NFL Rankings - Week 8

Three weeks ago I lost my internet connection right before the weekend, which made it nearly impossible for me to post my entirely useless (to you) rankings. The past few weeks I just didn't feel like. But then last week I saw this post over at ArmchairGM.com.

The user (DNL) did a BCS like ranking of the NFL (yes I don't like the BCS system either, but there is some merit to it when it comes to ranking). I liked the idea a lot, except for one problem: DNL used only the ESPN ranking to act as the human element. So I decided to do the same thing but instead I included human rankings from FoxSports (Peter Schrager), and CBS Sportsline (Pete Prisco). I wanted to add CNNSI's (Dr. Z) NFL power ranking, but that doesn't get released until midweek (tomorrow I'll add it and see how much of a difference it makes.

I also left out one "computer" from DNL's list (the one done by an ArmchairGM user) because I don't know if it will be consistently posted. I did the BCS thing, where all the human rankings are equally balanced and the computer average constitute a "5th human ranking."
And, like with the BCS, the highest and lowest ranking from the computers are dropped from the average (just to keep crazy computer stuff a in check).

I also ran a "straight-up" average where every ranking is taken equally and no ranking (i.e. high/low) is dropped. That way I could see where the computer or human bias was.

Here are the more humanized "BCS-style" rankings (with "straight-up" ranking in parenthesis):

1. Chicago Bears (1)
2. Indianapolis Colts (2)
3. New England Patriots (3)
4. Denver Broncos (5)
5. New Orleans Saints (6)
6. New York Giants (4)
7. San Diego Chargers (7)
8. Baltimore Ravens (8)
9. Atlanta Falcons (9)
10. Cincinnati Bengals (10)
11. Carolina Panthers (13)
12. Seattle Seahawks (14)
13. Minnesota Vikings (12)
14. Philadelphia Eagles (11)
15. St. Louis Rams (15)
16. Jacksonville Jaguars (16)
17. Dallas Cowboys (17)
18. Pittsburgh Steelers (18)
19. Kansas City Chiefs (19)
19. New York Jets (20)
21. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (21)
22. Washington Redskins (22)
23. Green Bay Packers (23)
24. Buffalo Bills (24)
25. San Francisco 49ers (26)
26. Cleveland Browns (25)
26. Houston Texans (27)
28. Tennessee Titans (31)
29. Detroit Lions (28)
30. Miami Dolphins (29)
31. Oakland Raiders (32)
32. Arizona Cardinals (30)

A few thoughts:

• The "straight-up" ranking pretty much follows the "BCS-style" ranking except for towards the end (where the teams are pretty much equally bad) and with a few teams, Giants, Eagles and to a lesser extent Vikings. We'll discuss that in a second.
  
• Although, all the humans like the Broncos (#3 in every human ranking) more than the Patriots (#4 in every human ranking), the computers prefer the Pats. In fact, the computer prefer the Pats so much more that it was enough to drop the Broncos (averaging #8 in computer rankings) behind the Pats in the "BCS-style" ranking.
  
• As I mentioned the "straight-up" and "BCS-style" rankings pretty much agree. Well, except when it comes to the Giants and Eagles, and to a lesser extent the Vikings. The Giants (#6 "BCS-Style") average a #3 ranking with computers and the Eagles (#14 "BCS-Style") average #11 (when removing high and low) and #9 (without removing high and low) with the computer rankings. That means the computers seem to like the Giants and Eagles (and Vikings) more than the humans. My guess is that the computers give more credit for the Giants' strength of schedule and the humans don't give enough credit for close games (which accounts for all of the Eagles' losses).