Not much to say this week. Several sub-.500 teams are hanging around just outside the top ten (San DIego, Green Bay, Jacksonville) while the opposite is true for some teams that look a lot better on the field than they do on paper (Denver, Dallas, Minnesota, Indianapolis). 2-7 St. Louis made some big improvements as the season progressed but their humongous blowout loss to the Jets has slapped them back down to #32. Read More

My apologies for the lateness of these rankings...I got caught up in the politics of the week and nearly forgot that I'm trying to run a football site in my free time. Tennessee is still #1 in the rankings, followed by the Giants, followed by the Eagles. Pittsburgh's win over Washington was good enough to bump them up to 4th while the 'Skins fell to 18th. Buffalo continues their freefall with another loss and a drop to 13th. Check out the rankings, and ... Read More

Some thoughts on a fine, pre-election Monday morning: DENVER'S DEMISE: The Broncos lost to the Dolphins at home yesterday, pushing them to 4-4 on the year after a 4-1 start. Their three game losing streak should come as a surprise to nobody, considering the fact that they have been on a bearish trend since their blowout victory in week one. If there's any good news for Broncos fans, it is that their week seven loss allowed them to hit bottom and we can ... Read More

Last week, ESPN's Madden 09 predictions were uncannily accurate. This week they've got several more games that surprised me. Here's a list of their predictions: Jets 28, Bills 24 Bears 35, Lions 16 Jaguars 20, Bengals 13 Browns 22, Ravens 14 Packers 21, TItans 14 Buccaneers 24, Chiefs 17 Rams 31, Cardinals 21 Vikings 31, Texans 19 Broncos 17, Dolphins 13 Cowboys 28, Giants 24 Eagles 31, Seahawks 27 Falcons 21, Raiders 16 Patriots 31, Colts 23 Steelers 24, Redskins 13 A lot of analysts have the Bills, Ravens, Titans, Cardinals, Dolphins, Giants, and possibly even the ... Read More

I don't usually go for the trendy top-ten lists and awards, but what the heck. I can be subjective too sometimes. Feel free to comment on any of my selections here...I really do want to hear what you have to say. OFFENSIVE MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: DREW BREES, NEW ORLEANS I'm a pretty traditional guy, so when I say Most Valuable Player I'm talking about the player who has the biggest positive impact on his team. There is one reason, and one reason only, that the New ... Read More

Strange, strange, strange. The WTM estimates correlate with actual results by .9026 now, which is good, but it worries me that I've got the NFC East cellar-dwelling Eagles ranked #3 this week. Either the Eagles will win out in the second half or they're going to be one of those teams that underachieves all year long. Leading the pack, still, are the Tennesee Titans. They're a tough bunch to figure out and their win against Indianapolis last night all but locked them in for ... Read More

The Football Professor is a pretty smart guy. I’ve been following his charts for a while now and he’s usually right on. Although we took different paths to get to the New Orleans Saints victory over the San Diego Chargers this past weekend, the end result was the same. We also share the same first name, even though I go by D.S. (that’s Doug Scott). In any case, because of the Football Professor’s stock market philosophy concerning NFL betting, I’ve ... Read More

The halfway point of the season is a great time to see how inter-conference play is going this year. At the time of my first report the NFC held a slim 10-8 lead over the AFC. The NFC lead has grown, albeit very slightly, to 15-11 behind strong play from the NFC East and South. Take a look at how the top teams from each conference have played this year: AFC (11-15) Tennessee: 1-0 Buffalo: 2-1 New England: 2-0 Pittsburgh: 0-2 New York Jets: 1-0 Denver: 2-0 NFC (15-11) New York Giants: 2-1 Carolina: ... Read More

A quick post today, just wanting to point something out about yesterday's game between New Orleans and San Diego. I nailed it. Check out the chart I ran in last week's Bulls and Bears post in which I predicted the Saints' next few weeks: Check out their actual performance in week eight: Now, for you nay-sayers, I'll admit that the lead wasn't as high as I predicted nor did I realize that I marked the prediction down for week 9 in the previous chart. The Saints ... Read More

Topsy-turvy. All over the place. Inconsistent. Fickle. No matter how you say it, this year has to be ranked among the strangest ever. "Any given Sunday", so they say. Here are the biggest movers and shakers of the past week: NEW ORLEANS: lost to Carolina, dropped from 4 to 13. PITTSBURGH: defeated Cincinnati, climbed from 11 to 4. CAROLINA: defeated New Orleans, climbed from 14 to 7. DALLAS: lost to St. Louis, dropped from 10 to 15. INDIANAPOLIS: lost to Green Bay, dropped from 12 to 19. NEW ENGLAND: defeated ... Read More

Can you believe that we're almost halfway through football season? At this time last year we were talking about undefeated teams, record-breaking performances and a little something called Spygate. This year, things are just a little bit different. Nobody expects Tennessee to finish undefeated. As a matter of fact, I may be the only person to make mention of the subject so far this year. Nobody is talking about the two winless teams (Cincinnati and Detroit) either. Most of the discussion at this point is ... Read More

I'm having one of those days where I just want to redefine a lot of things. That is now spilling over to this blog, so bear with me for a few paragraphs as I walk you through the process. A little history first - this site began as The Football Professor...I think...or was it The Science of Football? I honestly can't remember back to 2005. At some point it became TSOF and then it evolved into The Science of Winning...The Blog because I ... Read More

A quick quiz to get things started today: the Bills, Patriots, Steelers and Broncos are some of the best teams in the AFC, the Cowboys, Eagles, Packers and Panthers are some of the best teams in the NFC, the NFC is coming off of a Super Bowl victory, Inter-conference play is relatively even, So what year is it? If you said 2008, you would be right. If you said 1996, you would also be correct. With a few exceptions, I would also accept 1981 as an answer. It should come as ... Read More

First, a quick refresher. Inter-Conference Play has a .328 correlation with Super Bowl victories. That's not a lot, but it certainly isn't nothing either. The NFC has won 21 Super Bowls from 1967 to 2007 and eleven times they led or tied in ICPD (Inter-Conference Play Dominance) in the same year. During their hot stretch from 1981 to 1996 the NFC won 15 Super Bowls and led or tied in ICPD 10 times. Here is a chart showing the trends headed into the 2008 ... Read More

After shooting down the Seahawks, the New York Giants are back on top of the WTM Power Rankings. Their 38 point victory matched the largest lead that any team has had this year (the other team was Philadelphia in week one) and they lead the league in average High, Low and Close. They have only trailed once this year, by four points against the Bengals. Needless to say, they have played much better than I thought they would. By the end of the ... Read More