SFL Power Rankings: In Conclusion
It felt like just yesterday that we kicked this season off down in Houston and here we are entering the final week of Season 23! We’ve had four different teams that sat atop these rankings and they never held it for more than 3 weeks consecutively. This season has been up and down for a bunch of different teams as they entered and exited the top 16, namely the Revolution, and now we await the final weekend with not one seed locked in and 16 teams fighting for 12 spots!
voting breakdown
We will forego the usual breakdown and instead let’s talked about the unmasking of everyone’s favorite voter: Elo! Well, weighted Elo to be exact but Elo all the same. So let’s hit y’all with some stats since I know not everyone understands Elo or may not trust it after seeing where it has ranked some teams. The weights change every 3 weeks as the season progresses and the standard Elo begins to see the shape of teams that season and so in the beginning it is a 70/30 split between no regression and standard. By the championship game that split will be 10/90 as the teams that are good that season should be given a bigger weight than how teams have done historically. Standard Elo this season is correctly picking winners this season at a rate of 70.5% or a record of 95-38-6; Historical Elo’s record is 94-43-2 or 68.35% this season. Both of those records will end being in the top 5 all-time of correct pick percentage since we began tracking in Season 1! I say all of this to say that while the rankings may look a bit wonky in the early goings the rankings begin to figure themselves out towards the back half and begin to look like anyone else’s rankings that we have on the panel. There are some teams that it likes a bit more than others like Florida who are back to back champs or Canton who is 24-3 this calendar year or even a D.C. team that had a strong Season 22 campaign and is now 23-15 in the 2k4 era and was 18-9 coming into this season. Eddie Gauge has been pulling his hair out trying to decipher Elo’s rankings to figure out who could possibly keep Arizona so low after the season they had but now compare Elo to Eddie’s Week 15 rankings and let me know how it looks. Over the years Elo has had its own rankings posted by us and was then pivoted into Team Rating but to cut down on extra work and confusion and to add to the cast that we’ve built here in the Power Rankings, Elo has found its newest home and will continue to live on here as well as in the shadows doing God knows what else. Side note: No one guessed Elo. Shame.
worst case scenario
#17 Louisiana Revolution (5-6) SoV: .273
Louisiana is back on the seesaw and this time, despite still being in the hunt, has fallen out of the top 16 to a Legion squad who is just playing for pride and spoils. The Revs needed to win out to have any sort of realistic shot at the postseason and a heartbreaking OT loss to a generic QB led Houston team is quite the way to go out after beating an upstart expansion team in Nashville(6-5). Defense may win championships and their 5th ranked defense would sure come in handy but offense is needed to win the close ones and it’s on the complete opposite end of the spectrum clocking in at 22nd ranked. The coaching change in Louisiana seems to have come a little too late and maybe with a full season under Gerald the defense can repeat and the offense can get back on the horse since even a middling offense could see this team back to their early heights as a franchise.
#11 Lexington Miners (7-5) SoV: .338
The Miners are actually in a decent spot at 7-5 as that should be enough to extend your season but they’ve been here before and missed and if games fall a certain way it looks like, on paper, it may happen again. Now, a lot does need to happen but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Carolina would need to complete their season with a win over an eliminated Indianapolis team that’s changing hands at the close of the season. Nashville would need to get back to their giant killing ways and take down Mexico City at home. And finally, Atlanta would need to top Florida in The Eye and send the Storm tumbling out of the Top 4. If all of this comes to pass then those three teams should be moving on to the postseason and Lexington will have another winning season where they end up left out in the cold. As I said though this is all how it looks on paper; we will know for sure Saturday night when it all get broken down on the Scenario Show(I haven’t heard that it’s happening yet but I assume it is).
week 15 premier matchup
#12 Atlanta Swarm @ #4 Florida Storm(-4.5) | O/U 43.5 | OCT. 20th 6:30 PM EST
This game will end up meaning the most to a lot of different teams just as it will mean a lot to the two teams involved. Atlanta can shut down all of the critics and the calls to fold and the 2-10 predictions by beating Florida and heading to the postseason. Who cares what seed you end up in or if you end up as one and done. You made it and they can’t take that away from you. Florida, on the other hand, is in the postseason as expected but their seeding can be as high as #2 but as low as, realistically, #6. That first round bye is always a boon and having at least one home game to look forward to is a good springboard for a deep run in the playoffs. Outside of these two squads there is potentially Mexico City, Minnesota, Arizona, Baltimore and Fort Worth who could see their seeds shift up or down with how the result ends here and for half of those teams the shift could be in or out of a bye. The commish nailed the schedule on the final week as we will all have to wait and see how it all shakes out and what could or could not happen after Friday & Saturday games start to clear up the many paths ahead.