2017 NFL Preseason Rankings: Pats Ahead Of The Pack

2017 NFL Preseason Rankings: Pats Ahead Of The Pack

August 29, 2017 – by David Hess

Here are the official TeamRankings 2017 NFL preseason rankings and ratings. Further explanation of our preseason ratings methodology and tips for interpreting the data follow below the table.

2017 NFL Preseason Rankings Highlights

The Patriot Way. Last year a trio of teams topped the rankings, all separated by roughly half a point. This year, the Patriots are way, way ahead of the pack. They’re rated 3.3 points higher than #2 Pittsburgh. That’s about the same as the 3.2-point gap between Pittsburgh and #7 Oakland.Brian Hoyer To The Rescue? Believe it or not, the QB change this season with the highest positive impact in our preseason ratings is Brian Hoyer replacing the tandem of Colin Kaepernick & Blaine Gabbert in San Francisco. Hoyer, though no All-Pro, has quietly put together a couple of above-average seasons in a row, albeit with limited playing time. And he’s replacing a pair of QB’s that combined for mediocre results last year, and poor results two season ago.Super Bowl Loser’s Hangover. We project the #8 Atlanta Falcons to have the largest projected drop in predictive rating from last season. Why? First, our preseason ratings look at the past several years of team performance in order to provide a baseline, not just the most recent season. The Falcons took a big step forward last season, but their lower historical baseline means we expect them to regress some this year. In addition, the Falcons have the second largest negative adjustment for turnover luck in these preseason ratings. In general, teams that have very good turnover luck in one season tend to have more average luck in the next season. Combine those with a little regression to the mean (which affects all the best teams from last season), and we’re projecting the Falcons to take a step backwards.

Official 2017 NFL Preseason Rankings

NOTE: Team ratings are expressed as points better (positive rating) or worse (negative rating) than the average NFL team, when playing on a neutral field

Rank	Team	Rating
1	New England Patriots	8.9
2	Pittsburgh Steelers	5.6
3	Seattle Seahawks	5.0
4	Green Bay Packers	4.5
5	Dallas Cowboys	2.9
6	Kansas City Chiefs	2.7
7	Oakland Raiders	2.4
8	Atlanta Falcons	2.2
9	Arizona Cardinals	1.6
10	Cincinnati Bengals	1.4
11	Denver Broncos	1.3
12	Minnesota Vikings	1.3
13	Carolina Panthers	1.2
14	New York Giants	1.2
15	Baltimore Ravens	1.1
16	Tennessee Titans	0.9
17	Houston Texans	0.5
18	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	-0.1
19	Philadelphia Eagles	-0.1
20	Detroit Lions	-0.6
21	New Orleans Saints	-1.4
22	Los Angeles Chargers	-1.5
23	Indianapolis Colts	-1.7
24	Washington Redskins	-1.7
25	Jacksonville Jaguars	-2.3
26	Miami Dolphins	-2.4
27	Buffalo Bills	-3.1
28	Los Angeles Rams	-3.9
29	Chicago Bears	-5.0
30	Cleveland Browns	-6.1
31	San Francisco 49ers	-6.5
32	New York Jets	-8.2

A Quick Primer On Our NFL Preseason Rankings

Our 2017 NFL preseason rankings are almost entirely data-driven. We’ve used team data from past seasons to find which descriptive statistics have correlated strongly with high end-of-season power ratings. We then used those stats to create a model that predicts a team’s power rating.

Some examples of data points used in the model include:

A “draft score” for each of the past several yearsPrior season fumble and interception dataQuarterback stats for teams with a different QB than last yearEnd of season team power rating from the last few years

We assign each input factor a weight based on its demonstrated level of predictive power.

The output is a power rating that represents how many points above or below average we think a team is. A rating of 0.0 represents a “perfectly average” team.

Gut-Checking The Initial Preseason Ratings

Once we generate initial 2017 NFL preseason rankings & ratings, we then check them against the betting markets and other preseason ratings.

If our ranking for a team seems severely out of whack with those other sources, we’ll investigate. We check to see if there’s some factor that’s not taken into account by our model, that the betting market is picking up on. In some cases, we’ll manually adjust our rating to be a bit closer to the consensus. Though only rarely will we adjust it all the way to match the consensus.

It’s worth noting that these preseason ratings also drive our NFL season projections — at least before the season begins. As the 2017 season progresses, the impact of these preseason ratings will gradually fade, and actual game results will play a larger role in determining our team power ratings (which continue to drive the season projections).

An Open Letter To Crazy Hardcore Fan Of Team X

Dear Hardcore Fan Of Team X, before you get angry that our models are obviously biased against your favorite team, please keep two things in mind:

We use a systematic approach to rank all 32 teams. Our approach has done very well over the years when measured by the most important yardstick: the overall accuracy of projecting team performance levels in the upcoming season across the entire system of 32 teams. Being entirely data-driven, our model doesn’t pay attention to some things that mainstream media analysts are convinced is important. It’s also going to get a few individual teams slightly wrong, and some very wrong, for all sorts of reasons.Look at ratings, not just rankings. For example, 2.6 points separates #4 Green Bay from #5 Dallas, but only 1.1 points separates #2 Pittsburgh from #4 Green Bay. In other words, Denver is closer to being #2 than #5. So don’t overreact to that #4 ranking. Look at the rating as well, and you’ll see that the Packers are in the tier right below New England.

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