Is anyone in the NFL actually good?
Certainly some teams are better than others, but a defining feature of the 2017 season has been a lack of truly dominant teams. Jacksonville currently leads the league in our power rankings, and while the Jaguars have been a pleasant surprise, they are also a team that got beat by the Jets and blown out at home by the Titans.
The Jags currently lead the league in nERD -- which measure a team’s expected margin of victory against a league-average team on a neutral field -- by a pretty solid margin. But there are also ample reasons to doubt a team quarterbacked by Blake Bortles.
Kansas City looked to be the league’s one clear elite team after a 5-0 start, but the Chiefs were knocked from their perch atop our power rankings after a lackluster performance in a loss to Pittsburgh (the 19-13 scoreline flattered the Chiefs, who were outgained by 188 yards and 2.2 yards per play).
And if you were waiting for New England -- the preseason Super Bowl favorite -- to reassert itself, you were probably disappointed Sunday, as the Patriots had to battle for four quarters to hold off the Jets. The Patriots' defense, which failed to contain Josh McCown, continues to be a liability.
The good news for fans is the league’s current setup has meant unpredictability, which can be a lot of fun (provided your team is not the victim of a whacky upset).
Still, we'll try to make sense of it all. In addition to nERD, we'll also be using our in-house Net Expected Points (NEP) metric.
Here is how the rest of the league breaks down through six weeks.