Week 8 Efficiency Rankings

NFL team efficiency rankings are listed below in terms of generic winning probability. The GWP is the probability a team would beat the league average team at a neutral site. Each team's opponent's average GWP is also listed, which can be considered to-date strength of schedule. GWP modifies the generic win probability to reflect the strength of past opponents. OGWP is each team's offensive GWP, i.e. it's the team's GWP assuming it had a league-average defense. DGWP is vice-versa. Rankings are based on a logistic regression model applied to data through week 8. A full explanation of the methodology can be found here.




































RankTeamLast WkGWPOpp GWPOGWPDGWP
1NE20.910.460.810.70
2IND10.900.500.760.72
3DAL40.770.410.690.61
4TB30.760.490.670.60
5PIT50.710.420.600.61
6SEA90.650.420.560.55
7JAX80.610.550.600.54
8SD130.600.450.600.54
9TEN110.580.510.400.69
10PHI120.570.390.660.46
11NYG70.560.410.500.59
12WAS100.520.510.400.68
13DEN60.510.570.650.38
14GB150.500.470.540.50
15CIN140.480.520.640.44
16BAL240.400.310.380.55
17HOU180.390.500.460.40
18KC170.390.420.370.57
19BUF200.380.540.410.55
20CLE160.370.460.580.37
21ARI190.370.420.430.49
22DET220.360.410.400.50
23MIN210.360.440.460.45
24CAR230.340.460.460.42
25NO280.320.520.480.33
26ATL260.290.450.450.38
27OAK250.280.440.290.55
28MIA290.280.510.490.30
29NYJ270.240.490.430.31
30CHI300.190.490.300.40
31STL320.180.480.310.39
32SF310.140.460.220.42


This week the method of adjusting for opponent strength was improved. Instead of a single iteration of adjustment, the calculations now include as many iterations as required for full convergence. For example, a team that has usually dominated its opponents would have an apparently weaker opponent strength than is the case. Multiple iterations of opponent-strength adjustments corrects for this effect. CLE and BAL appear to be the only teams to be significantly affected.

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2 Responses to “Week 8 Efficiency Rankings”

  1. Anonymous says:

    There has been a lot of talk about the Patriots running up the score.

    In general, how different do you think your results would have been if they were taking it easier on their opponents when they got ahead by a certain amount of points?

  2. Brian Burke says:

    The model I use is based on efficiency only, and not total yards. So if the Pats stopped passing and starting running towards the end of the game, I would expect a few things:

    1. Their pass efficiency would remain about unchanged, or perhaps slightly improve. They are probably just as efficient in quarters 1-3 as they are in 4, if not more so.

    2. Their run efficiency would be affected, but I'm not sure how. Defenses could expect the run and bottle it up, but then again tired defenses can give up long runs at the end of games.

    3. By running out the clock, it would give their opponents fewer trash-time opportunities for big plays. Perhaps the Pats' defensive pass efficiency would look better if their offense ran out the clock on the ground.

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