out in teeny-tiny pieces, because it's play-based. Also I like to look at DVOA because it actually includes special teams, which helps in interpreting ANS, which will rank teams with great special teams (SF, CHI) too low, and with bad special teams (DAL, DET) too high.

    Also, ANS is cool because it's completely transparent, and DVOA is completely not.

    --hoptoad

  14. James says:

    Pete, Jason Lisk wrote a post about backup QBs for playoff teams at thebiglead.com. In short, on average the offense loses 1.3 yards of ANY/A and the team's winning percentage is lower by 0.182, which would put Houston at 0.65 WPA, or really close to the estimated 0.63 above.

  15. Anonymous says:

    If you're a 'Frisco fan, don't fret. All stats sites tend to over-value blow-outs because it takes a couple of games for the stats to "regress" back down to average after a big win. As the 'Niners play the rest of the NFC West, they'll get a few more blowouts like they did in Wk 11 vs AZ, and they will climb up the rankings, making it into the top 5 where they probably belong by season's end.

  16. Anonymous says:

    ... Special teams are typically as consistant as defensive performance,...
    Anonymous, do you have any links to support that? I've always heard that Special Teams and Turnovers tend to be too volatile to be predictable. And they tend to correlate more strongly with poor performance by the team that is hurt by them than with strong performance by the team that benefits. In other words big kick returns tend to come against teams with poor kick coverage instead of from big kick returners (Hester and DJac not-withstanding). And turnovers tend to be "given up" by the offense more than they are "created" by the defense.
    PS Since I'm asking for a link to support an argument, I was going to also provide a link to support my own, specifically a link to the analysis on this web-site . But the link on that page that points to the page that actually contains the numbers behind the volatility/lack-of-predictiveness of special teams and turnovers is broken (it currently points to ) and I'm hoping Brian can fix it.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Rats. My links got swallowed.
    The link that contains the page that has a link to the actual numbers is http://www.advancednflstats.com/2007/04/list-of-stats-and-correlations.html and the broken link is http://home.comcast.net/~bbnflstats/correlationlist.htm

  18. Anonymous says:

    Dang. This posting thing is not working out. I posted two comments too close to each other and the latter, which was a self-correction, over-wrote the former. So now I've got a correction to a non-existent comment. So here's the original comment repeated. Sheesh.
    ...Special teams are typically as consistant as defensive performance, ...
    Are there any links to support that supposition? ... Special teams are typically as consistant as defensive performance,...
    Anonymous, do you have any links to support that? I've always heard that Special Teams and Turnovers tend to be too volatile to be predictable. And they tend to correlate more strongly with poor performance by the team that is hurt by them than with strong performance by the team that benefits. In other words big kick returns tend to come against teams with poor kick coverage instead of from big kick returners (Hester and DJac not-withstanding). And turnovers tend to be "given up" by the offense more than they are "created" by the defense.

  19. Brian Burke says:

    I love comments like this: "It seems like special teams are completely ignored, which threatens a lot of the credibility here."

    What should 'threaten credibility' is experts who chase randomness by its tail and models that over-fit to random outcomes. That said, Hester is an exception to the rule. The other 31 teams, not so much.

  20. Jeff Fogle says:

    What should threaten credibility of the industry is that the "expert brands" (Burke, Sagarin, FO) are still far apart on several teams through the 10-game mark in the totem pole rankings.

    Is Pittsburgh 2nd or 9th?
    Is San Francisco 2nd or 10th?
    Is Chicago 3rd or 11th?
    Is Dallas 4th or 12th?
    Is Detroit 4th or 13th?
    Is NYJ 5th or 14th?
    Is Philadelphia 7th or 14th?
    Is NYG 8th or 16th?
    Is San Diego 16th or 23rd?
    Is Denver 18th or 29th?
    Is Tampa Bay 20th or 30th?

    Was going to itemize those...but everyone will have their share of "what the" rankings. The margin for error is still so high that the totem pole rankings are basically meaningless in terms of telling fans more than what they already know about teams. Football feng shui. Denver might be average, or the third worst team in the league. Agreement reflects the obvious. Disagreement tells you more about the individual "expert's" model priorities than the team.

  21. Jeff Fogle says:

    PS: that should say "fourth worst" for Denver, which hurts the credibility of that commenter (lol)...

  22. Anonymous says:

    ...That said, Hester is an exception to the rule. The other 31 teams, not so much....

    What rule is Hester an except to? That special teams don't count?

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