Week 4 NFL Power Rankings
This week in a nutshell: The Dolphins are moving up. The Cowboys get dinged. Chicago is still a dumpster fire and the Texans might not be amongst the worst in the league.
Overall, a lot of movement within the middle. The hardest rating for me was probably the Saints. While they are good and should have won that game, had the kicker not missed that kick, they lose Derek Carr. At the same time, they get Kamara back. Very tough team to figure out.
The Texans are still bad but shouldn’t be amongst the worst in the league. The Bears and Cardinals are in their own tier of bad. And while you may be saying, Arizona beat Dallas outright and has covered 3 straight times, they might be for real! They most certainly are not. More to come on that later this week…
The Colts might not be as bad as I thought coming into the year. I still think if they get down a bunch, Anthony Richardson will not be able to get them back into the game, the defensive front and middle has held up. It’s their secondary that’s awful.
The Titans are the type of bad that even a coaching genius like Mike Vrabel can’t fix. Henry looks a few steps slower, that offensive line is literally the worst in the league and the offense is downright putrid. They will tear it all down at the end of this year.
Zach Wilson is exactly who he thought he was…bad. While everyone seems to think a better QB will save this team with an elite defense. He won’t. And it’s mostly because that defense isn’t elite. It’s good. But not elite.
The Browns on the other hand do have an elite defense. Possibly the best we’ve seen in over a decade. Myles Garrett is a BEAST. I’ll say it again, if Deshaun Watson can regain his form from like 3 years ago, this team is in the AFC championship game.
The Steelers keep winning games they have no business even being in. The offense looks lost and the defense can’t bail them out every time.
The Niners are a really good football team. Brock Purdy might not be a top tier QB but he is top tier in the Kyle Shanahan system. That’s all he needs to be.
Desmond Ridder is not an NFL quarterback. If this team gets down he has no capability to throw at all. He’s a total disaster and the Falcons really need a serviceable QB next year. They are wasting a really decent team and great coach.
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 8 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Bills played the Chargers, I believe they should be 8 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 Chargers in Los Angeles, according to my Power Rankings, Buffalo should be about a 7 point favorite (accounting for a Chargers 1-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Patriots should be an 8.5 point favorite over the Carolina Panthers on a neutral field. If the game was in Carolina, the Patriots should be a 6.5 point favorite. If the game was in Foxborough, the Patriots should be an 11 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.
