Week 13 Power Ranking - 2004

The Falcons make the biggest move this week by losing to the Buccaneers. The Bengals pull one off against the Ravens in Baltimore and take a big leap. You might be wondering why there are some teams who actually experienced an increase in score from last week despite a loss, such as the Packers and Browns. Since the strength estimation dynamically adjusts for schedule difficulty, teams can actually benefit from past victories as the strength measure of teams change. For example, the Browns lost last week to the Patriots. This isn't a huge surprise and they don't suffer too much by losing to an elite team. However, you might wonder why they are ranked so high with only 3 wins. Well, their 3 wins came against Baltimore, Washington, and Cincinnati. While Baltimore suffered a decrease in score this week, Washington and Cincinnati increased significantly. It isn't a big shock that New England beat Cleveland, however, with the rise of Washington and Cincinnati, Cleveland's past victories look more impressive.

The fact that Cleveland benefits from past victories relies on a debatable concept. Some might say that the performance of Washington and Cincinnati does not necessarily have much to do with how well they were playing at the time Cleveland beat them. I would argue that while performance of a team certainly fluctuates, it doesn't vary as much as we might think. I believe our understanding of a team is what changes the most. In week 9, many football experts ranked Seattle fairly high in their power rankings, while I had them extremely low despite a pretty good record at the time. The reason I had didn't think they were a very good team was that they had only beaten very bad teams and lost to some mediocre teams. Now we see they have dropped two consecutive home games agianst Buffalo and Dallas, which aren't exactly power teams. By now people are probably changing their minds about Seattle. I believe if you look closely at most team's "streaks" and "slumps", you'll find a lot of that has to do with the difficulty of their schedule. Cleveland has actually lost 6 games in a row, yet I wouldn't say they are in a slump. They are a mediocre team, not a bad team, that has just finished playing Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, NY Jets, Cincinnati, and New England (6 of the top 8 teams). If they lose the next four games, I'll stand corrected.

Score / Change from last week / W - L / Team

1. 3.84 / 0.11 / 11 - 1 / Pittsburgh Steelers
2. 3.56 / 0.08 / 11 - 1 / New England Patriots
3. 3.52 / 0.08 / 11 - 1 / Philadelphia Eagles
4. 1.34 / 0.08 / 9 - 3 / Indianapolis Colts
5. 1.34 / 0.09 / 9 - 3 / New York Jets
6. 1.31 / -0.33 / 7 - 5 / Baltimore Ravens
7. 0.95 / 0.02 / 9 - 3 / San Diego Chargers
8. 0.56 / 0.46 / 6 - 6 / Cincinnati Bengals
9. 0.42 / -0.29 / 7 - 5 / Minnesota Vikings
10. 0.40 / -0.50 / 9 - 3 / Atlanta Falcons
11. 0.40 / -0.03 / 6 - 6 / Jacksonville Jaguars
12. 0.33 / 0.06 / 7 - 5 / Green Bay Packers
13. 0.10 / -0.15 / 7 - 5 / Denver Broncos
14. 0.00 / 0.25 / 5 - 7 / Dallas Cowboys
15. -0.02 / -0.05 / 6 - 6 / Buffalo Bills
16. -0.08 / 0.13 / 3 - 9 / Cleveland Browns
17. -0.16 / 0.11 / 5 - 7 / Detroit Lions
18. -0.23 / -0.08 / 5 - 7 / Houston Texans
19. -0.23 / -0.19 / 5 - 7 / New York Giants
20. -0.39 / 0.43 / 5 - 7 / Chicago Bears
21. -0.51 / 0.43 / 4 - 8 / Washington Redskins
22. -0.53 / 0.00 / 4 - 8 / Tennessee Titans
23. -0.71 / 0.25 / 4 - 8 / Kansas City Chiefs
24. -0.88 / -0.31 / 4 - 8 / Oakland Raiders
25. -1.07 / 0.15 / 5 - 7 / Carolina Panthers
26. -1.20 / 0.36 / 5 - 7 / Tampa Bay Buccaneers
27. -1.22 / -0.10 / 6 - 6 / St Louis Rams
28. -1.34 / -0.19 / 6 - 6 / Seattle Seahawks
29. -1.57 / -0.22 / 4 - 8 / Arizona Cardinals
30. -1.72 / -0.31 / 4 - 8 / New Orleans Saints
31. -2.45 / -0.20 / 2 - 10 / Miami Dolphins
32. -3.77 / -0.17 / 1 - 11 / San Francisco 49ers

Home-field Advantage = 0.35