2018 NFL Power Rankings: Week 17
Teams Ranked 12th to 1st
| Rank | Team | nERD | Rec | Playoff Odds | Off. NEP Rank | Def. NEP Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Houston Texans | 2.68 | 10-5 | 100.0% | 11 | 12 | -1 |
| 11 | Indianapolis Colts | 2.84 | 9-6 | 47.7% | 8 | 20 | -1 |
| 10 | Minnesota Vikings | 2.99 | 8-6-1 | 71.9% | 23 | 3 | 2 |
| 9 | Seattle Seahawks | 4.50 | 9-6 | 100.0% | 9 | 14 | 0 |
| 8 | New England Patriots | 5.67 | 10-5 | 100.0% | 4 | 16 | -1 |
| 7 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 5.70 | 8-6-1 | 24.7% | 5 | 15 | 1 |
| 6 | Kansas City Chiefs | 5.82 | 11-4 | 100.0% | 1 | 31 | -1 |
| 5 | Los Angeles Chargers | 7.29 | 11-4 | 100.0% | 6 | 9 | -2 |
| 4 | Baltimore Ravens | 7.34 | 9-6 | 75.3% | 18 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | Chicago Bears | 7.47 | 11-4 | 100.0% | 14 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | Los Angeles Rams | 8.85 | 12-3 | 100.0% | 3 | 10 | 0 |
| 1 | New Orleans Saints | 9.53 | 13-2 | 100.0% | 2 | 11 | 0 |
After Week 12, I asked myself: "What are the Seattle Seahawks?"
Four weeks have passed, and I'm still not sure we know the answer, maybe making Seattle an exception to the idea that our nERD metric has made up its mind on teams.
Heading into Week 13, the Seahawks were 6-5 with the 11th-best scoring margin in the league, despite having played a challenging schedule. The point differential owed much to a sterling -- if apparently unsustainable -- turnover margin. Seattle was 23rd in terms of yards per play margin (-0.6) but had a plus-eight turnover differential.
Since then, they have gone 3-1 with wins over San Francisco, Minnesota and Kansas City, while losing in overtime on the road against the 49ers.
In this time, Seattle has gotten better in terms of yards per play margin but was still negative at -0.2. The wins kept coming because rather than regressing, the Seahawks' turnover rate got even better. In just the past four weeks, Seattle is plus-six in the turnover department, behind only Houston. On the season as a whole, no team can best the Seahawks' +14 mark.
Seattle has also been good in high leverage areas, ranking fifth in third down conversion rate, seventh in red zone conversion rate on offense and fifth in red zone defense, but that only goes so far.
The Seahawks have an overall NEP per play margin of +0.05, but on plays without turnovers, this drops to -0.01. This suggests turnovers have indeed been a huge part of why they have been successful.
Takeaways and giveaways are massively important to team success, but they are also wildly inconsistent and more a product of luck than is commonly believed. Seattle is doing some things that would lead to a better-than-average turnover rate, as rushes produce fewer turnovers on average than passes and no one runs more frequently than the Seahawks. Russell Wilson also has a track record of better-than-average interception rates, so we can safely attribute at least some of Seattle's low giveaway rate to factors other than luck.
As we predicted back in Week 13, the Seahawks' sky-high interception rate on defense looked prone to regress, and it has; they were 3rd here through 11 games but now rank just 19th. It is hard to intercept a high rate of passes when allowing a high rate of completions, and this seems to finally be catching up to the Seahawks.
In other areas though, regression has not come. They have recovered 77.8% of their own fumbles, the second-highest mark in the league and a number that has actually increased since we last touched on it. The Seahawks are tied for the 17th-most fumbles in the NFL but are tied for the 2nd-fewest lost fumbles per game. Their defense is getting into the fumble recovery act as well, ranking fifth in takeaway fumble recovery percentage.
Seattle is probably better than its negative yardage margin indicates, but worse than its point differential, which seems to have been inflated by a good amount of turnover luck.
Then again, the same could be said a month ago, and little has changed.
