2018 NFL Power Rankings: Week 12
Teams Ranked 32nd to 23rd
| Rank | Team | nERD | Rec | Playoff Odds | Off. NEP Rank | Def. NEP Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Oakland Raiders | -10.29 | 2-8 | 0.0% | 25 | 30 | 0 |
| 31 | Miami Dolphins | -9.52 | 5-5 | 7.8% | 27 | 28 | 0 |
| 30 | Arizona Cardinals | -9.37 | 2-8 | 0.0% | 32 | 6 | -1 |
| 29 | New York Jets | -8.95 | 3-7 | 0.1% | 30 | 16 | +1 |
| 28 | Detroit Lions | -6.58 | 4-6 | 3.2% | 16 | 31 | 0 |
| 27 | Buffalo Bills | -6.27 | 3-7 | 0.8% | 31 | 3 | 0 |
| 26 | San Francisco 49ers | -6.08 | 2-8 | 0.0% | 26 | 23 | 0 |
| 25 | New York Giants | -4.51 | 3-7 | 0.5% | 21 | 24 | 0 |
| 24 | Tennessee Titans | -3.8 | 5-5 | 16.7% | 22 | 21 | -6 |
| 23 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | -3.59 | 3-7 | 0.7% | 12 | 29 | 0 |
It's been a bizarre two weeks for Tampa Bay.
In this span, the Buccaneers are second in the NFL (behind New Orleans) in yardage margin (+366) and ninth in yards per play margin (+1.5), while also posting a +8.9% Success Rate margin (Success Rate measures the percentage of plays that yield positive NEP; for context, the Rams came into Week 11 with the league’s best Success Rate differential at +6.4%).
Oh, and they lost both games and got outscored by 16 points. The culprit was turnovers, as Tampa Bay lost four apiece in losses to Washington and the Giants without forcing a single one of their own.
The stretch is a microcosm of the Bucs' season, as the team has moved the ball exceptionally well but has not been able to parlay that into points due to giveaways.
Tampa Bay is 4th in the league in yards per play (6.7), 5th in yards per drive (38.5) and 3rd in third-down conversion rate (49.1%), but 12th in points per drive and tied for 18th in the percentage of drives ending in a score.
This is mostly because the Bucs are worst in the league by a longshot in terms of turnovers per drive (24.4%), which is more than double the league average of 11.9%. The gap between Tampa Bay and Arizona, the second-worst team here, is bigger than the gap between the Cardinals and Raiders, who rank 17th.
We should probably expect this to regress toward the mean going forward, since turnovers are inherently random events. Quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick have been turnover-prone in the past, but their career interception rates are 3.2% and 3.5%, respectively, while the Bucs’ team mark is 5.6% in 2018.
Still, these giveaways, combined with poor play on defense, have already buried Tampa Bay into too deep of a hole to climb out of, turnover regression or not.
