What’s the point of power rankings now that there is just one week left in the regular season? If you’ve asked that question, you are implicitly saying that power rankings serve a purpose earlier in the year! If you want to see the playoff picture, I laid that out earlier this week, so I’ll assume you’ll be staying on this post for the snark.
I was on the Seahawks’ bandwagon a couple of weeks earlier than most, but they’re now #1 in Football Outsiders’ DVOA ratings and third in Advanced NFL Stats’ Efficiency Rankings. Seattle is also first in Pro-Football-Reference.com’s SRS Ratings; the Seahawks are second in the NFL in points differential, behind the Patriots, but a much tougher schedule was enough to close the gap there. Now that Richard Sherman is cleared to play in the postseason, Seattle is a legitimate Super Bowl contender. They may not have home field advantage in the playoffs, but they do have my Coach of the Year.
Here’s the week 17 schedule along with my projected winner:
That leaves us with the final week 17 standings:
