Week 15 stole all the big upsets apparently, because this week was a lot of chalk. The good teams beat the bad teams by a lot, while more evenly matched teams played more evenly matched games. As with last week’s edition, there wasn’t significant movement in our ranks, as it’s tough to move the needle much this late in the season. But there is one newbie in the top-2 this week, their highest ranking of the season. Plus, was the Jets’ second straight win enough to move them out of the bottom spot for the first time since Week 2? Let’s get into this week’s EPA power rankings and find out.
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.
Let’s start with the news we’ve all been waiting for. The Dallas Cowboys moved up this week! They passed the Bengals for 28th in adjusted EPA differential with a very complete victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16. They bumped up two spots in adjusted offensive EPA and have a chance to finish within spitting distance of average on that side of the ball.
And don’t look now, but the playoffs are well within reach. With Washington potentially starting Taylor Heinicke at quarterback against the Eagles next week, where they’re only favored by 1.5 points, Dallas could very well play themselves into a division title this year. Who would’ve thought.
While we’re peering at the bottom of this list, let’s give a quick shoutout to the New York Jets, who are no longer the worst team in the league. A small victory for the team that no longer gets to draft Trevor Lawrence.
Now back to the top, where we’ve got a new name in the two-spot. Surprisingly, the Green Bay Packers have not been ranked higher than three at any point this year in these rankings despite Aaron Rodgers playing his way to the forefront of the MVP conversation. That Packers offense is now the second-most productive offense in the NFL by adjusted EPA, trailing the powerhouse Chiefs by the smallest of margins.
Last week, I posited some reasons as to why these rankings have not liked the Browns as much as their record for the majority of this season. Based on this past game, it appears that perhaps the main reason behind this is that the Browns really aren’t as good as their record.
Cleveland lost to the lowly (but not last place!) New York Jets on Sunday, and dropped back down to 21st. The Bears, Panthers, and Falcons all look better by this metric. Now, Cleveland has shown the ability to put up a good game once in a while (Weeks 13 and 14 against Tennessee and Baltimore, for example) so I wouldn’t write them out of the playoff picture just yet, but this team doesn’t looks like it has the juice to make a Super Bowl run.
Another team that I’m starting to think is underrated by this measure is the Buffalo Bills. Josh Allen is legitimately good now, and this Bills team is thriving as of late. Their adjusted EPA differential has skyrocketed these past four weeks.
They’ve played so well as of late that next season I may consider weighing more recent games slightly heavier in these rankings than older games. For an example of this, just check out Football Outsiders’ “Weighted DVOA,” where they add more emphasis on each team’s most recent games to get a better idea of which teams are playing the best football at this moment in time.
The main reason the Bills didn’t move up at all this week is simply that the teams nearest to them (Saints, Steelers) also had big wins against pretty good teams.
Moving forward, let’s take a peek at what our adjusted EPA differential thinks about the final week’s matchups. The NFC East has two of the three closest lines per these ranks, which means the division winner really could be anyone at this point. Anyone except the Philadelphia Eagles, of course. We’ll find out soon enough!
