2014 Power Rankings

**Faded blues** · 09-03-2014, 12:52 PM

Fair

If we start we could be top 5 in all sites

**Bolt-O** · 09-10-2014, 11:01 AM

This week's power rankings:

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**Bolt-O** · 09-17-2014, 10:01 AM

This weeks Power Rankings. Added AP Pro 32, SB Nation, and Football Outsiders DVOA

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**thelightningwill** · 09-17-2014, 06:44 PM

Football Outsiders DVOA sounds like bullshit now. How can we be the 25th best team in the NFL?

**Bolt-O** · 09-17-2014, 07:49 PM

[geek]

Simplified, the DVOA (Defense adjusted Value over Average) if I understand it is how the team does in situations that are similar to others done in rest of the league. The Chargers were against two very good D's, and because they played ball control, with more plays to yardage gain, so their averages will tend to be lower. If there are long 1st down gainers, the 'average' will rise. In the first two games, the Chargers had problems in the red zone, so the DVOA falls. Teams with longer gains, and fewer issues in the endzone should be better. Also, Seattle had huge gainers which dropped the overall average. Early in the season, there isn't a lot of data... if they include preseason, the Chargers actually rate much higher in what they call DAVE (#12). I think DVOA is too statistical and quantitative myself, the Sagarin rating I think is more realistic, but with all the other rankings being pretty much subjective, it's an interesting comparison.

[/geek]

**Steve** · 09-17-2014, 09:20 PM

No one can say that any statistics in football mean anything right now, it's only been 2 games.

DVOA is a relative measure. It's good if you want to compare offense A to offense B, but as Bolt-O points out, there are still some serious holes in it. There are a lot of assumptions built into it in how they try to be "objective", and that alone makes it highly subjective. If those assumptions are not valid, the analysis is bullshit. The other thing that it does is put way to much emphasis on averages, because they don't matter. What does matter is median, or how consistently do you do things. The best example was how well Seattle, who averaged a whole lot more than us, did on 3rd downs? Even their average gain on 3rd down was pretty good, but more often then not, they came up short, and had to turn the ball over. Meanwhile, our offense averaged a lot less, but consistently didn't get chunks of yards, had a low average, but we kept getting 1st downs.

That is why a lot of coaches don't care about averages. They don't matter. It's the consistency that matters. Can you drive down and consistently get 1st downs, and put enough of them together to score. If an offense gets a 30 yard gain, followed by 3 - 3 yard gains, they average almost 10 yards per play (39 /4 ~10 yards per play), but you still had to punt. Meanwhile a team that consistently can put 4 and 5 yard gains is a far more productive offense, because their drives don't stall out.

The big assumption is that TD % in the red zone is the holy grail. Teams that score a lot of TD in the redzone are a lot better then teams who kick FG. But as we proved last year, just come away with points, and if your TD % is good (put not necessarily great), you will win a lot of games, because the consistent offense will get more shots at scoring total (more points overall).

**KNSD** · 09-18-2014, 01:33 PM

Football Outsider's defensive rating system doesn't do a very good job of describing how effective the Charger defense really is. Didn't last year (I think SD had one of the "worst" defenses in the history of the NFL according to FO), and apparently doesn't this year.

**Bolt-O** · 09-23-2014, 01:37 PM

Post Week 3 rankings:

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I saw one from the Washington Post that ranks the Chargers as #1.

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Football Outsiders DVOA - up to #20, DAVE falls to #14.

**Wheels** · 09-23-2014, 01:40 PM

Maybe we'll get to 24 on football outsiders!

**TABF** · 09-23-2014, 01:46 PM

11-4 range... To good for my likings... I like us in the 13-18 average range, but I'm not willing to take a loss to get there. Maybe we can lose 4-5 starters to injury to bump us down... (Oh wait...)

**ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR** · 09-23-2014, 02:12 PM

I don't go in much for Power Rankings, but I did see The Shutdown Corner on Yahoo and this was the snippet that accompanied the ranking:

11. San Diego Chargers (2-1, LW: 13)
There's some concern about who is healthy enough to run the ball, but this is a really well-coached, solid team.

Goddamn, I can't even tell you how much I loved reading that. I don't know what's going to happen the rest of the season, especially with guys going down like the first wave at Normandy, but the fact that we seem to have found a really freaking good coach and staff that develops players and knows what it is doing is just music to my ears. Especially after so many years of wandering out in the wilderness and wasting talent with Norv Turner. Telesco has proven to be shrewd and resourceful. McCoy gets the most out of our players. We're in good hands. And if we end up not having a big season this year, I'm not worried about next year. These guys know what they are doing. Now the challenge is going to be how do we hang on to them and keep them together.

2014 Power Rankings

2014 Power Rankings

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