ptdotme’s NFL Elo Power Rankings After Week 12

(By popular demand, see the rankings without the influence of last year’s season-ending ratings in my comment below, or here.)

This is OC. I’ve written code to calculate NFL team Elo ratings^1 on a week to week basis. The goal is to use simple Elo ratings to create power rankings without the influence of human bias and emotion. The ratings are based on each team’s rating from the previous week, with a “parity reset” applied every offseason. The model has been tested for accuracy against game outcomes since week 1 of the 2012^2 season. The ratings are derived only from each game’s score, venue, and date. There are a number of variables/weights in my secret sauce but otherwise they’re fairly conservative, basic, Elo ratings.

This is all a work in progress and feedback is appreciated! See more stats and info on my 2023 NFL Elo Power Rankings page.

Note: You may feel teams are ranked too high or low based on recent games, and you may be right. However, the model has been tested and is more accurate when it doesn’t overreact to individual games. The goal is model accuracy, not rankings that “look right.” ^(2)  

Rank	Team	Elo Rating	Record
1	San Francisco 49ers	1587 (+9)	8-3
2	Dallas Cowboys	1578 (+10)	8-3
3	Baltimore Ravens	1565 (+5)	9-3
4	Buffalo Bills	1556	6-6
5	Philadelphia Eagles	1555	10-1
6	Kansas City Chiefs	1552 (+8)	8-3
7 (+1)	Miami Dolphins	1537 (+12)	8-3
8 (-1)	Detroit Lions	1524 (-7)	8-3
9 (+1)	Jacksonville Jaguars	1523	8-3
10 (-1)	Cincinnati Bengals	1519 (-6)	5-6
11 (+1)	Los Angeles Chargers	1514 (-6)	4-7
12 (+1)	Minnesota Vikings	1507 (-6)	6-6
13 (-2)	Cleveland Browns	1505 (-15)	7-4
14 (+2)	Green Bay Packers	1504 (+7)	5-6
15 (+4)	Denver Broncos	1504 (+15)	6-5
16 (+2)	Pittsburgh Steelers	1496 (+6)	7-4
17 (-2)	New Orleans Saints	1492 (-8)	5-6
18 (-4)	Seattle Seahawks	1491 (-9)	6-5
19 (+3)	Los Angeles Rams	1489 (+15)	5-6
20	Houston Texans	1488 (-1)	6-5
21 (-4)	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	1486 (-4)	4-7
22 (+1)	Indianapolis Colts	1477 (+4)	6-5
23 (+1)	Atlanta Falcons	1476 (+8)	5-6
24 (-3)	Las Vegas Raiders	1469 (-8)	5-7
25 (+3)	Chicago Bears	1466 (+6)	4-8
26 (-1)	New England Patriots	1463 (-3)	2-9
27	Tennessee Titans	1463 (+2)	4-7
28 (+2)	New York Giants	1451 (+2)	4-8
29 (-3)	New York Jets	1450 (-12)	4-7
30 (-1)	Washington Commanders	1449 (-10)	4-8
31 (+1)	Carolina Panthers	1433 (-2)	1-10
32 (-1)	Arizona Cardinals	1431 (-14)	2-10

^(1)See Wikipedia. Elo ratings are numeric and assigned to each contestant. The ratings are used to estimate performance. After each game, the difference between a contestant’s estimated and actual performance is used to update their rating. For the NFL, this can all be summarized as "Who did you beat/lose to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to …

^(2)Moving backward through the years, each preceding season has a much smaller impact on the current ratings. Team ratings from 2010 have zero impact on today’s ratings. Ratings from only a couple years ago, say 2021, have almost no effect on today’s ratings. Seasons going back to 2010 are only used by the model to ensure its accuracy over thousands of NFL games.