Week 11 NFL Power Rankings

49ers climb to the top, a week after general skepticism reigned. The Bills (finally) falling

You notice that some of the rankings shifts and movements in power rating don’t correspond exactly with intuition based solely on results. The numbers still use some 2022 data, and prior weeks are having their effect sizes decayed, which can cause slight adjustments that look big. When lots of teams are bunched up in the middle and bottom of the NFL, even a marginal change in power rating can move a team 3-6 spots.

* The detailed information for power rankings are on the paid subscriber Google sheet (along with other site metrics). You can find previous Power Rankings write-ups on the landing page.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN 2023

First let’s look at the team offensive and defensive efficiencies so far in 2023, using my adjusted-score methodology to measure performance, and factoring in strength of schedule.

We still have a thick core of teams near the top of the power rankings, but the San Francisco 49ers have jumped to the top. They were second going into last week, despite the public perception that they had fallen so far with a three-game losing streak going into their Week 9 bye. By the adjusted scores, accounting for strength of schedule, the 49ers have the best offense in the NFL, and are solidly in the mix for second-best defense behind the Cleveland Browns. It’s a strong mix, but still far from a dominant team.

Record watchers won’t appreciate that teams in my top tier range from the 8-1 Philadelphia Eagles to the 5-5 Buffalo Bills. There are really nine teams with the possibility of ended up the best team by the end of the season, a wider range than seen in any recent year.

Weirdly, the Minnesota Vikings are roughly equal to the Dallas Cowboys this year in quality of play. But I expect that the Josh Dobbs experience will regress a bit in coming weeks, putting them further down near the middle of the NFL.

The New York Jets and Los Angeles Chargers fall on opposite ends of the spectrum, with the former with a vastly better defense than offense, the latter the reverse. Because of the enhanced stability of offensive metric, the Chargers have a better projection going forward.

The Pittsburgh Steelers stand out as a 6-3 team that has been slightly below average this year. Simple point differential shares that skepticism (-26). The Jacksonville Jaguars are in a similar position at 6-3 against a poor schedule, but I would disagree with my own numbers here as showing them on slightly better than the Steelers.

THE 2023 POWER RANKINGS AND RATINGS

Below visualizes the NFL ranked by what I’m calling “Power Rating”, or the estimates of each team’s point differential playing a league-average opponent on a neutral field.