NFL Power Rankings & Week 6 Recap - 10/21/20
NFL Power Rankings
Week 6 RECAP
A fairly straight forward week 6.
The NFC East still sucks balls. What an awful division. If it wasn’t for Washington going for 2 (to actively lose; smart) and beating the Giants, every team would have lost. The Giants are somehow trying to win games and it’s baffling. Danny Nickles looks like a backup and if things don’t pick up a lot this season, he will be someone’s backup next year. The Eagles made a furious comeback, mostly due to the Ravens coasting, but still lost and look hideous. They are gonna be down to Marky Mark off the practice squad playing WR soon. The Cowboys looked worse than they really were on Monday Night. I can sense everyone jumping off the Andy Dalton train, however, it’s important that the Carrot Top rifle is awful in primetime. Zeke did the Cowboys no favors by fumbling on successive possessions. The problem here is the defense though. The Cowobys defensive coordinator needs to be shown the door immediately.
Remember the Packers? Remember the undefeated team every public square has been on all year? What happened to them? Oh, that’s right, they couldn’t run the ball – that’s how you stop them. A good coach will always pull their card. Wager accordingly. As for the Bears, another week, another win. I do not understand why this team gets no respect? If the books continue to underrate them, I will continue to cash tickets on them. The Vikings defense is still bad and not getting better. I have always been one to back Zimmer but time is running out. Cousins isn’t going to take this team to the next level and his salary is going to be an impediment to a proper youth movement. If things don’t turn around fast in Minnesota, I will be fading them down the stretch. The Lions beat up on the Jaguars and we still no nothing about this team. I think their offense is good. I’m pretty sure I’ll be backing them against bad defenses (read: this week in Atlanta). I just don’t know if I can trust them against a good defense. Patricia’s job is safe for now.
Tom Brady proved a whole lot of doubters wrong this weekend by beating up on the Pack. He looks decent when he has his full compliment of weapons. As the Bucs are now the NFL’s best defense DVOA, I will look for positive matchups on that side of the ball. Oh look, they have one coming up against the Raiders this weekend…The Falcons fired their coach and won a game. That is pretty on-par for the course. I would be cautious jumping all in on them this weekend against the Lions. The Atlanta defense is flat out bad. The darlings of the NFC South, the Panthers had a wake up call this weekend when they were stopped by the Bears. It is important to not jump in on every trend in the NFL. While the Panthers sure looked good, it’s important to remember this defense is young and Matt Rhule is still a fairly green coach. It will be tough to back this team when they are out-talented.
The 49ers finally won a football contest. Good thing too, because if they hadn’t, their postseason dreams would effectively have been shattered. It can’t be overstated how good of a coach Kyle Shanahan is. Something under the radar: he OWNS Sean McVay in their contests. The Rams were really never in that game. It could have been the bad scheduling spot or the amazing motivational spot for the Niners. Either way, that was a drubbing. As for the Cardinals, they have now gone under for the 6th consecutive game. This too has gone under the radar (pun absolutely intended), as the Cardinals team totals have done well to the over. This is something to keep in mind going forward. This week the Cards take on the Seahawks off of a bye. Seattle hasn’t been able to stop ANYONE this year. Cards team total Over anyone?
I’m not one to ever count out Bill Belichick, but I have to ask, are the Pats a playoff team? Was this just rust from Cam being out? Can you trust the Pats laying points to an equally strong team. Well, we are about to find out this weekend. The Dolphins just trounced the god-awful Jets. For his wonderful contributions, Ryan Fitzmagic was benched in favor of Tua. I like Brian Flores and the Dolphins. I like what they are doing. I like how they go about it. This increasingly looks like a team on the upswing for next year. But please keep in mind that after the bye, Tua will be making his first NFL start as a rookie. Not exactly the time I would want to back him. The Jets are the worst team in the league. Is it possible that they are getting worse? Well, according to the Westgate in Las Vegas, the early line for the Jets / Chiefs game is Chiefs -21. If everything stays the same, I’m laying that. Joe Flacco is not an NFL QB. Hard to bet on a team when the QB looks like he shouldn’t be in the league. The Bills have now taken consecutive losses. The loss to the Titans was a very tough scheduling spot. The loss to KC in KC (coming off of a bad loss), is forgivable. All will be well this weekend as they are 13 point favorites in NY against the lowly Jets. I still think the Bills win this division.
The Browns got smoked by the Steelers this weekend. Listen, there’s no shame in losing but this game was never competitive. Baker even got benched! Baker is holding this team back. I can make a very strong case that if the Browns had Jameis Winston at QB and all things equal, they would be right there with Baltimore and Pittsburgh. However, even with Baker, this team is still pretty good. They take on the division rival Bengals this weekend. That should be the remedy. Speaking of the Bengals: they came out of the gate with a super hot start against Indy before they got brought down back to earth. Now it looks as if Joe Mixon might miss some time. It is hard for me to back the Bengals with this offensive line. It would be a minor miracle if Joe Burrow makes it out of this season without a significant injury. Any, and I mean any, team that has a decent pass rush that takes on the Bengals will be a play for me this year. Last I checked the Browns have Myles Garrett on their team.
Tennessee had no business covering. None at all. They were almost assuredly not going to cover. Until the missed 2pt conversion by the Texans. I’m salty because that screwed me in a contest and I was generally all over the Texans. But this game cemented a few things for me. One: the Texans defense might be the worst in the league (yea, I know Dallas right? No. Dallas has more talent, their scheme / DC just blows). Two: Coaches that used to be afraid of going for two are now doing it without regard for the math behind it. Three: the reason Romeo Crennel probably went for two is that the Texans defense is so awful, he probably felt he had to. Tennessee has a legit offense though. However, the loss of Taylor Lewan is big and most public types will not know that. They are an undefeated team I will be cautious against.
Denver went into New England and beat the Pats. That doesn’t mean Denver is good or the Pats are bad. It just means we now have to respect Denver. They still have a legit defense even without Vonn Miller. Kansas City did what they do. They beat down Buffalo when they needed a win. Maybe Andy Reid off of a loss is a thing.
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 Chiefs are currently my highest rated team and they are 9 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Chiefs played the Bears, I believe they should be 9 point favorites. 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 Kansas City is playing Detroit in Detroit, according to my Power Rankings, KC should be about a 6 point favorite (accounting for a Lions 3 point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Bills should be a 9.5 point favorite over the Minnesota Vikings on a neutral field. If the game was in Minnesota, the Bills should be a 6.5 point favorite. If the game was in Buffalo, the Bills should be a 12.5 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 1.5 or 2 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.
