The Week 10 NFL ratings are below. Ratings are calculated based on an Elo backbone using both margin of victory as well as just the result of the team’s game. Final ratings, represented on a points scale—a 21 rating is three points better than an 18 rating on a neutral field—are an average of these two individual scores.
The Elo method rewards teams for performing better than expected and punishes teams for playing worse than expected. For instance, a team that is 15-point favorites and only wins by 10 will see a decline in their rating.
The weekly weightings have been changed for each sets of ratings in order to keep the same amount of spread throughout the league each week. As such, the Jump column has been replaced by last week’s rank in the table below.
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Oakland’s No. 1 cornerback, Nnamdi Asomugha, is regarded by most as one of the top corners in all of football. When this applies to fantasy football, most experts maintain that the No. 1 receivers lining up against him each week should have tempered results. The truth is, however, that the top wideout doesn’t always line up opposite the same defender on every play—if Arizona is facing Oakland, Larry Fitzgerald might line up across Nnamdi about 80 percent of the time.
In a quick study, I decided to look up the Nnamdi Effect for the first nine games of this season. Do No. 1 receivers perform worse against Nnamdi compared to every other week, and how much do No. 2 receivers benefit (if at all) from this effect?
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The Week 10 NFL ratings are below. Ratings are calculated based on an Elo backbone using both margin of victory as well as just the result of the team’s game. Final ratings, represented on a points scale—a 21 rating is three points better than an 18 rating on a neutral field—are an average of these two individual scores.
The Elo method rewards teams for performing better than expected (such as the Rams, who were 25-point underdogs but lost by just five) and punishes teams for playing worse than expected (such as the Saints). For instance, the Colts were one-point favorites by these ratings and won by one point. Thus, their rating this week only jumped by 2.62 points, mostly due to their four-point increase in W-L rating.
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The Week Nine NFL ratings are below. Ratings are calculated based on an Elo backbone using both margin of victory as well as just the result of the team’s game. Final ratings, represented on a points scale—a 21 rating is three points better than an 18 rating on a neutral field—are an average of these two individual scores.
New this week is each team’s jump in rating from last week; increases are in green, and decreases are in red. The Buccaneers and Packers are the biggest gainers and droppers, respectively, this week, after Tampa Bay beat Green Bay by 10 points despite being 12-point underdogs.
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Last season, I introduced a set of Elo-like ratings for the NFL, but I had to continually tinker with the formula as the season progressed as a result of the too-simple starting algorithm. I have updated most if not all of the steps of the method, but the Elo backbone still holds steady.
1. Each team’s rating starts near 21, the average points scored per game. (As of now, that number is 21.7.)
2. Win score is based upon points scored and allowed (adjusted for game location) using the Pythagorean formula with a floating exponent based on total points scored in that game. (In other words, a 21-20 win at a neutral site is worse than a 21-7 win in terms of win score.)
3. Since each team’s rating is in terms of points, expected win score is calculated the same way as actual win score.
4. Rating is equal to previous week’s rating + 15 * (win score — expected win score). If the Saints play the Rams and only win by three, their rating will drop because they should have won by much more.
Like last year, ratings are found using the win score as described above (noted as "points" in the table below) and also by looking strictly at whether they won or lost, which corresponds to a win score of one or zero, respectively. The overall rating is an average of these two results.
Ratings after the jump.
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