NFL Strength of Schedule Power Rankings
Not all teams with equal records are equally strong. Especially early in the season, multiple teams may have similar records, but depending on who they beat, we should think of them very differently. These power rankings provide one way of ranking teams, attempting to separate quality teams from mediocre ones based purely on their performance to date and the performance of the teams they have played. The methodology is simple: teams get one point for a win and lose point for a loss. Additionally, a win earns a team one point for each win the team they defeated has beat. Likewise, a loss loses a further point for each team the team that beat them has lost to.
For example, the 4–2 Steelers’ Week 7 victory over the 5–1 Chiefs earned Pittsburgh 6 points (one for the win, plus one for each of the Chiefs’ five wins). The game cost the Chiefs 3 points (one for the loss, plus one for each of the Steelers’ two losses). It also cost each team that lost to the Chiefs one point, as the Chiefs now have an additional loss. Similarly, it gained a point for each team that beat the Steelers, as the Steelers have now gained an additional win.
This is the primary advantage to this system, and it should seem relatively intuitive: the Eagles’ Week 2 loss to the Chiefs looked very forgivable at the time, and continued to look like not a big deal through the first 5 weeks, as the Chiefs looked unstoppable. Who could blame the Eagles for losing to the Chiefs when everyone else was doing the same? Now that the Chiefs have lost two straight and have dropped from a great team to a merely good team, the loss doesn’t look quite as good.
Similarly, it was hard for several weeks to decide how good the Bears’ Week 3 victory over the Steelers was. The Steelers were preseason favorites, but after stumbling to a 3–2 record, it looked like the Bears’ victory may not have been all impressive. (After all, how good could the Steelers be if they lost to Mike Glennon’s Bears?) Now that the Steelers are 5–2, however, it seems like the Bears’ victory is one of the better ones this season and should affect our view of the Bears accordingly.
This system also doesn’t care how good teams were predicted to be before the season, or how good they were last season. It doesn’t matter here, for instance, that the Falcons made the Super Bowl last year and were supposed to be among the class of the NFC this year. They fall where they do based on the quality of their wins and losses. Since they’ve been mediocre so far this year, beating the Falcons doesn’t give teams all that much credit, either, and losing to them isn’t as forgivable as it might have originally seemed.
There are a few drawbacks of this system. It doesn’t differentiate between blowouts and close victories. It doesn’t give extra credit for an away win. And it assumes that a team has been equally good all season, when we know that this definitely isn’t true, especially in the case of major injuries. (How much credit should the Saints really get for beating Brett Hundley’s Packers?) However, these power rankings should be a pretty good approximation of how good a team has played this year and should help avoid preconceived notions of how good teams were expected to be coming into the season. If you want a simple system which ranks teams based purely on how good their wins are and how bad their losses are, look no further! Power rankings through Week 7 can be found here.
