What this is
A comparison of APR's Week 16 power rankings with ESPN's rankings for the same week of games. This acts as a sanity check (both ways) to see what teams are over- or underrated.
Only teams that are at least 9 positions apart are listed. The number in parentheses is the difference between APR's rank and ESPN's rank.
Teams ESPN likes more than APR:
- Rams (+10)
- For reasons unexplained, ESPN moved the Rams up 4 spots on their unimpressive win over a bad 49ers team. The Rams are (probably) the best team in the NFC West, but that is a low, low bar to clear.
- On the bubble:
- Chiefs (+8), Titans (+7). Four of the Chiefs ten wins have come against the NFC West.
Teams APR likes more than ESPN:
- Bills (-12), Lions (-11)
- Yes, APR has the Lions (#13) and Bills (#16) ranked too high. But ESPN has them both in the bottom 10, in spite of many clearly worse teams (especially, I think, in the case of the Lions).
- Browns (-10)
- Not so much for the Browns. If they could keep Colt McCoy healthy enough to play every week, and get some consistent output from their running game, they would probably win more games.
- On the bubble:
- Packers (-7)
