NFL Rankings 9-28-10

Three weeks into the NFL season I am debuting my NFL rankings. It's all posted under the page links at the top, but for the lazy here are the top 10.

	Team	W	L	Rating	SOS
1	Pittsburgh	3	0	8.402	2.352
2	Atlanta	2	1	4.653	1.687
3	Green Bay	2	1	3.524	1.393
4	Tennessee	2	1	3.427	1.109
5	Chicago	3	0	2.969	1.658
6	Philadelphia	2	1	2.108	0.931
7	NY Jets	2	1	2.067	1.101
8	Kansas City	3	0	1.456	0.539
9	Indianapolis	2	1	1.454	0.587
10	New Orleans	2	1	1.356	1.122

What stands out about these rankings? First, they do a good job of noting that even though teams like Chicago and Kansas City are undefeated, they're not necessarily among the three best teams in the league.

Among the teams themselves there are a couple trends of note. First, the torch appears to be passing, as former great teams like the Colts and the Patriots (almost exactly average now) give way to new top tier teams such as the Falcons and the Packers. Manning and Brady are giving way to Ryan and Rodgers. While it's early, that may be a trend worth following.

It's also astounding to note the parity among NFL teams. Flipping a coin you'd expect 4 teams to be undefeated, but there's only three right now. There's also very few teams that have yet to win a game. Pittsburgh is significantly better than the average team right now, but other teams might just be lucky to be up there. Either way, don't expect too many teams to run away with their division this year.