Week Seven Power Ratings

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A quick aside: I wasn’t in love with how I was updating my defensive metrics, so I scrapped it all to hell this week. It was a system I put together in the pre-season before games were being played, and I got to see how it would work out. So, new metrics were incorporated, and some bigger swings in my defensive ratings. That said, the offense still rules the weighting, so teams are going to see massive adjustments based on this; I just feel like it gives me a better number and helps me when I’m looking at matchups when I go beyond the raw numbers.

In a fun twist, my two biggest movers are on bye this week. These are subject to move based on the injury updates we see for the rest of the week ( a little math shows you how off I am from the TNF market right now).

Chicago 📈

They’ll soon be getting the test that we got to see for Washington this week, but the biggest part of my weighting is quarterback. Despite Shane Waldron, I think we’ve seen Caleb get a little better each week. If he can avoid the bad turnovers, this is a team that’s developing nicely around him. Again, we will learn nothing this week, but the pass rush and coverage grades have also been higher than I expected (even adjusting for playing some lower-graded teams).

Other upgrades: BAL, ATL, DET

• Baltimore is starting to learn how to play with the offensive line it has left and the run game continues to shine.

• Atlanta “consolidated serve” to steal a tennis term this week. Needed to see the offense look good again, even against an easy test and prove this is going to work long-term.

• The Lions were not actually a large upgrade, but it is worth mentioning. I wanted to point out that my moves for them on the offensive side of the ball are still a net gain despite a definite downgrade in the pass rush with the loss of Hutch.

• Honorable Mention: The Packers should get a small bump by signing a real kicker. Narveson has missed five kicks already this season and hasn’t even been put out there for a 50+ FG yet.

Dallas 📉

You can have a bad defense and win games (Washington, among others), you can have a bad offense and still find a way with coaching and stout defense (Pittsburgh, post-Ben), but YOU CANNOT HAVE BOTH. This was not an exceptional defense they went up against last week, and it’s becoming apparent that you can scheme around CeeDee Lamb and a predictable Dallas game plan.

Other downgrades: PHI, ARI, NO

• The Eagles’ adjustment was just me putting too much stock in the offense being fully healthy right off the bat. They, too, have some coaching and scheme issues right now.

• Arizona looks listless on offense against a team that really doesn’t have a pass rush. Obviously, the defense is bottom-tier, but with the injuries on top of the performance, they are looking less fun than they once were.

• The Saints is simply more injury stuff. Could be down a majority of the starting offense on a short week. Might have to go lower even yet.

What about the Trades?

It’s hard to know how to adjust this, and I’d argue that Buffalo needed a true outside threat worse than the Jets needed to add Adams.

I did move the Jets up slightly, but that was taken away by some big overdue adjustments down to the defense. This has been a wildly disappointing unit, considering where I started the season off for them.

As for Cooper, he may not even play this week, according to the Buffalo coaching staff.

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