What this is
A comparison of APR's Week 9 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 with the widest differential are listed. The number in parentheses is the difference between APR's rank and ESPN's rank.
Teams ESPN likes more than APR:
- Colts (+8)
- ESPN bumps the Colts up to the #2 spot after the Colts win over the Texans. Yeah, the come back was impressive. The fact that they fell behind 18 points to a team that hasn't won since the middle of September is not. (Nor is the fact that their comeback would've fallen short, if the Texans had any kind of a field goal kicker.)
- Jets (+7)
- On the one hand, the Jets have wins over the Patriots and Siants. On the other hand, they also got curb-stomped by the Bengals, Titans, and Steelers(!). I guess #14 is a justifiable ranking for a team with a 5-4 record, but at the same time, it's hard to overlook those ugly losses, even at the middle of the field.
- On the bubble:
- APR dropped the Raiders (+6) 9 spots after getting destroyed by the on-again, off-again Eagles. Perhaps not totally fair, but they did lose by 4 scores, at home, to what has been a mostly off-again team.
Teams APR likes more than ESPN:
- Packers (-7)
- Yeah, even factoring out the Aaron Rodgers situation, APR has the Packers ranked way too high at #4. Besides getting Rodgers back, they're going to have to do a lot better on defense to get to the playoffs this year.
- On the bubble
- Nobody closer than the Giants (-5) and Ravens (-5).
