NFL statistical power rankings for Week 5
By Keith Myers
NFL Power Rankings are fun ways to pass away the days when there are no games, but they are too often just reflections of hype, and full of recency bias. Statistical NFL power rankings, on the other hand, are entirely based on how team have performed on the field each and every week.
The mathematical model these rankings are based on comes from 12 years worth of correlational data of winning to over 30 different statistical measures. These include offensive and defensive yards per carry and yards per pass attempt, special teams return and coverage stats, turnovers, third-down efficiency and much more. There is also a strength of schedule adjustment.*
Interestingly, all the top three teams in these rankings are all ones that had bye weeks this last Sunday. I suspect that this is, in part, because having a smaller sample sizes allows these teams to a higher statistical variance in the key stats within the rankings.
On the other hand, all three of those teams have been very impressive so far this season. This is especially true for the Cincinnati Bengals, who have the league’s best point differential per game. The reason they are below Seattle and Arizona at this point is because they’ve played a very weak schedule thus far.
Buffalo remains in the top 10, which is a result that is slightly confusing. They’ve been good on defense, but their offense has been bad enough that they’ve officially benched quarterback E.J. Manuel and will start Kyle Orton this week.
The biggest drop this is comes from Washington, who was the other surprise team in the top 10 a week ago. They were exposed by the Giants last week and dove down near the bottom the rankings.
Kansas City was on the other end end of the spectrum, using their blowout win over New England on Mondays to rocket up 15 spots in the rankings. Small sample sizes can lead to these types of large weekly shifts at this point in the season, but they become much more uncommon as the weeks pass by.
The low hanging fruit this week would be New England Patriots, which have dropped all the way down to number 27. Their blowout loss to the Chiefs demonstrated that that the Patriots have weakness all over the field, including unexpected problems at quarterback.
Enough with the analysis, lets get to the rankings.
Statistical NFL Power Rankings
| Rank | Last | Team | NYds | ST | Pt Dif | 3% | SoS | Power |
| 1 | 1 | Seattle | 3.1 | 15.9 | 5.7 | -10 | 3.5 | 67.03 |
| 2 | 3 | Arizona | 1.4 | 12.2 | 7.0 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 66.09 |
| 3 | 5 | Cincinnati | 1.0 | 28.1 | 15.7 | 3.4 | -0.6 | 65.35 |
| 4 | 2 | Detroit | 0.8 | 22.3 | 5.8 | 18.4 | 0.1 | 65.14 |
| 5 | 20 | Kansas City | -0.5 | 31.1 | 5.7 | 16.7 | 0.9 | 64.43 |
| 6 | 12 | San Francisco | 1.9 | 15.6 | -0.3 | 2.3 | 1 | 64.03 |
| 7 | 11 | Dallas | 0.2 | 18.8 | 7.3 | 8.4 | -0.3 | 63.29 |
| 8 | 4 | Atlanta | 0.2 | 20.2 | 4.5 | 11.7 | 0.3 | 63.13 |
| 9 | 8 | Buffalo | 1.0 | 28.8 | 1.0 | -1.3 | 0.2 | 62.88 |
| 10 | 13 | Baltimore | 0.4 | 12.8 | 10.8 | 1.9 | -0.7 | 62.80 |
| 11 | 17 | San Diego | -1.3 | 22.4 | 9.7 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 62.24 |
| 12 | 6 | New Orleans | 0.7 | 32.4 | -3.7 | 8.9 | 1 | 61.96 |
| 13 | 14 | Indianapolis | -0.7 | 28.0 | 10.2 | 5.6 | -1.7 | 61.90 |
| 14 | 15 | Denver | -0.4 | 33.5 | 2.7 | -5.7 | 2.9 | 61.28 |
| 15 | 30 | NY Giants | -1.3 | 9.9 | 3.0 | 7.8 | 0.6 | 61.04 |
| 16 | 7 | Pittsburgh | 1.2 | 12.8 | -0.5 | 1.3 | -1.1 | 61.02 |
| 17 | 10 | Houston | -0.4 | 24.2 | 5.0 | 13.2 | -3 | 60.86 |
| 18 | 19 | Philadelphia | -0.3 | 18.3 | 4.5 | 3.3 | -1.2 | 60.77 |
| 19 | 25 | Miami | 1.1 | 21.6 | -0.3 | -2.1 | -2.8 | 60.53 |
| 20 | 18 | NY Jets | 1.7 | 20.0 | -4.2 | 3 | -3.2 | 60.25 |
| 21 | 28 | Green Bay | -0.5 | 21.1 | -1.0 | -4.9 | 2.5 | 60.03 |
| 22 | 27 | Minnesota | 0.5 | 20.2 | 1.8 | -12.7 | 0.4 | 59.93 |
| 23 | 9 | Washington | 1.3 | 31.3 | -3.5 | -9.6 | -1.9 | 59.90 |
| 24 | 24 | Chicago | -1.5 | 21.6 | -2.0 | 3 | -0.1 | 59.57 |
| 25 | 21 | St. Louis | -1.5 | 30.1 | -9.6 | 4.7 | -3 | 59.51 |
| 26 | 23 | Cleveland | -1.2 | 15.9 | -1.0 | -3.7 | 0.7 | 59.19 |
| 27 | 16 | New England | -0.9 | 18.1 | -2.5 | -10.7 | -0.8 | 58.65 |
| 28 | 22 | Carolina | -2.0 | 20.5 | -5.7 | -6.4 | -0.2 | 57.52 |
| 29 | 29 | Tampa Bay | -1.0 | 9.3 | -11.8 | -5.5 | -1 | 57.07 |
| 30 | 26 | Tennessee | 0.9 | 20.8 | -12.5 | -13.7 | 3.6 | 54.78 |
| 31 | 31 | Oakland | -2.2 | 29.5 | -13.0 | -16.7 | -0.3 | 54.30 |
| 32 | 32 | Jacksonville | -1.7 | 20.1 | -23.5 | -13.9 | 2.1 | 47.77 |
NYds – Weighted net yards per play
ST – Special teams index, combination of kick and punt return averages as well and kick and punt coverage averages
Pt Dif – Point differential per game
3% – offensive third down efficiency less defensive third down efficiency
SoS – Strength of schedule, provided by teamrankings.com
* This model should be considered a work in progress. Data from the 2013 season has not been included, and thus the shift to mobile quarterbacks around the NFL is not fully realized in these rankings. In the coming weeks, the formula will be tweaked slightly as this new data is included.
More from FanSided.com
NFL Power Rankings Week 4: Cowboys rise
College Basketball: Preseason AAC power rankings
NBA Power Rankings: 2014-15 training camp edition
Derek Jeter and MLB’s 20 richest players
All 30 NHL franchises ranked by all-time greatness