2009 Week six Rankings

For more information about the table contents and what they mean, see this older post.

I've changed the "AvgRank" column at the left, as it was confusing and hard to judge, I think. That was the average rank of the team in terms of the AvgWin, AvgOff, and AvgDef. The "AvgRating" column is where the team falls on a range of 0 to 100. A team with an AvgRating of 0 would be the worst in the league at all three of the ratings. A team with 100 would be the best in all three. There's only been one team since 1970 that has managed to have an AvgRating of 100 at the end of the season...the '96 Packers.

AvgRating	Team	W	L	AvgWin	AvgOff	AvgDef	AvgComb
86	Saints	5	0	4.6	16.4	3.1	19.5
84	Broncos	6	0	4.3	0.6	8.6	9.2
83	Colts	5	0	3.0	4.8	6.4	11.2
75	Patriots	4	2	2.2	7.2	5.4	12.6
73	Falcons	4	1	3.0	4.4	7.2	11.6
71	Vikings	6	0	3.7	7.5	-1.1	6.4
68	Giants	5	1	2.7	8.1	-0.3	7.8
62	Cardinals	3	2	2.0	2.5	4.3	6.8
62	Bengals	4	2	2.3	0.1	2.8	2.9
60	Bears	3	2	1.8	3.4	2.4	5.7
59	49ers	3	2	1.4	2.1	2.0	4.0
58	Ravens	3	3	1.0	6.4	0.2	6.5
58	Dolphins	2	3	1.0	3.2	1.6	4.7
57	Packers	3	2	1.8	2.2	1.6	3.8
56	Jets	3	3	0.7	-3.1	6.2	3.2
55	Cowboys	3	2	1.2	3.5	-0.7	2.9
50	Eagles	3	2	0.6	3.4	-0.4	3.0
50	Steelers	4	2	1.7	-2.6	-0.2	-2.8
49	Seahawks	2	4	0.2	-1.1	2.7	1.6
44	Chargers	2	3	0.6	5.7	-5.9	-0.3
40	Texans	3	3	0.7	1.2	-5.3	-4.1
38	Bills	2	4	-0.3	-5.3	0.7	-4.6
37	Panthers	2	3	0.4	-2.8	-4.2	-6.9
35	Jaguars	3	3	0.5	-2.5	-5.1	-7.6
35	Raiders	2	4	0.3	-10.4	0.8	-9.6
32	Browns	1	5	-0.3	-7.3	-1.3	-8.6
32	Chiefs	1	5	-0.8	-3.7	-1.8	-5.5
32	Lions	1	5	-0.2	-1.5	-5.3	-6.8
24	Redskins	2	4	-1.3	-12.9	1.3	-11.6
14	Buccaneers	0	6	-2.2	-5.5	-6.8	-12.3
11	Titans	0	6	-2.0	-4.8	-9.5	-14.3
9	Rams	0	6	-2.2	-10.5	-6.0	-16.6

What movement did we see this week?

• The Saints stayed at #1 and actually improved their offensive rating quite a lot. The only team that's had a higher "AvgComb" rating than the 2009 Saints is the 2007 Patriots, so keep that in mind. However, as the Saints defense took a slide this week, their overall "AvgRating" dropped from 91 to 86.
  
• The Patriots moved up to take the #4 spot from the Giants, who fell to #7. The massive win against the Titans had a lot of effect on the chart, as it affected the Patriots average offense and the Titans average defense a ton. This had the effect, for example, of hurting the Steelers' offense, who only put up 13 against the Titans.
• The Falcons moved up to #5 with their win, and I'm already salivating at their two games against the Saints.
• The Steelers ended up sliding down from an AvgRating of 54 to a dead-average 50 this week. Despite being 4-2, they are miles away from the Patriots, who are a full ten points ahead on AvgOff and almost six points ahead on AvgDef.
  
• We still have 4 unbeaten teams and 3 winless teams, which is unprecedented at this point in the season.
  
• The Rams remain in the bottom spot, although at least this week they improved their AvgRating from a bottom-scraping 2 up to 9. They're still awful though.
  

Some more historical numbers on playoffs, using data from every full 16-game season:

• 94% of teams starting 6-0 have made the playoffs
  
• 68% of teams starting 6-0 have appeared in the conference championship game
• 51% of teams starting 6-0 have appeared in the Super Bowl
• 28% of teams starting 6-0 have won the Super Bowl
  
• No 0-5 team has ever made the playoffs (Might as well see if Vince Young can hack it now)
  

Last year at this time, the top five teams were the Buccaneers, Cardinals, Titans, Cowboys, and Redskins. The bottom five were the Raiders, Seahawks, Chiefs, Rams, and Lions.

Despite the increased stats for Roethlisberger, the Steelers' AvgOff is about 1.7 points lower than it was last year, and the defense is about 4 points worse. The 4-2 record sounds ok, but the wins were against the Titans (0-6), Chargers (2-3), Lions (1-5), and Browns (1-5). A combined 4-19. The losses were against the Bengals (4-2) and Bears (3-2), with a combined record of 7-4. Not very impressive. The next two games against the Vikings and Broncos will not only give a lot of information about the team, but just purely in terms of the record, dropping to 4-4 would be a real blow to the team's playoff hopes, given the field this year.

I looked at the historical "AvgRating" for the Steelers going back a few years after six games. They haven't had a rating lower than this since the 2002/2003 seasons. Unsurprisingly, the two highest years in the past ten were in 2005 and 2008, when they ended up winning the Superbowl.