A look at the NFL matchups using the NFL BCS

Using the NFL BCS that I published last night, let's have a look at Week 15's matchups with a ranking next to each team so that we can see which match-ups "stick out:"

Best games of the Week are highlighted in Yellow, while the stinkers (games you won't watch unless one of the teams are your favorite) are highlighted in Gray.

1:00 EST Games

#4 New Orleans Saints @ #5 Baltimore Ravens: Game of the Week

#29 Arizona Cardinals @ #32 Carolina Panthers: Stinker of the Week

#23 Cleveland Browns @ #30 Cincinnati Bengals: Battle of Ohio leaves much to be desired

#24 Washington Redskins @ #20 Dallas Cowboys: What used to be a meaningful match-up is now a game you probably will skip

#13 Jacksonville Jaguars @ #16 Indianapolis Colts: Looking at the ranking of these two teams--the top two in the AFC South--it makes you think that division just isn't that good.

#28 Buffalo Bills @ #15 Miami Dolphins: Not much to be said. Must win for the Dolphins.

#6 Philadelphia Eagles @ #7 New York Giants: 2nd best match-up of the week

#12 Kansas City Chiefs @ #21 St. Louis Rams: When you look at the Rams ranking and consider that they are the favorites to win their division; and then you look at the Chiefs ranking and consider that they'll probably have to win out to make the playoffs it make you see how unfair the NFL can be sometimes.

#27 Detroit Lions @ #14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: My personal opinion is that the Lions are better than that ranking indicates, but that Bucs ranking is just about right--they are not as good as their 8-5 record would suggest.

#17 Houston Texans @ #19 Tennessee Titans: Blah, no comment.

4:00 EST Games

#2 Atlanta Falcons @ #26 Seattle Seahawks: Biggest mismatch of the week

#31 Denver Broncos @ #18 Oakland Raiders- I told you the Raiders weren't that good.

#10 New York Jets @ #3 Pittsburgh Steelers: You'd think a matchup of top ten teams would inspire a split consensus over whose going to win this game, but every ESPN expert picks the Steelers here except Ron Jaworski.


Sunday Night Game

#9 Green Bay Packers @ #1 New England Patriots: In what should have been a great match-up, Aaron Rodgers will sit making this game one of the more lopsided ones of the week.

Monday Night Game

#8 Chicago Bears @ #25 Minnesota Vikings: In a game that's almost as big a mismatch as Atlanta vs. Seattle interest has been added by this game being played outdoors in Minnesota instead of in the Metrodome.

Let me make it clear that I am glad the NFL does not use a BCS system.  I just thought it'd be interesting to have a look at what it would be like.

Let me know your thoughts!

NFL BCS

So let's pretend the NFL used a BCS System to rank it's teams.  Here is the BCS formula for NCCA football, so let's apply it to the NFL.

For the human element of the poll (67%) I used the ESPN and CBSSportsline power rankings.  Now, these aren't composed of votes from a group of people so I couldn't assign a corresponding value to each first and second place vote...and so on, as they do in the NCAA.  So I simply just used each teams ranking in these polls as their contribution to their final BCS rankings.  For example, if Buffalo ranked 28th in the ESPN Power Rankings, and 27th in the CBS Rankings, those are the scores they get for the final BCS Rankings.

Then, just as the real BCS rankings do, I used computer rankings for the final third of the system.  The NCAA version uses six computer rankings then drops each teams highest and lowest rankings and takes the average as that teams contribution to its final ranking.

In these rankings I only use five computer rankings: Sagrarin Ratings, CPA Ratings, Sonny Moore Ratings, Football Outsiders DVOA Ratings, and Fanbay Computer Ratings. (Please click on the corresponding link to find out how each computer ranking is calculated).

After getting each teams computer ranking, I averaged that number with the human element rankings (ESPN and CBS Power Rankings) to come up with a final BCS Ranking.  I hope that explanation wasn't too confusing, but either way, here they are:

BCS Rank	Team	BCS Score
1		1.333333
2		2.111111
3		2.777778
4		5.222222
5		5.444444
6		6.222222
7		7.222222
8		8
9		8.555556
10		9.222222
11		10.88889
12		13.22222
13		13.66667
14		13.77778
15		14.66667
16		15
17		17.55556
18		18.33333
19		19.33333
20		20.66667
21		22.11111
22		22.22222
23		23.11111
24		23.55556
25		24.88889
26		25.88889
27		26.44444
28		26.55556
29		27.88889
30		29.44444
31		30.22222
32		32