[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
2.) If you make these rankings often enough, you begin to see patterns among teams that are ranked highly due to early-season computer quirks and not because they’re really that great. In these rankings, those teams are Denver and the NY Jets.
eic wrote:
I don’t get this. I tend to agree that Denver is way overrated, but I don’t get the basis for your conclusion. If the data are showing you that Denver is leaps and bounds better than other teams, what makes you say that it is because of “early-season computer quirks”?[/quote]
Some teams have unremarkable ratings across the board, save one or two categories that are just astronomical and are skewing the overall ratings upward. In the past, those teams generally do not stay at the top of the heap.
Other teams have consistently high ratings in every or almost every category. Those teams are generally less likely to fall back to Earth compared to teams like I’ve described above.
Denver’s overall rating is being skewed upwards by an out-of-this-world scoring defense rating that truthfully has nowhere to go but down. Their other 7 categories are unremarkable and are more or less in-line with other good-but-not-great teams.
At the other extreme, New Orleans has significantly above-average ratings in scoring offense, scoring defense, rushing offense, rushing defense, passing offense, TO avoidance, and TO forcing. Their only weakness is passing defense, but not even that is horrible.
Given the two, I’m more inclined to guess that New Orleans is going to remain near the top of the rankings while Denver will slide back down. But that’s certainly no guarantee for either team.
[quote]bond james bond wrote:
…Is this kind of system used by bookies? [/quote]
I don’t know how bookies make their lines, but I’d be stunned if they don’t have some sort of computer ranking, in addition to long-time handicappers. I don’t know how similar or not mine is to what they use.