What if the NFL Used the BCS? Week 6 2006 Results
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by user DNL
| There shall be a regular season, and at the end of yea season, those records shall be ignored, and the experts and computers shall make a pronouncement from up on high, deciding which two gladiators shall do battle in the dead of winter for the title of champion. And to hell with the other teams. |
The BCS is, for many, the bane of the college football season. Nevermind the fact that your school was awarded its only loss on a terrible officiating call -- that one faux pas means a trip to the Chuck's Diner and Car Wash Bowl. 'Tis a silly thing, leaving the masses clammoring for an NFL-style playoff.
But that's boring. What if NFL fans started their own uproar, and asked for -- nay, demanded a BCS-style system for the 32 pro teams? What would happen?
Well, let's find out.
Methodology
The regular BCS formula can be found here. I adapted it significantly because (a) it's really hard to do what they do when you're working with only Excel and 10 fingers and 10 toes and (b) because there are few group polls out there, and the one that does exist just publishes the final ranking. (Maybe ArmchairGM needs an NFL power poll. That'd be good.)
Anyway, here's what I did.
Part 1: The Poll
I used ESPN's. They have multiple voters. They're ESPN. Fine. They're 50% of the ranking. They should be 33%, but I couldn't find another good human poll.
Part 2: The Computers
They're not all computers. They're objective measures -- make up a formula, stick in the data, out pops some rankings. Here are the six I used:
- CPU-1: Jeff Sagarin, because he's BCS computer. I used his "ELO CHESS"/"PURE POINTS" mesh, which he calls "RATING."
- CPU-2: Football Outsiders, because they actually know what they're talking about.
- CPU-3: Sonny Moore, because he's been doing this for years, and still uses AOL as his web host, which is weird.
- CPU-4: Some guy whose website I can't find. My spreadsheet crashed while I was making this, and I hadn't pasted in the URL. I'm going to use Mike Greenberg next time, but as of this writing, he hadn't updated yet. (Ed: Uh, he updated as I typed that. Crap. Well, I'm not re-running the data.)
- CPU-5: Mr. Coffey, because he has been doing this for years, too.
- CPU-6: Davis21wylie, ArmchairGM user and statistical dynamo.
The "computers," so to speak, count for 50% of the end result total. So, each one counts for about 8.33% of the whole.
The Rankings
TEAM ESPN CPU-1 CPU-2 CPU-3 CPU-4 CPU-5 CPU-6 CPU-A AVG. Bears 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1.33 1.17 Chargers 3 4 1 2 3 3 1 2.33 2.67 Colts 2 5 13 4 4 2 8 6.00 4.00 Saints 7 3 10 5 16 4 7 7.50 7.25 Eagles 9 8 3 3 10 10 4 6.33 7.67 Broncos 4 14 12 15 2 5 22 11.67 7.83 Seahawks 5 6 16 8 9 6 20 10.83 7.92 Patriots 6 15 11 9 5 7 16 10.50 8.25 Ravens 10 9 7 6 13 9 5 8.17 9.08 Giants 11 2 5 10 11 8 12 8.00 9.50 Panthers 8 11 14 18 7 12 13 12.50 10.25 Jaguars 13 7 4 7 8 11 9 7.67 10.33 Bengals 12 12 15 12 12 17 17 14.17 13.08 Cowboys 15 13 6 11 15 14 10 11.50 13.25 Rams 14 17 9 19 20 16 3 14.00 14.00 Falcons 16 10 20 13 19 13 6 13.50 14.75 Steelers 17 18 8 14 6 18 18 13.67 15.33 Vikings 18 16 19 17 17 15 14 16.33 17.17 Chiefs 20 19 17 23 14 20 23 19.33 19.67 Jets 19 20 27 16 22 19 24 21.33 20.17 Redskins 21 23 18 24 18 22 15 20.00 20.50 Bills 23 22 21 21 21 21 26 22.00 22.50 Bucs 22 21 23 22 24 23 29 23.67 22.83 Lions 25 25 22 29 27 28 21 25.33 25.17 Dolphins 27 30 24 28 23 31 11 24.50 25.75 49ers 24 29 29 26 30 27 25 27.67 25.83 Cardinals 29 27 25 20 28 25 19 24.00 26.50 Browns 28 24 28 25 25 26 31 26.50 27.25 Titans 26 28 30 27 31 29 27 28.67 27.33 Packers 31 26 26 30 26 24 28 26.67 28.83 Texans 30 31 31 32 29 30 32 30.83 30.42 Raiders 32 32 32 31 32 32 30 31.50 31.75
Observations
The big one: Peyton Manning goes undefeated, yet still manages to choke, failing to reach the Super Bowl.
I mean, how perfect is that?
The smaller ones?
- The real BCS has room for 8 "BCS Bowl" teams. The Saints would make it, if the BCS took the top 8. But the BCS never takes the top 8. They have to take a Big East team, which is code for "sucky team," instead of the shockingly good top 8 team. In this case, I suspect you'd see the Cowboys taken by whatever bowl took the Eagles. TO Bowl, Part 3, and all that stuff.
- Why does ESPN hate the Jaguars? The computers are all over the place generally, but the Jags are never below 11... yet ESPN puts them at 13. I mean, the team exits a rough opening schedule at 3-2... and for that, gets #13. It's unlucky and too low.
- ESPN hasn't bought into the Saints yet, either, but in the Leader's defense, the computers are mixed on that one, too.
- Jeff Sagarin has two metrics, "ELO CHESS" and "PURE POINTS," as noted above. He averages them to come to his "RATING" metric. What do those mean?
| In ELO CHESS, only winning and losing matters; the score margin is of no consequence, which makes it very "politically correct". However it is less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games than is the PURE POINTS, in which the score margin is the only thing that matters. PURE POINTS is also known as PREDICTOR, BALLANTINE, RHEINGOLD, WHITE OWL and is the best single PREDICTOR of future games. |
- My take? If you are offering objective analysis, don't insert your opinion. Oh, and Rheingold is a beer, which would explain how his "best single predictor" has the Bengals as the 6th best team, while the Patriots, who whooped them, are 18th -- three behind the 2-3 Chiefs. Hmm.
- A perfect score is a 1. A perfectly bad score is a 32. The Bears are .17 away from a perfect score. The Raiders are .25 away from a perfectly bad score. In case you were wondering.
