2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 16

I'm back. It's just like I was here the whole time. Now to the rankings you probably haven't (but definitely should have) been desperately awaiting.

1. Dallas Cowboys

They've been the best. Period. The gap is getting wider. Number two offense in the league, and the D isn't a shitshow. But they'd have been 7th last year. SEVENTH. There just aren't elite teams this year.

2. New England Patriots

Another solid team that's done well in a league with too much parity.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers

How the fuck did the Steelers make it up here? Oh right, nobody else is good.

4. Atlanta Falcons

Matt Ryan for MVP. Hands the fuck down.

5. Seattle Seahawks

Here's a team that's having an everything-falling-apart season, and they're still top 10 in offense and defense with a decent chance to win it all.

6. Arizona Cardinals

Everything has already fallen apart for the Cards. Just out of bad luck, this team is still loaded. Yet another factor in the league's condensing.

7. Kansas City Chiefs

This team looks good. And they really are solid. But good? Like last year good? Ehhh.

8. Washington Redskins

These guys have taken a step forward and low key have one of the best offenses in the league. Better than the Patriots' and Saints'.

9. Carolina Panthers

Huge step backwards, but they haven't been that bad. More just regression to the mean and a little bad luck.

10. New York Giants

Kinda like the Skins. Low key amazing defense.

11. Denver Broncos

Better defense (the only one). But yeah, of course, it's the fucking Broncos. They were bottom 5 in offense last year too. That's the difference between being an average best-in-the-league unit and being an all-time-great one.

12. Cincinnati Bengals

Mediocre.

13. Green Bay Packers

See Bengals, Cincinnati.

14. Buffalo Bills

See Packers, Green Bay.

15. New Orleans Saints

Kinda like the anti-Broncos. Both in the offense/defense split and in the all-time to all-NFL defensive transition from last year to this one that brings the overall team from the extremes to around league average.

16. Baltimore Ravens

A worse version of the Broncos.

17. Minnesota Vikings

A worse version of the Ravens.

18. Tennessee Titans

Hey, they're better than last year.

19. San Diego Chargers

Lol they lost to the Browns. But also, see Titans, Tennessee.

20. Chicago Bears

See Bills, Buffalo.

21. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

See Bears, Chicago.

22. Miami Dolphins

Ok I'm done. All these teams are the fucking same.

23. Oakland Raiders

24. Houston Texans

Except the Texans, they've managed to improve on defense without the greatest player of all time.

25. Philadelphia Eagles

DVOA likes these guys. Like top 5. Weird. It's all special teams. But actually.

26. New York Jets

27. Jacksonville Jaguars

28. Detroit Lions

29. Indianapolis Colts

30. Los Angeles Rams

31. San Francisco 49ers

32. Cleveland Browns

Power Rankings Delay

This has nothing to do with the election. This is entirely due to pro football reference not being able to keep their shit straight. I'll get the rankings up once they fix their play-by-play bugs. I thought I'd be able to just leave out the game where they messed up their yard line labelling, but now it's showed up in the majority of games I've looked at.

I'll give you an update as soon as we know more about how much pfr gives a fuck about fixing their shit.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 8

1. Seattle Seahawks

Back on top after dominating the Saints. Had some bad luck that cost them the win, but with clear first in the division, as well as clear first in just being better than everybody else (they lead by the biggest margin of the season), this is the Superbowl favorite.

2. Arizona Cardinals

They slip a bit, but it really wasn't as bad as the score showed at certain points in that game.

3. New England Patriots

Inching up... On a Tuesday. Best in the AFC despite playing half their games without Brady. I'd put some money on them representing the lesser conference in the Superbowl if it weren't for everybody else also putting money on them.

4. Atlanta Falcons

Still great on offense, but you just gave up a lot of TDs to a pretty bad quarterback.

5. Denver Broncos

See Falcons, Atlanta, and switch O and D. 

6. Dallas Cowboys

They're pretty good.

7. Carolina Panthers

See Boys, Dallas Cow

8. Cincinnati Bengals

9. Washington Redskins

High scoring ties aren't supposed to hannen. But both these teams do have very similar profiles (5th and 23rd vs 3rd and 27th on O and D).

10. Kansas City Chiefs

It would be more impressive if the Colts didn't suck.

11. New York Giants

12. Buffalo Bills

It wasn't that bad. The Pats are pretty good. As in, most years the media thinks the Pats are really good, but this is the first year they've been right in a long time. Though they're still a tier off. And if you're wondering why I'm talking about the Patriots here, I have one question for you: Would you rather I talk about the fucking Bills?

13. Tennessee Titans

They deserve some credit. Dominating like they did is hard, even if you're playing the Jags.

14. Philadelphia Eagles

We're starting to be able to sort out the Eagles finally. They're a slightly above average team being carried by a surprisingly good, though not elite, defense.

15. Miami Dolphins

16. Chicago Bears

17. Minnesota Vikings

What more can I say. The Vikings can't play offense, and the Bears aren't that bad. Go Bears.

18. Pittsburgh Steelers

19. Green Bay Packers

Yuck.

20. San Diego Chargers

21. New York Jets

22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

23. Jacksonville Jaguars

24. Baltimore Ravens

25. New Orleans Saints

26. Oakland Raiders

27. Houston Texans

28. Los Angeles Rams

29. Detroit Lions

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I'm leaving a gap here because there's a big gap here.

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30. Cleveland Browns

31. Indianapolis Colts

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Yeah, that's how bad the 49ers are.

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32. San Francisco 49ers

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 7

1. Arizona Cardinals
2. Seattle Seahawks

When you're number one and you play number two, you gotta win to keep your spot. Or something like that.

3. Denver Broncos

Dominant game. The defense is as great as ever. Just kidding, it's a LOT worse than last year. So like, still the best in the league.

4. New England Patriots

Moving up. ON A TUESDAY

5. Atlanta Falcons

Offense still looks good, just a few fuckups.

6. Carolina Panthers

Watch out. This is still a good team. Like, about as good as last year.

7. Dallas Cowboys

8. Cincinnati Bengals

9. Minnesota Vikings

See Vikings, Minnesota. Pick a week. That offense has never been good, the amazing defense was just able to hide it for a few games to start the season.

10. Philadelphia Eagles

Way to expose the Vikings' offense. Well, expose it to anyone who wasn't looking that hard at how bad it was before.

11. Buffalo Bills

Steamrolled. But they still have one of the top scoring margins in the NFL.

12. New York Giants

Well, let's just say they were good enough.

13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Solid teams know how to blow out bad teams. Then again, when your opponent is as bad as the 49ers, it makes it seem like every team is solid.

14. Miami Dolphins

That dude runs.

15. Green Bay Packers

They suck. They just lucked into Matt Barkley on Thursday.

16. Kansas City Chiefs

They better hope that this season is like last and they catch fire in the second half, because last season is the only thing keeping them in the top half of the league. Beating the Saints doesn't mean much.

17. Washington Redskins

The anti-Vikings.

18. Pittsburgh Steelers

Whoa, that's really low, you might say. Well fuck the Steelers.

19. Tennessee Titans

They actually looked pretty good for a while. Like, to start the season, not this game. You can't get outplayed by the fucking Colts. The Colts are fucking bad.

20. San Diego Chargers

Good win versus a good team.

21. Chicago Bears

I still want to believe. I still kinda do believe that this team would actually be good (like, top 10 good) without all the injury issues.

22. Jacksonville Jaguars

The Raiders aren't good, man, what are you doing???? Then again, it's not like the Jags are good either.

23. New York Jets

Lol.

24. New Orleans Saints

Pretty similar to the Redskins, actually. Just a little worse.

25. Baltimore Ravens

Early on, it was a bad offense carried by a great defense. Now, it's a good defense getting dragged down by a horrendous offense.

26. Houston Texans

Not impressed. They can't play offense, and they don't have JJ Watt on defense.

27. Los Angeles Rams

Goff time?

28. Oakland Raiders

Congrats, you beat the Jags. Now play some defense against someone who doesn't suck.

29. Detroit Lions

Ehhh.

30. Indianapolis Colts

Good game on their part. Well, not actually that good, just a lot better than the rest of their games.

31. Cleveland Browns

I belivelanded. But I'm losing hope.

32. San Francisco 49ers

Holy FUCK this team is bad.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 6

1. Seattle Seahawks

Back where they belong. Let's face it, this is the only team we should actually have any confidence in. Literally every other team might just completely suck.

2. Arizona Cardinals

Give credit to their defense. Like, a lot of credit. It's top 5 in the league.

3. Atlanta Falcons

Solid game on Sunday. They avoided being dominated by the NFL's best team, which counts for a lot.

4. Carolina Panthers

It seems like they're falling apart, but they're still probably a good team. And by probably I mean definitely. They definitely weren't that great last year, and they definitely aren't that bad this year.

5. Denver Broncos

Now they're looking like they did last year, at least on offense. But the defense might be falling off. Still the best in the league though. By a lot.

6. Dallas Cowboys

Time to give credit where credit is due. They can roll over people. That line is great, and the rookies look solid as fuck.

7. New England Patriots

I'm probably more confident that these guys are good than any team outside of Seattle, but it's not like their defense is anything other than average. And two games don't prove a ton on the other side of the ball.

8. Minnesota Vikings

Bye. But what I've said before stands. The defense may be really good, but the offense is bad. Like, Denver bad. I'm not scared of this team. Though it does seem like they'll cruise to the division title.

9. Buffalo Bills

They might be good. I'm not totally convinced, but they do have the best scoring margin in the league.

10. Pittsburgh Steelers

They'll probably be fine, but they've been inconsistent enough that without Fuckfuckfuckfuck they could lose to anybody. Too bad they're playing the Pats and not the Browns.

11. Kansas City Chiefs

Solid win against Oakland, the defense is really solid, and the offense is really mediocre. So they've taken a step back on both sides of the ball. But it's not that bad.

12. Cincinnati Bengals

The defense has fallen off, and they've been rolled two weeks in a row now. Actually, it wasn't that bad for most of the game on Sunday. But it got bad.

13. Tennessee Titans

My model thinks they're slightly above average on both sides of the ball. Which should give them a pretty clear path to the playoffs in the worst division in the NFL.

14. New York Giants

We can now be confident that they've improved a ton since last year. That's how bad they were.

15. Philadelphia Eagles

See York Giants, New.

16. Washington Redskins

They can BALL. On offense. Josh Norman isn't enough to prevent them from being 27th on D.

17. Green Bay Packers

It's been a year. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE.

18. Chicago Bears

Hoyer is good*. They can move the ball.

*seems better than Jay Cutler at throwing to an elite corps of receivers

19. Baltimore Ravens

See Bears, Chicago. Specifically the second sentence. It's not true for Baltimore. The defense is pretty good though.

20. Miami Dolphins

Fuckfuckfuckfuck it.

21. Jacksonville Jaguars

They kept a pretty good Bears offense in check. Shoulda put up more points though, it's the fucking Bears.

22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Ehhh.

23. Houston Texans

Ehhh. They can play some defense even without JJ. If I were them, I'd just let him play quarterback. As we've seen higher up on this list, playing for Wisconsin means that injuries don't matter.

24. San Diego Chargers

My model is definitively not impressed by their win against Denver.

25. New York Jets

And even less impressed by the Jets' loss against Arizona (yes, it was as bad as it looked).

26. Los Angeles Rams

They went from a complete inability to pass to throwing their 3rd TD before their 3rd incompletion. Weird. I'm just gonna go with this team being inconsistent as fuck.

27. New Orleans Saints

It's much less surprising that the Saints are so inconsistent. That's just what happens when you have an elite offense and no D.

28. Oakland Raiders

They weren't good when they were 4-1, and they aren't good after getting beat down against Kansas City.

29. Detroit Lions

See Chargers, San Diego.

30. Cleveland Browns

BELIEVELAND

31. San Francisco 49ers

32. Indianapolis Colts

They've been the worst for a while. Don't expect that to change.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 5

1. Carolina Panthers

Surprise! It took a missed game by Cam to get them back to first, but they did it. I won't be surprised when they come back to grab a wild card spot.

2. Seattle Seahawks

I won't be surprised when they cruise to a championship. I think the Seahawks are the only team this year that are actually that good.

3. Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons offense might actually be that good too. They did that shit against fucking Denver.

4. Denver Broncos

Still the best defense. But maybe not all-time like last year. Great offense beats great defense, but all-time great defense beats all-time great offense.

5. Arizona Cardinals

See Panthers, Carolina. Pretty much.

6. Pittsburgh Steelers

7. Minnesota Vikings

That was their most encouraging win of the season. I'm now confident enough to say that the defense is really good. The offense, not so much. My model has it at 27th in the league.

8. Dallas Cowboys

See Vikings, Minnesota, except switch offense and defense.

9. New England Patriots

Ehhh.

10. Philadelphia Eagles

They didn't get a ton of credit for their amazing start, and they aren't getting punished much for their loss to the Lions. We're still at that point where they might be good, but they haven't quite proved it yet.

11. Cincinnati Bengals

That was bad. You can't let the fucking Cowboys do that. 

12. Buffalo Bills

That was good. I'm somewhat impressed.

13. Green Bay Packers

So was that. At least for the defense.

14. Kansas City Chiefs

Bye

15. Chicago Bears

They fucking dominated the Colts. Just a couple bad plays. Maybe they can win the division? Nah. Wild card? Nah. But straight up, this 1-win team is decent.

16. New York Giants

Come on, you can't let the Packers do that to you. The Packers have been dog shit for a year now.

17. Tennessee Titans

The Titans are so good! Kinda! But they're definitely the best team in the division.

18. Baltimore Ravens

19. Washington Redskins

That was kinda ugly. The Ravens offense was worse than the Redskins defense. The other two units are actually good. 

20. New York Jets

Neither of the Jets units are good. Which is actually kinda surprising given how good their defense was last year.

21. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

They got the win, but they were totally shat on by one of the best teams in football.

22. Houston Texans

They'd have this shit in the bag if their D wasn't missing the third greatest player of all time.

23. San Diego Chargers

They've had some bad breaks this year. They're also a bad team.

24. Jacksonville Jaguars

At least they aren't the Colts.

25. Miami Dolphins

They're kinda like the Jets. Hopeless.

26. Oakland Raiders

Everybody else thinks they're good (probably because of their record). Everybody else is wrong. This defense is fucking trash.

27. Detroit Lions

This defense is also fucking trash.

28. Los Angeles Rams

This offense is fucking trash.

29. New Orleans Saints

See Lions, Detroit

30. Cleveland Browns

See Saints, New Orleans. I believelanded when they had Kessler. Now I believland in the Indians.

31. San Francisco 49ers

See Rams, Los Angeles.

32. Indianapolis Colts

This defense might actually be as bad as the Saints'. Straight up. And they don't have Drew Brees. Or anything close.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 4

For the first time ever, my top 2 teams are the same as ESPN's. Weird.

1. Denver Broncos

Still the best defense, and now the offense isn't the worst in the league. Like 10th worst. That's a gigantic improvement.

2. Seattle Seahawks

Second best defense, and 10th best offense. That's how good Denver's D is. It's fucking ridiculous. Then again, the difference between 1st and 2nd in these rankings is 30 times bigger the difference between 2nd and 3rd, so it's not that ridiculous.

3. Arizona Cardinals

Not actually that bad.

4. Carolina Panthers

See Cardinals, Arizona

5. Cincinnati Bengals

Teams 3-5 are all between 6th and 9th in both offense and defense. That's pretty amazing.

6. Atlanta Falcons

The offense, or maybe just Julio Jones (we need some JJ to be the best player in the league), is really really good. The defense, not so much.

7. Pittsburgh Steelers

I don't get it. Well, I get it if you ignore the Eagles' game. Or if you assume the Eagles are the best team ever. Which I don't. Because they aren't. I mean, come on, it's the fucking Eagles.

8. Philadelphia Eagles

Oh, hey there.

9. New England Patriots

I expect them to move up a spot with Brady back. That's a spot. One.

10. Buffalo Bills

Solid performance, you now have, according to my model, the 13th best defense in the NFL.

11. Baltimore Ravens

They're getting attention for hannenin to be 3-1, but I'm more interested in this defense they have out in Baltimore. It's low-key really good. The offense sucks though. Ignore the score of their last game. Everybody scores on the Raiders, who have a decent offense themselves. And more importantly, the score was just inflated. The Ravens are a really poor man's 2015 Broncos.

12. Kansas City Chiefs

They might just be bad this year. My model still weights last season pretty heavily, and they were really good last season. This year hasn't looked that promising. Like, at all. They're like the anti-Eagles.

13. Minnesota Vikings

You'd think the Eagles-effect might be in play for the 4-0 Vikings, but it's not. My model thinks they were decent last year, and that's all they are this year, too.

14. New York Giants

The Giants, on the other hand, were really bad last season. They've been a lot better.

15. Dallas Cowboys

See York Giants, New.

16. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Broncos make everybody look bad.

17. Green Bay Packers

The Packers make themselves look bad. Slightly less so when they're on a bye.

18. New York Jets

See City Chiefs, Kansas.

19. Houston Texans

Too soon. Just let me be.

20. Chicago Bears

You might think that this season is a disaster for the Bears, only slightly mitigated by a close win against a downtrodden Lions team. Not so. They've actually been completely OK this year. Like league average ok. Like better than the Packers ok. Like maybe good enough to make the playoffs in that division ok.

Ok, I might be pushing it. But my model does think they've been better than Green Bay this year. And my model is like, really good. 

21. Miami Dolphins

There's a difference between ok and mediocre. 1186 miles.

22. Tennessee Titans

Make that 815. The Titans are ok too.

23. Oakland Raiders

I'm lower on the Raiders than pretty much anyone. Their offense is legitimately good, but it's not great, and definitely not great enough to make up, in the long run, for one of the worst defenses in the NFL.

24. Jacksonville Jaguars

Anybody can beat the Colts.

25. Washington Redskins

See Jaguars, Jacksonville, and replace Colts with Browns.

26. Cleveland Browns

There seems to be this perception in the media that the Browns are one of the worst teams in the league. And they're not great. But they're not actually that bad either, especially on offense. Cody Kessler is the real deal, straight up. #BELIEVELAND

27. Los Angeles Rams

They've beaten the 2nd and 3rd teams in my rankings and lost 28-0 against number 32. I completely defend my rankings, this is just dumb luck. Like really dumb, fuck the Rams.

28. Detroit Lions

They have a bad defense, but losing Calvin hasn't actually hurt them too much.

29. San Diego Chargers

30. New Orleans Saints

That game looked like the fucking pro bowl. Which makes sense, since both these teams are loaded with stars (well, at quarterback) whose play has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the playoffs.

31. Indianapolis Colts

It's not Andrew Luck's fault. If everybody on the team were as good as him, they'd be, like, 5 spots higher.

32. San Francisco 49ers

They were the worst team last year, and they're the worst team this year. As much as I fucking hate the dude, we need to give more credit to how fucking amazing a coach Jim Harbaugh is.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 3

I made it before midnight!

1. Carolina Panthers

2. Denver Broncos

3. Seattle Seahawks

4. Arizona Cardinals

5. Cincinnati Bengals

6. Kansas City Chiefs

7. New England Patriots

8. Atlanta Falcons

9. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

10. New York Jets

11. Philadelphia Eagles

12. Baltimore Ravens

13. Pittsburgh Steelers

14. Minnesota Vikings

15. New York Giants

16. Buffalo Bills

17. Green Bay Packers

18. Tennessee Titans

19. Miami Dolphins

20. Dallas Cowboys

21. Houston Texans

22. Detroit Lions

23. Oakland Raiders

24. Chicago Bears

25. Cleveland Browns

26. Los Angeles Rams

27. San Diego Chargers

28. Washington Redskins

29. Jacksonville Jaguars

30. New Orleans Saints

31. Indianapolis Colts

32. San Francisco 49ers

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 2

Here it is, we finally made it. Last season is weighted as 2.8 games (so 1 game in 2015 = .175 games in 2016).

1. Carolina Panthers

14-0 last year, never crack top 5. 1-1 this year, and now they're first by a lot. They killed it on offense against the 49ers, and I guess that'll do it.

2. Arizona Cardinals

Hey it's another 1-1 team that dominated week 2 and was really good last season.

3. Seattle Seahawks

And another! Well, their defense dominated...

4. Denver Broncos

Finally, our top 2-0 team! But they're also a missed field goal away from being yet another 1-1 team that was great last year.

5. Cincinnati Bengals

Holy shit another one, it doesn't stop!

6. Pittsburgh Steelers

Finally, someone with two convincing wins. Well, not actually that convincing, as you can see by me not being convinced.

7. Kansas City Chiefs

Wait, didn't they just get shat on? But their defense played really well, and that makes my algorithm confident that it's actually decent.

8. New England Patriots

Garropallopallo!

Remember when the 2012 49ers were having one of the greatest seasons of all time, and then they found a superstar backup who spectacularly led them to a 42-13 loss to Seattle and then not a superbowl? Yeah, Bill Belichick isn't that fucking stupid.

9. New York Jets

My model is finds exactly zero teams at all convincing from here on out. The Jets are just the best of a mediocre bunch.

10. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I'm kinda convinced. I don't blame anyone for losing to Arizona, Arizona's fucking good as hell.

11. Atlanta Falcons

I'm actually very convinced by their defense. Convinced that it SUCKS am I right? But on a serious note, it is seriously bad. But they can put up points.

12. Green Bay Packers

Best offensive player in the league.

13. Houston Texans

Whoops, that last line was actually meant for the Texans. JJ Watt is the best offensive player in the league. And it's not close. Also, Aaron "The" Donald is the best defensive player.

14. Tennessee Titans

They're... good? Like actually though, my model thinks they're good this year (but really bad last year, that's why they're in the middle right now. #averages)

15. New York Giants

16. Baltimore Ravens

17. Minnesota Vikings

18. Miami Dolphins

19. Chicago Bears

20. Detroit Lions

21. Buffalo Bills

22. Jacksonville Jaguars

They fucking killed it against the Chargers. Not even joking, they really played ok. That's why they're here and the Chargers are 27th. (For those of you who were too busy reading about quantum bayesianism and might mention the Jaguars' awesome performance this game in casual conversation without knowing the score, it was 38-14. Chargers.)

23. Washington Redskins

24. Philadelphia Eagles

NUMBER ONE IN DVOA WHOOOOOOO! LET'S FUCKING GO AARON SHATS. IT'S ON MOTHERFUCKER. (For those of you who are too busy reading about quantum bayesianism to know Aaron Schatz, he made Football Outsiders. The site I let do all the work for my power rankings last week. I don't actually have beef with him. But it's on.)

25. Los Angeles Rams

The defense is actually really good.

26. Oakland Raiders

The defense is actually really not.

27. San Diego Chargers

28. Dallas Cowboys

Lolz.

29. Cleveland Browns

30. New Orleans Saints

31. Indianapolis Colts

32. San Francisco 49ers

And in last place, the (Colts and) San Francisco 49ers. I wouldn't have it any other way.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Week 1

There's no way I'm gonna finish downloading all of last season's games before week 2 starts Thursday night. So for week 1, just look at the DAVE ratings from Football Outsiders. That's the best you're gonna find out there until I publish the results of my earth shatteringly good model next Tuesday. And believe me, it's gonna be great. Like America. Again. Football.

2016 NFL Power Rankings Preview: More Stats, Better Stats

Switching it up... ON A MONDAY.

These aren't the power rankings. Which you probably could tell based on the conspicuous absence of the numbers 1-32 running down the left hand side of the page. Instead, this is an introduction to the new and improved method I'll be using. Before, I didn't have all the stats. Now, I do. I'll be using play-by-play data for every NFL game (more stats) and using a more robust regression model for handling opposing strength (better stats).

Most importantly though, this blog post represents something bigger than just a new model. It represents me desperately buying as much time as possible before you realize that I started writing this model the Friday after the NFL season started, and that it's taking longer than I expected to handle all of pro-football-reference's bugs in their play-by-play data (They don't give the offensive team for each play, so I have to rely on their expected points column to figure it out, but on kickoffs, they're inconsistent about which team they're showing the expected points for). My timeline is to finish the parsing-out-the-bugs part of the model tonight and then the regression part tomorrow, but I have to do a bunch of testing on last season's data to make sure everything's working right before I can publish, so I won't be hitting the weekly Tuesday deadline that I'd set for myself before the season.

But yes, this means that for every week starting week 2, the rankings will be going up on a Tuesday.

2015 Final Power Rankings

2015 NFL Power Rankings Week 16

Ok, I'm late. By like, more than a week. So you're getting double this time! Just kidding. You're getting like half. But you still get the rankings, so fuck it.

1. Arizona Cardinals

They almost lost their spot after beating the Eagles 40-17. And now they're half a standard deviation above anybody else after one of the most dominant wins of the season by any team. See-ya Green Bay.

2. Seattle Seahawks

Not a good game against St. Louis, but not actually that bad. This was just a lot of bad luck. The first game, on the other hand... but that was a long time ago.

3. Cincinnati Bengals

Nobody else is playing well enough to catch up with this team that seems to have very little hope at this point with Dalton out.

4. Denver Broncos

5. Pittsburgh Steelers

6. New England Patriots

7. Carolina Panthers

8. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Yes, the Bucs passed the Chiefs. They'll pass the Panthers too with any sort of luck Sunday.

9. Kansas City Chiefs

10. New York Jets

Not actually as much of an upset as the media made it out to be.

11. St. Louis Rams

12. Buffalo Bills

13. Oakland Raiders

Not them again!

14. Baltimore Ravens

15. Minnesota Vikings

Isn't it exciting to watch how far the Packers have fallen?

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16. Houston Texans

JJ Watt is amazing, but really I'm just building up suspense. You know the Packers can't have actually fallen that far.

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17. Detroit Lions

HAHA Green Bay you got passed by the LIONS!

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18. Green Bay Packers

Ok, fine. But it's really fun to see them this low.

19. Chicago Bears

The difference between the Bears and the Lions is less than a 200th of a standard deviation.

20. Atlanta Falcons

To put things in perspective, the team that just beat the 14-0 Panthers is more than a 5th of a standard deviation behind Chicago.

21. Dallas Cowboys

22. Jacksonville Jaguars

23. Philadelphia Eagles

How can you fire Chip when he beat the Patriots?!? Oh wait, everybody's beating the Patriots nowadays.

24. Washington Redskins

25. San Diego Chargers

26. New York Giants

27. Tennessee Titans

28. San Francisco 49ers

29. Miami Dolphins

30. Cleveland Browns

Played the Chiefs as well as anybody has in a while.

31. Indianapolis Colts

32. New Orleans Saints

Top 5 offense! Better than New England's! But it's hard to do much damage with literally the worst defense of all time.

And while we're on the subject of Football Outsiders, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME THE CARDINALS MADE IT INTO THE TOP SPOT. That is all.