Week 4 NFL Power Rankings
After crushing it for the first two weeks an average Week 3. However, overall I was up for the week and am over 53% for the season. That’s all that matters.
A lot of news and injuries in Week 3 that will affect handicapping going forward. Namely, Mac Jones looks to be out for several weeks on the Pats. I dropped them the most in my power rankings, as QB is the most important position. However, it’s always important to note that it matters who the backup is. While I don’t have any allusions about Brian Hoyer and his capabilities, he’s an average backup and isn’t a total disaster. I think the difference between him and Mac Jones is about 3 points to the line.
Jameis Winston is clearly banged up and it showed with an overall poor performance against Carolina. I think this was more about having a road divisional favorite and expecting too much from them. While I don’t think Carolina is better than I expected, I did upgrade them slightly. I still think that Carolina is underachieving and that Baker really doesn’t look good. Luckily, the cure for quarterbacks, the Arizona Cardinals, are coming in to Carolina this weekend.
Speaking of the Cards, this team is bad. I’m trying not to overreact too much but so far, so bad. The defense is atrocious. They are trotting out receivers I’ve never heard of. Kyler Murray needs to be a video game to be successful. In reality, they should have lost the game to the Rams this past weekend by much more. Cam Akers fumbled at the goal line and Cooper Kupp dropped a wide open touchdown. That score was deceiving.
Another deceiving score was the Colts. Yes, I was on the Colts. Yes, they covered and one. Yes, my ticket cashed. No, they should have lost outright and possibly not covered. You have to be honest with yourself because it is always about process and not result. If not for a totally ridiculous unsportsmanlike call on the Chiefs that kept the Colts drive alive and a bad drop by Travis Kelce, the Chiefs win that game. So while I’ll happily take the win, I downgraded the Colts. I don’t like what I see.
Another team I was on, the Dolphins, another deceiving win. I knew it was gonna be a war but man, they needed all the smoke and mirrors to beat the Bills. The Bills ran 90 plays to the Dolphins 39. That’s not a typo. The Fins pass D looks shaky. Miami had good fortune in this game. Please do not mistake this as one of the best teams in the league – they are not.
While the Bucs still look off, I can’t downgrade them too much. They were missing basically their entire passing corps this weekend. The Packers were basically able to sell out and stop Fournette. And somehow, the Bucs were right there at the end with a real chance to tie. They are the best defense in the league. That counts for something.
The Vikings with another poor showing. Yea, they won but they didn’t look good. They only had one lead in the whole game and that was the game winning TD at the end. I know everyone is super high on the Lions, but we have to recognize that this still isn’t a top tier team. To walk into Minnesota and show what they did. A ton of respect for the Lions. However, it makes me question Minnesota more. Sidenote: if Justin Jefferson wants to be the best WR in the league, he can’t be getting owned by Jeff Okudah.
Another team we need to slow down with: the Jacksonville Jaguars. Listen, they went into LA and creamed the Chargers. But, Justin Herbert is obviously banged up. Also, no Keenan Allen. They lost their left tackle and Joey Bosa during the game. This was just a cascading mess. Let’s not assume that Doug Pederson has saved the Jags franchise just yet. One thing to note here though: the Jags defense isn’t that bad. In fact, they are 3rd overall in the league!
The Broncos won a war of attrition. Yea, I get that the Denver offensive line isn’t great and the Niners have an amazing pass rush. But, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off about this team. Did Russell Wilson forget how to play football? He looks flat out terrible this year.
The Giants had to finally come back to Earth. Can’t blame this one on Danny Dimes though. The offensive line had him running for his life in this game. I know that the Dallas defense and especially their defensive line is good but damn. The Giants looked like a .500 team, which is probably what they really are. So of course, they are playing the Bears this weekend, a team that’s even worse than them.
Oh, just because the Bears beat the Texans this weekend does not make them the better team. They are about the same and it was a coin flip game.
POWER RANKINGS
If you are unfamiliar with the way power rankings work, here is a crash course. Power rankings are a way to show how strong or weak a team is from an “average” team. This is a system to derive my own point spreads. By having this system, I can say, “this line is off” due to my power rankings.
An easy way to explain this is using an example from the list below. The Bills are currently my highest rated team and they are 7 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Bills played the Colts, I believe they should be 7 point favorites on neutral field. There are variables that are not inherent in this list, such as home-field advantages, injuries and other unknown intangibles. The list assumes point differential on a neutral field. If Buffalo is playing the Colts in Indianapolis, according to my Power Rankings, Buffalo should be about a 5.5 point favorite (accounting for a Colts 1.5-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Patriots should be a 3 point favorite over the Carolina Panthers on a neutral field. If the game was in Carolina, the Patriots should be a 1.5 point favorite. If the game was in Foxborough, the Patriots should be a 5.5 point favorite, according to my power rankings.
It is important to keep in mind that all home field advantages are not the same. In theory, I think Green Bay’s homefield advantage is probably 3.5 points, while the Los Angeles Chargers are more like 1 or 1.5 points. Another caveat is to be mindful or intangible factors, such as motivation, coaching issues (firings / hirings), travel, etc.
The most important concept in handicapping sports is you should ONLY bet if you DISAGREE with the line. There is no value if you agree that the line given by the sportsbook is correct. Why would you bet and lay juice (-110) on something that you think is correct? Literally, the odds are not in your favor. If you want to bet any way, that is degeneracy. While I don’t encourage degeneracy, I do believe that as a handicapper, the goal is to benefit off of others’ degeneracy.
