Dolphin Power Rankings after Week 3: predictions

[Spider-Dan]

Let's start with the previous week's rankings:

CBS Sports
Ranking: 8 Previous: 12

NFL.com
Ranking: 8 Previous: 13

The Athletic
Ranking: 6 Previous: 8

Pro Football Talk
Ranking: 6 Previous: 12

Yahoo Sports
Ranking: 6 Previous: 16

Sports Illustrated
Ranking: 6 Previous: 16

Pro Football Network
Ranking: 5 Previous: 12

ESPN
Ranking: 5 Previous: 12

The Ringer
Ranking: 8 Previous: 13

The Sporting News
Ranking: 8 Previous: 13

average rank last week: 6.6

Based on who they have beaten, MIA should be a clear #1.  But I'm going to predict that MIA's average rank this week is 3rd, behind PHI and one of BUF or KC.

[fyo]

^ The Dolphins beat the Bills by pretty much exactly the average home field advantage margin. For the Dolphins in September, that advantage is likely higher, meaning that the Bills would still be expected to win on neutral ground. The Bills also had an obscene number of plays compared to the Dolphins, which a lot of the win-prediction models rate heavily in determining who "should have" won. This will negatively affect any power rankings that use statistical modelling, which I'll admit is probably quite few. The Bills D was also decimated by injuries, which is going to affect the more subjective rankings.

Based on that, I'd ballpark the average rank at around 5.

[Dolfanalyst]

Buffalo should remain the clear #1, as they are currently best in the league with regard to the two strongest predictors of winning in the NFL, combined -- pass offense and pass defense.  The Dolphins are slightly outperforming them with regard to pass offense but are well behind them in pass defense (28th in the league to 2nd).

So again we're talking about power rankings (or ratings) here, not some sort of system that places a premium on wins and losses (like the NFL playoffs, for example, where a win keeps you going and a loss ends your season).  If you consider the data above, you have to consider that Buffalo would very likely beat the Dolphins the vast majority of times they played them, with yesterday's loss representing an unlikely outcome of a game between them, and certainly that should factor into any sort of power ranking of this nature if it's utilizing the objective data most strongly related to winning in its formulation.

In other words, if the Bills would beat the Dolphins let's say 80 times of every 100 times they played (theoretically, based on the important data), and yesterday's game represented one of the other 20, then the Dolphins certainly shouldn't vault ahead of Buffalo in a power ranking that utilizes the important objective data.

[CF DolFan]

I still think Phiily is a fraud but they will outrank us just because they started much higher. As well, I don't see us jumping Buffalo, KC, and possibly the Rams at this point.

[Spider-Dan]

^ The Dolphins beat the Bills by pretty much exactly the average home field advantage margin. For the Dolphins in September, that advantage is likely higher, meaning that the Bills would still be expected to win on neutral ground.

If the Bills are within a couple of points of the Dolphins (enough that homefield could decide the game), and the Bills were the best team in the league, why should the Dolphins be any lower than second?

The Bills D was also decimated by injuries, which is going to affect the more subjective rankings.

People keep talking about the injuries on the Bills D, but they aren't getting Hyde back this year (and probably not Jackson either).  If MIA lost Tyreek Hill, they would immediately tumble down the rankings.  So why should BUF be ranked above MIA before those injured players return?

A lot of this rationale will ring extremely hollow if PHI is #1 this week, even though they haven't faced teams anywhere near the same caliber as the Dolphins' opponents.

[Dave Gray]

This again, for me, goes to asking what Power Rankings are.

I don't think we're a better team than the Bills, but if this is college football rankings and you beat a team directly above you, you surpass that team.  So, I don't know.  Is there any explanation of what the power ranking is based on?  Do these sites list a criteria?

[Fau Teixeira]

Everybody keeps saying that the Bills are a better team than we are. They aren't. If that were the case they'd have won the game.

We rope-a-doped the bills .. we kept letting them take swings and swings and swings without letting them land any big ones. In the 4th quarter they were all punched out and couldn't even clock the ball.

You are what your record says you are. And we're #1 in the AFC. Period, end of story.

[masterfins]

Everybody keeps saying that the Bills are a better team than we are. They aren't. If that were the case they'd have won the game.

We rope-a-doped the bills .. we kept letting them take swings and swings and swings without letting them land any big ones. In the 4th quarter they were all punched out and couldn't even clock the ball.

You are what your record says you are. And we're #1 in the AFC. Period, end of story.

I like this!!!

[masterfins]

Power rankings are click bait, Miami will be like a 4, because the excuses for their winning will continue.

[Dolfanalyst]

Everybody keeps saying that the Bills are a better team than we are. They aren't. If that were the case they'd have won the game.

We rope-a-doped the bills .. we kept letting them take swings and swings and swings without letting them land any big ones. In the 4th quarter they were all punched out and couldn't even clock the ball.

You are what your record says you are. And we're #1 in the AFC. Period, end of story.

That approach matters when playoff teams are determined, as records become paramount then, but it tends to work comparatively poorly for predicting future performance.

Consider that if a team loses 80-0 to the worst team in the league and another team loses 2-0 to the best team in the league, both losing teams experience the same result in terms of win percentage -- a hashmark in the loss column.  Wins and losses alone aren't necessarily highly informative.

And if the better team always won, there would be no such thing as an upset.  The better team would always win.

[Spider-Dan]

At the most basic level, no one cares who the best team was last year, or any other year.
We care who won the championship, right?

Power Rankings themselves have limited value beyond discussion like this.  But still, as fans it's fair to want to have your favorite team be accorded the respect you believe they've earned.

[Spider-Dan]

I just wanted to throw out a separate side prediction about the Eagles:

1) PHI is ranked #1 by at least 3 of the ranking sources listed above
2) PHI has a better ranking than MIA in at least 5 of the ranking sources listed above
3) PHI's average ranking among those ten sources is at least 1 full spot better than MIA's

[fyo]

Results are starting to come in:

ESPN, The Athletic, and The Sporting News all have the Dolphins #1 (shocked), with the Bills and Eagles taking second and third in mixed order.
The Ringer has the Dolphins 6th, Eagles 7th. The top 5 spots are the preseason favorites sans Rams: Bills, Chiefs, Packers, Bucs, Ravens - in that order.
Pro Football Network has switched to a "tiered ranking" for week 4, with the Dolphins and Eagles alone in Tier 1.
Yahoo! keeps the Bills on top, followed by the Eagles and Chiefs, then the Dolphins.

As of right now, the others have yet to be published.

[fyo]

I just wanted to throw out a separate side prediction about the Eagles:

1) PHI is ranked #1 by at least 3 of the ranking sources listed above
2) PHI has a better ranking than MIA in at least 5 of the ranking sources listed above
3) PHI's average ranking among those ten sources is at least 1 full spot better than MIA's

Judging by the early results, those are some bad side bets .

[Dave Gray]

We definitely aren't the best team in the league.

But we have the best track record, so the #1 ranking is just, if it is supposed to emulate college ranking.

We beat the Bills and Ravens -- arguably the two best teams in the AFC.  Our other win is the equivalent of a big name school that's having an off-year, but is a rival game.  And we beat them soundly.