Week 15 Power Rankings: Cowboys, NFC East moving on up

A new top dog-well, top 4-legged mammal, anyway-emerges in this week’s EPA Power Rankings

It might be time to stop making fun of the NFC East.

To be clear, this is still the worst division in football right now, but three of the four teams in this division came away with a win this week and improved their spot in this week’s EPA Power Rankings.

Elsewhere, we’ve got a Browns team improving despite a loss and a Buffalo team that’s finally getting the recognition Bills Mafia demands. But first, a quick reminder on the definition of EPA.

EPA stands for Expected Points Added. Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.

Taking the difference between each team’s offensive EPA and their defensive EPA allowed gives us something not unlike point differential, with a bit more context included. For these rankings, we’ve adjusted each team’s EPA based on the strength of their opponent.

The Andy Dalton revenge game went better than anyone could’ve expected. Although he only dropped back to pass 26 times, Dalton finished the with the 7th most efficient day for a quarterback in Week 14 with 0.5 EPA/play. On the other side of the ball, the Dallas defense finally held up well against the run. No team in the NFL lost more EPA on run plays than the Bengals in Week 14. A large part of this was the three lost fumbles by Bengals running backs, two of which came in the red zone, which indicates that this great performance is unlikely to be repeated. All of this combined to Dallas finishing with the third biggest win by EPA differential this week, with only two NFC West teams turning in better performances.

Speaking of those NFC West teams, it’s time to talk about the new number one team in our ranks.

 

The Los Angeles Rams had a decisive win against the New England Patriots, holding them to just 3 points scored, in an homage to the 3 points the Rams were held to in Super Bowl 53. That’s really the story of the Rams this season. In a season run by high-powered offense, LA is one of two defenses that have been consistently great this year.

Pittsburgh is the only defense that even compares to what LA has going on right now. That dominating defense is now enough to put LA on top of our power ranks for the first time this season. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, slipped down to 3rd after suffering their second consecutive loss, this time to the surging Buffalo Bills.

The Bills have hovered at just above average for most of this season despite their record, but their current 3-game win streak has brought them all the way to the 7th best adjusted EPA differential in the NFL. They are knocking on the door of that top tier of teams that’s dominated these ranks for the majority of the season.

Josh Allen looks really good, and Josh Allen being good at football is a great thing for the NFL because he is good for a few highlight-reel plays each night while also maintaining the potential for an unnecessary and unplanned lateral. Allen currently ranks 5th in the NFL in EPA/dropback and 6th in completion percentage over expectation (CPOE), two of the best stats we have to measure quarterback success today.

Speaking of teams on the rise, let’s take a minute to appreciate the Washington Football Team clamoring their way into the top half of our ranks for the first time this season. Their offense is still nothing to write home about, especially with Antonio Gibson’s injury, but that defense is no joke. Looking at the defense chart mentioned earlier, Washington has one of the top defenses in the NFL after LA and Pittsburgh. It looks even better this week after Chase Young’s first career touchdown.

Washington is looking to extend their win streak to 5 games and get a firmer grasp on the division lead this week when they play the Seahawks, who they suddenly look like they have a decent shot to beat. Using the opponent adjustment function that created these power rankings, we can predict the EPA differential in each upcoming game. With this method, Washington looks like just 2-point underdogs.

Dallas comes in as touchdown underdogs against the 49ers team that Washington just took down. San Francisco’s rushing attack is going to be much tougher to defend than the Bengals, which means the Cowboys will probably need a few more forced fumbles to come out on top in this one.

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