Seahawks #1, Cardinals Crack NFL Top 10

Arizona cracks the top 10 in our Week 16 NFL power rankings. (Credit Opertinicy)

How good is the NFC West in 2013? Three NFC West teams now occupy the top 10 in SidelineMOB’s Week 16 NFL Power Rankings, and the fourth (St. Louis) just knocked off the New Orleans Saints in an NFL Week 15 stunner. Yes, put your East Coast biases aside: for now, the West Coast is indeed the best coast.

In fact, the 2013 NFL season may turn out to be the antithesis of an East Coast bias, with the NFC East and AFC East representing (at least according to our NFL power ranking aggregates) the two worst divisions in football. Besides the Eagles and Patriots, no other “East” NFL franchise ranks in the top half of our power rankings for Week 16 – and yet, it’s such a down year for the middle of the pack in the AFC that the Dolphins (#18) may well get the AFC’s #6 playoff seed.

(As for the Cowboys? Well, after an absolutely brutal loss to the Packers in Week 15, all we can do is remind ourselves that you can’t spell “no more hope” without “Romo”.)

The top 3 in our Week 16 power rankings looks awfully familiar – Seattle, New Orleans and Denver – but it’s the team in the #6 position that has our attention. Only 3 teams in the NFL rank in the top 3rd of the league in every major offensive and defensive statistic we measure – Seattle, New Orleans, and the Cincinnati Bengals. Could it be that Cincy is actually the most balanced team in the AFC? If the Bengals can leapfrog New England for the AFC’s #2 seed, they’re assured at least one playoff game at Paul Brown Stadium, where they haven’t lost.

Let’s get right to the SidelineMOB NFL Power Rankings for Week 16 of the 2013 NFL season.

Explaining the SidelineMOB NFL Power Rankings formula

Here’s how our SidelineMOB NFL Power Rankings Formula breaks down. Wins mean more than anything, of course, so we multiply them by two. For every other team ranking we use, we invert the standings and divide the ranking by 10. For example, the Kansas City Chiefs are #1 in scoring defense per game, so we flip that, make them 32/10 = 3.2 points. (The Redskins, dead last, would get 0.1 point.) The new piece to this formula is a stat called yards per play differential, which provides a more accurate measure of performance than point differential (as a winning team with one blowout loss can plummet in that metric).

Here’s the formula:

Wins*1.5 + Offensive Per-Game Scoring Rank/10 + Offensive Yards Per Game Rank/10 + Defensive Per-Game Scoring Rank/10 + Defensive Yards Per Game Rank/10 + Offensive 3rd Down Conversions Rank/10 + Defensive 3rd Down Conversions Rank/10 + Best Team QBR Rank (1-32)/10 + Yards Per Play Differential/10

NFL Power Rankings Formula: Week 16

1. Seattle Seahawks (39.6 points). Seattle has a stranglehold on the #1 seed in the NFC and in our power rankings. Who’s going to win on the road in Seattle in the NFC playoffs? Anyone?
2. New Orleans Saints (36.5 points)
3. Denver Broncos (35.9 points) Denver still has to be considered the favorite in the AFC, but Week 15′s loss to San Diego shows that if the Broncos don’t score 30, their defense won’t hold up.
4. San Francisco 49ers (33.6 points)
5. Carolina Panthers (33.2 points) The Panthers can still give New Orleans a run for the NFC South, but a home win over the Saints is absolutely mandatory – otherwise, Carolina’s a wild card.
6. Cincinnati Bengals (32.3 points)
7. Kansas City Chiefs (31.5 points) After dropping 3 straight, the Chiefs are back on the winning track thanks to Jamaal Charles’ monster 5 TD performance vs. the Raiders.
8. New England Patriots (29.95 points)
9. Arizona Cardinals (29.55 points) The Cardinals look like the hard-luck team of the year – were they in the NFC East or North, they’d be division leaders. Fun fact: between last year’s interim stint with the Colts and this season, Cardinals coach Bruce Arians is 18-8 as a head coach. 
10. Detroit Lions (29.5 points)
11. Chicago Bears
12. Philadelphia Eagles
13. San Diego Chargers
14. Green Bay Packers
15. Indianapolis Colts
16. Baltimore Ravens
17. Miami Dolphins
18. Tennessee Titans
19. Pittsburgh Steelers
20. Dallas Cowboys
21. New York Jets
22. St. Louis Rams
23. Buffalo Bills
24. Washington Redskins
25. Cleveland Browns
26. New York Giants
27. Houston Texans
28. Minnesota Vikings
29. Atlanta Falcons
30. Oakland Raiders
31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
32. Jacksonville Jaguars

NFL Power Rankings Formula: the Week 16 chart

SidelineMOB’s Week 16 NFL power rankings chart. Click to enlarge. (Credit SidelineMOB)