ptdotme’s NFL Elo Power Rankings After Week 12
(By popular demand, see the rankings without the influence of last year’s season-ending ratings in my comment below, or here.)
This is OC. I’ve written code to calculate NFL team Elo ratings^1 on a week to week basis. The goal is to use simple Elo ratings to create power rankings without the influence of human bias and emotion. The ratings are based on each team’s rating from the previous week, with a “parity reset” applied every offseason. The model has been tested for accuracy against game outcomes since week 1 of the 2012^2 season. The ratings are derived only from each game’s score, venue, and date. There are a number of variables/weights in my secret sauce but otherwise they’re fairly conservative, basic, Elo ratings.
This is all a work in progress and feedback is appreciated! See more stats and info on my 2023 NFL Elo Power Rankings page.
Note: You may feel teams are ranked too high or low based on recent games, and you may be right. However, the model has been tested and is more accurate when it doesn’t overreact to individual games. The goal is model accuracy, not rankings that “look right.” ^(2)
| Rank | Team | Elo Rating | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Francisco 49ers | 1587 (+9) | 8-3 |
| 2 | Dallas Cowboys | 1578 (+10) | 8-3 |
| 3 | Baltimore Ravens | 1565 (+5) | 9-3 |
| 4 | Buffalo Bills | 1556 | 6-6 |
| 5 | Philadelphia Eagles | 1555 | 10-1 |
| 6 | Kansas City Chiefs | 1552 (+8) | 8-3 |
| 7 (+1) | Miami Dolphins | 1537 (+12) | 8-3 |
| 8 (-1) | Detroit Lions | 1524 (-7) | 8-3 |
| 9 (+1) | Jacksonville Jaguars | 1523 | 8-3 |
| 10 (-1) | Cincinnati Bengals | 1519 (-6) | 5-6 |
| 11 (+1) | Los Angeles Chargers | 1514 (-6) | 4-7 |
| 12 (+1) | Minnesota Vikings | 1507 (-6) | 6-6 |
| 13 (-2) | Cleveland Browns | 1505 (-15) | 7-4 |
| 14 (+2) | Green Bay Packers | 1504 (+7) | 5-6 |
| 15 (+4) | Denver Broncos | 1504 (+15) | 6-5 |
| 16 (+2) | Pittsburgh Steelers | 1496 (+6) | 7-4 |
| 17 (-2) | New Orleans Saints | 1492 (-8) | 5-6 |
| 18 (-4) | Seattle Seahawks | 1491 (-9) | 6-5 |
| 19 (+3) | Los Angeles Rams | 1489 (+15) | 5-6 |
| 20 | Houston Texans | 1488 (-1) | 6-5 |
| 21 (-4) | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1486 (-4) | 4-7 |
| 22 (+1) | Indianapolis Colts | 1477 (+4) | 6-5 |
| 23 (+1) | Atlanta Falcons | 1476 (+8) | 5-6 |
| 24 (-3) | Las Vegas Raiders | 1469 (-8) | 5-7 |
| 25 (+3) | Chicago Bears | 1466 (+6) | 4-8 |
| 26 (-1) | New England Patriots | 1463 (-3) | 2-9 |
| 27 | Tennessee Titans | 1463 (+2) | 4-7 |
| 28 (+2) | New York Giants | 1451 (+2) | 4-8 |
| 29 (-3) | New York Jets | 1450 (-12) | 4-7 |
| 30 (-1) | Washington Commanders | 1449 (-10) | 4-8 |
| 31 (+1) | Carolina Panthers | 1433 (-2) | 1-10 |
| 32 (-1) | Arizona Cardinals | 1431 (-14) | 2-10 |
^(1)See Wikipedia. Elo ratings are numeric and assigned to each contestant. The ratings are used to estimate performance. After each game, the difference between a contestant’s estimated and actual performance is used to update their rating. For the NFL, this can all be summarized as "Who did you beat/lose to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to …
^(2)Moving backward through the years, each preceding season has a much smaller impact on the current ratings. Team ratings from 2010 have zero impact on today’s ratings. Ratings from only a couple years ago, say 2021, have almost no effect on today’s ratings. Seasons going back to 2010 are only used by the model to ensure its accuracy over thousands of NFL games.
All I have to do is lose to a team and go above them in Elo. K.
Don’t really care for content that basically is a broken chart. I will be rooting for the bills to lift the ELO trophy at the end of the year tho.
The whole thing overly weights blowout wins and completely ignores a bunch of important context (like weather). It’s honestly pretty useless.