Image via NFL.com

Tweet

NFL Power Rankings January 4, 2022

By Andrew Hales, Assistant CouchGM

CouchGM’s weekly NFL power rankings, in order of descending championship probability. Power rankings will be published weekly on Tuesdays with each week’s update to the model. Listed below is each team's current Super Bowl probability, change in ranking vs last week, and last week’s Super Bowl probability.

The Top-5

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
1	Green Bay Packers	12.94%	0	12.63%
2	Buffalo Bills	10.34%	+1	9.74%
3	New England Patriots	9.33%	+1	7.69%
4	Tennessee Titans	9.33%	+5	4.29%
5	Kansas City Chiefs	7.90%	-3	10.76%

At one point this year, 4 of the top 5 CouchGM ranked teams were in the NFC. The only one left in the top 5 is Green Bay, who has officially clinched the top seed and coveted home field advantage in their conference. They completed the perfect home season beating the Lions to move to 8-0 at home. They either go to the Super Bowl or will suffer their only home loss of the year in the playoffs.

Tennessee, even with the number 1 seed, is not getting much love from our analysis. That would change if Derrick Henry comes back for the playoffs. If they win at the Texans they clinch the bye, so he’d have almost 3 additional weeks from today to recover.

There are 2 divisions that have yet to crown a champion: AFC East and NFC West. The AFC East is down to the Bills and Patriots. The Bills play the Jets in their last game so I would not advise betting that the Patriots will win it. There is a decent chance that the Bills win the division and get the #4 seed in the playoffs, meaning the first round game would be home against the Patriots.

The NFC West is the other division yet to crown a champion. A month ago the Cardinals played the Rams in Phoenix with a chance to essentially win the division. They obviously lost, haven’t won since until last week, and the Rams have not lost since.

Clinched Playoff Teams (plus the Colts)

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
6	Los Angeles Rams	6.85%	0	5.18%
7	Cincinnati Bengals	6.17%	+1	4.72%
8	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	6.14%	-1	4.43%
9	Indianapolis Colts	5.60%	+1	4.10%
10	Dallas Cowboys	5.55%	-5	7.60%
11	Arizona Cardinals	4.18%	0	3.76%

The Rams were able to win against the Ravens to hold on to the division lead over the Cardinals. They are now a win against the 49ers away from a monumental comeback to win the division. It’ll be easier said than done though. The Rams haven’t beat the 49ers since December 30, 2018! That’s 5 in a row.

The Colts are the only team here that hasn’t clinched a playoff berth. See notes below on what needs to happen.

The Cardinals, who delivered quite the blow to the Cowboys, won to avoid being the first team in NFL history to start the year 7-0 or better and end the year with 6 losses. The strange thing about the Cardinals is that they have the best Strength of Victory (SOV) of any NFC playoff team. SOV is the average winning percentage of the teams you have beat. If your SOV is low (hello Eagles, who have SOV of .344) then you’re getting by beating bad teams. The Cardinals apparently beat the good teams. I guess that’s something to give confidence heading into the playoffs. They’re also a league best 8-1 on the road, which is where they’ll be playing all their playoff games.

The Bengals have clinched the division. The Ravens collapse is complete, though it’s not totally fair since Lamar Jackson has been hurt. Their 5 losses in a row have been to playoff teams or teams in contention - Steelers, Browns, Packers, Bengals, Rams. They have the Steelers for the last game. Win and they have a chance. Lose and they’re out.

Still Alive

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
12	Los Angeles Chargers	3.29%	0	2.76%
13	New Orleans Saints	3.06%	+4	2.11%
14	San Francisco 49ers	2.52%	+1	2.24%
15	Philadelphia Eagles	2.36%	+1	2.22%
16	Las Vegas Raiders	1.75%	+4	1.42%
17	Pittsburgh Steelers	1.66%	+6	1.34%
18	Baltimore Ravens	1.59%	+1	1.72%

These are the teams whose games you want to watch this weekend. The NFL was smart and scheduled most of those games to be simultaneous to others that they directly impact, so as few teams as possible will know their fate before kickoff. For those of you counting at home, there are 8 teams fighting for 3 spots. 2 division champions are still up for grabs as well but that is a fight amongst teams that have already clinched.

Colts - win at the Jaguars and you’re in, lose and you’re out.

Chargers - win at the Raiders on Sunday Night and you’re in. Lose and you’re out.

Saints - need to win at the Falcons AND have the 49ers lose at the Rams. If they do get in, #7 is their only possibility since the Eagles have the tiebreaker.

49ers - win at the Rams (see notes above about their 5 game winning streak vs LA) OR Saints loss. Both games start at the same time so both the 49ers and Saints will have to play hard and keep one eye on the scoreboard.

Eagles - only team in this group that has clinched. If they win and 49ers lose they’ll move up to #6. Otherwise they are #7.

Raiders - the Raiders have the most funky group of scenarios. They could lose, with the right combination of other teams wins/losses, and still make the playoffs. Of the likely scenarios, lose and you’re out but a win gets you to #6 avoiding the Chiefs and Titans.

Steelers - need to win at Baltimore AND the Colts need to lose at the Jaguars.

Ravens - win at home against the Steelers AND the Colts need to lose AND the Raiders need to win. The Ravens need the most help of anyone on this list. After starting 8-3, they are staring down finishing the year 8-9.

The Raiders are the hottest team of this group, winners of 3 in a row. The Ravens are the opposite, losers of 5 in a row.

Reverse Draft Order

Since all eliminated teams have 0.00% championship probability, they are sorted in descending order of projected record.

Rank	Team	Projected Record	Change in Power Ranking	Draft Pick	Pick Traded
19	Miami Dolphins	8-9	-1	14	to Eagles
20	Minnesota Vikings	7-10	-6	13	N/A
21	Cleveland Browns	7-10	0	12	N/A
22	Denver Broncos	7-10	-9	11	N/A
23	Atlanta Falcons	7-10	-1	10	N/A
24	Washington Football Team	6-11	0	9	N/A
25	Chicago Bears	6-11	+2	8	to Giants
26	Seattle Seahawks	6-11	-1	7	to Jets
27	Carolina Panthers	5-12	-1	6	N/A
28	New York Giants	4-13	+1	5	N/A
29	New York Jets	4-13	+1	4	N/A
30	Houston Texans	4-13	-2	3	N/A
31	Detroit Lions	2-14-1	0	2	N/A
32	Jacksonville Jaguars	2-15	0	1	N/A

The Jaguars play the Colts in the last game of the year, so they’ll likely lose and wrap up the top pick in next year’s draft. The Lions’ last game is against the Packers, who have nothing to play for having already clinched the #1 seed. I assume soon-to-be back-to-back MVP Aaron Rogers won’t even dress for the game. If the Lions win, they’ll still get the #2 pick in the draft, but their 2 of their 3 wins would be against Super Bowl contenders - the Packers and Cardinals (the other was to the Vikings). Crazy.

As we can see, the Jets have two picks in the top-7 (4, 7) and the Giants have two in the top-8 (5, 8). Half of the top 8 picks are going to a New York team.

Jets - Time to see how good their GM’s are at scouting and drafting. The Jets, in theory, have their QB of the future after drafting Zach Wison #2 overall last year, but he didn’t play great, throwing 8 TD to 11 interceptions in 12 games. Is that because he is not going to last in the NFL or because the team around him stinks? His fate could depend on how they use their top picks this year.

Giants - the Giants have said they are planning to bring back both QB Daniel Jones and their coach. They, like their crosstown rivals, sound like they are thinking that getting top players for their QB will be what propels them to being a winning team. The only question is whether one of them will trade down and try to add 3 or 4 late first round picks instead of 2 top 8 picks.

Seattle swung for the fences trading this pick (and last year’s 1st rounder) to the Jets for Jamal Adams, but with injuries that trade is a major stinker for Seattle. Now they may be forced to trade Russell Wilson just to try to build the rest of their roster. Having said that, I’m a believer that players make coaches look good (and bad), so I would rather get a new coach than dump the QB. We see it every year that the QB is the most important position. Have a good one and you can count on being in playoff contention. Look at the Saints - last year with Drew Brees they were the #2 seed in their conference, but now this year they’re going to need help to make the playoffs.

back to blog