ptdotme’s NFL Elo Power Rankings After Week 8
(By popular demand, see the rankings without the influence of last year’s season-ending ratings in my comment below, or here.)
This is OC. I’ve written code to calculate and format NFL team Elo ratings^1 on a week to week basis. The goal is to use simple Elo ratings to create power rankings without the influence of human bias and emotion. The ratings are based on each team’s rating from the previous week, with a “parity reset” applied every offseason. The model has been tested for accuracy against game outcomes since week 1 of the 2013^2 season. The ratings are derived only from each game’s score, venue, and date. There are a number of variables/weights in my secret sauce but otherwise they’re fairly conservative, basic, Elo ratings.
This is all a work in progress and feedback is appreciated! See more stats and info on my 2023 NFL Elo Power Rankings page.
Note: You may feel teams are ranked too high or low based on recent games, and you may be right. However, the model has been tested and is more accurate when it doesn’t overreact to individual games. The goal is model accuracy, not rankings that “look right.” ^(2)
| Rank | Team | Elo Rating | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (+1) | Buffalo Bills | 1554 (-2) | 5-3 |
| 2 (-1) | San Francisco 49ers | 1551 (-10) | 5-3 |
| 3 (+2) | Dallas Cowboys | 1542 (+9) | 5-2 |
| 4 | Philadelphia Eagles | 1541 | 7-1 |
| 5 (-2) | Kansas City Chiefs | 1536 (-11) | 6-2 |
| 6 | Baltimore Ravens | 1531 | 6-2 |
| 7 | Cincinnati Bengals | 1526 (+10) | 4-3 |
| 8 (+1) | Miami Dolphins | 1519 (+4) | 6-2 |
| 9 (+1) | Detroit Lions | 1515 (+2) | 6-2 |
| 10 (+1) | Jacksonville Jaguars | 1515 (+4) | 6-2 |
| 11 (-3) | Seattle Seahawks | 1515 | 5-2 |
| 12 (+1) | Los Angeles Chargers | 1507 (+6) | 3-4 |
| 13 (-1) | New Orleans Saints | 1507 (+4) | 4-4 |
| 14 (+3) | Minnesota Vikings | 1505 (+7) | 4-4 |
| 15 (+1) | Cleveland Browns | 1499 (+1) | 4-3 |
| 16 (-2) | Green Bay Packers | 1493 (-8) | 2-5 |
| 17 (+2) | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1493 (+2) | 3-4 |
| 18 | New York Jets | 1491 (-1) | 4-3 |
| 19 (-4) | Los Angeles Rams | 1490 (-9) | 3-5 |
| 20 (+1) | Tennessee Titans | 1489 | 3-4 |
| 21 (+1) | Houston Texans | 1486 (-1) | 3-4 |
| 22 (-2) | Pittsburgh Steelers | 1485 (-4) | 4-3 |
| 23 | New England Patriots | 1479 (-5) | 2-6 |
| 24 (+7) | Denver Broncos | 1478 (+11) | 3-5 |
| 25 (-1) | Atlanta Falcons | 1477 | 4-4 |
| 26 | Washington Commanders | 1473 | 3-5 |
| 27 (-2) | Indianapolis Colts | 1469 (-4) | 3-5 |
| 28 (+1) | New York Giants | 1469 (+1) | 2-6 |
| 29 (-2) | Las Vegas Raiders | 1468 (-2) | 3-5 |
| 30 (+2) | Carolina Panthers | 1468 (+2) | 1-6 |
| 31 (-1) | Arizona Cardinals | 1468 | 1-7 |
| 32 (-4) | Chicago Bears | 1462 (-6) | 2-6 |
The Eagles and Ravens have a legitimate claim at 1st place in human-written rankings, but in week 8 neither won by a wide enough margin to improve their Elo rating. As expected, the Bills’ Elo rating continues to deteriorate. They are on a 4-game, -18 Elo slide. But other top teams are struggling even more, and the Bills have fallen backwards into 1st place after the 49ers’ latest loss. With another big win the Cowboys, who have been bouncing between 3rd and 5th place, move back into 3rd. The Chiefs fell to 5th after losing by 15 points to the Broncos. The Dolphins, Lions, and Jaguars all move up a spot at Seattle’s expense. The Jaguars finally crack the top 10: they’re on a 5-game, +28 Elo hot streak.
Big games to look forward to in week 9 are Cowboys/Eagles, Chiefs/Dolphins, Bills/Bengals, and Ravens/Seahawks.
^(1)See Wikipedia. Elo ratings are numeric and assigned to each contestant. The ratings are used to estimate performance. After each game, the difference between a contestant’s estimated and actual performance is used to update their rating. For the NFL, this can all be summarized as "Who did you beat/lose to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to …
^(2)Moving backward through the years, each preceding season has a much smaller impact on the current ratings. Team ratings from 2011 have zero impact on today’s ratings. Ratings from only a couple years ago, say 2021, have almost no effect on today’s ratings. Seasons going back to 2011 are only used by the model to ensure its accuracy over thousands of NFL games.