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Burying the lede: Buffalo is my top-rated team after their win, but that feels like a no-brainer, and I’m more excited about some of the feisty also-rans in the NFC right now, especially the team I gave the most significant upgrade this week:

QB Adjustments

Falcons

Going from Kirk Cousins to a rookie QB in Michael Penix Jr would probably have been viewed as a big downgrade at certain points in the season. Right now, I’m not so sure. The biggest issue for Penix is that he’s just an unknown, but even if he plays at a bottom-10 level of QB, it’s not going to be some huge drop-off. Over the past three weeks, Kirk has ranked 30th in the league (out of 33 QBs) in EPA/play. Sure, the Vikings are tough, but this includes all of his garbage time versus them and an entire game against the Las Vegas Raiders. I will be downgrading the Falcons, but ONLY because I was slow to lower the QB rating, as my current pricing was too high for Kirk.

Browns

Winston is the same story here. There were only three QBs lower than Kirk in that three-week window; one was Jameis. That said, we’ve seen DTR play, and it’s still likely worse as a passer. If he can get his legs going and help the offense out with some scrambles, maybe this swap will work out, but this is still a guy with a 56% pass completion rate and hasn’t shown much promise outside of some pre-season games. Browns are getting downgraded somewhere around two full points for me.

Titans

Benching Will Levis is at least a net neutral, I’d think. Maybe even an upgrade. Mason Rudolph has played some this year while Levis was recovering from a shoulder injury (mixed results), but after a four-turnover day against a horrid Bengals defense, I can see why the team might try to mix it up. I will leave my QB rating the same for the Titans as of now.

Other QBs

For now, I will assume that both Geno Smith and Patrick Mahomes will play this week. The Seahawks are quoted as “optimistic” on Geno, and Mahomes was a full go in Tuesday’s practice. Obviously, some steep drop-offs to Carson Wentz and Sam Howell if they are forced to play, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Howell looked bad enough that we’ve even seen a call for Jaren Hall if Geno is unable to go.

I have no idea who starts for the Saints, and despite Rattler looking a bit better in the comeback effort, I don’t think there’s a meaningful difference between him and Haener, maybe a half-point bump for the kid who led the team to some actual scoring drives.

My pricing will also reflect Tim Boyle as the Giants’ starter, but this is another rating that isn’t going to be significantly affected if it were announced that Drew Lock was getting the nod or Tommy DeVito cleared concussion protocol. Never mind, the Giants are going with Lock.

Week 16 Power Ratings

As mentioned over the past few weeks, big adjustments aren’t happening for me this time of year outside of cluster injuries or news at the QB spot. I’m pretty happy when I’m able to compare my raw ratings to the openers for the week and not see anything more than a couple of points off, this has been the case again this week.

I did do some work on my quarterback, offensive line, and home-field advantage numbers this week.

I’ve continued to try to contextualize quarterback stats for myself. Obviously, it’s difficult when you’re trying to take data on a page from arguably the most important position in all of sports and turn it into a prediction rating.

My offensive line work has been focused more on making better adjustments based on injuries and return from injuries. I don’t think I did a poor job of this before; I just think I have more data on players later in the season and can make better decisions on how to rate the unit as far as pass and run blocking go.

Finally, when comparing our prices for the upcoming Green Bay - Minnesota game, someone asked for my fair price and then followed up by asking what I made for home-field advantage in Minnesota. It got me thinking that I had sort of neglected to do any sort of updating on those for basically the year. I don’t think that needs to be a weekly adjustment, but I may try to do that 4x a year going forward.

My Biggest Market Disagreements

Not bets (yet!). Standard Disclaimer: I still need to tighten things up as we get Wednesday practice reports, compare matchups inside the game, and work on getting a sense of how the teams will game plan against each other.

This is just simply my raw power ratings compared to the market as of RIGHT NOW.

1. Detroit -6.5 at Chicago (my price -8.5): By all accounts, this is a BETTER offense than Minnesota, even after losing half of their RB tandem. I will be digging in more on Goff playing outdoors late in the season to try to hammer this closer to the market rating, I suppose. Maybe I'll take the Team Total over route against the Bears again; it worked Monday.

2. NYG +8.5 at Atlanta (my price +7): It’s a rookie QB making his first start. The Giants may be quitting, but if some of the defensive injuries trend the right way this week, this is a ton for him to be laying.

3. Denver +2.5 at LAC (my price +0.5): Harbaugh has plenty of experience, so I’m not docking him for playing on a short week just because it’s his first year back in the NFL, but I still wonder about this price in a divisional game where the HFA is essentially zero. Monitoring both CBs for Denver is going to be vital here.

See You Tonight

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