Historical NFL Power Rankings Methodology:
FootballLOCKS.com’s weekly
NFL power rankings were never a listing of teams in order of their current position in the
standings like many news and information sources covering
pro football publish from week to week… FootballLOCKS.com’s
pro football power rankings emphasized and adjusted for the strength
of schedule played to determine the weekly ranks… For example, we often ranked team A higher than team B, even if we forecasted
team B to finish the season with a better record. This would be due to team B having an easier schedule than team A. Just because they may have the better record,
didn’t necessarily mean we thought they were the better team.
The Art of “Power Ranking” NFL Teams Beyond The Standings:
One team could lose a close game or two versus a top team without falling 12 spots
like you might find while reading an NFL power poll at most NFL power ratings publishers.
Likewise, an NFL team could crush a couple of bottom feeders
without instantly soaring 12 spots to crack the top 5 when they hadn’t won a game versus
another team in the top 10 in
a year and a half, let alone versus a team in the top 5.
These were designed to be level headed NFL power ratings. We never dared to speak for the NFL power rank methods
of most others… That is to say if our calculations predicted
that a (4-5) team would likely win
in a game versus a (5-4) team on a neutral field, then the (4-5) team could be ranked higher in the
FootballLOCKS.com NFL power ranks. That’s how you’ll find it when delving through the archives.
And that’s the way you’ll find it if we decide to bring back the power rankings in the future for a comeback tour.
A Historical Goal of Pro Football Power Rankings:
One goal was to arrive at a ranking of NFL teams
that served as a prediction of what league standings would
resemble if every team played the same schedule.
Therefore, in order to determine each team’s NFL power rating,
adjustments were made for the strength of schedule that
each team faced.
After all, NFL power polls are an effort to assess which teams are
best in the NFL from top to bottom, not which teams had
the easiest schedule so had the best record at any given
point in time– or even the best record
in the final NFL standings.
As a result, within FootballLOCKS.com’s NFL rankings it was usually possible
to find a team with
a better record ranked closely to or below a
team with a record that wasn’t quite as good… Otherwise, NFL
power ratings simply become a list of teams in exact order of their records; and
there’s already a name for that. It’s called “NFL standings”.
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We hope you enjoyed FootballLOCKS.com’s archived NFL power rankings.
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