How Week 1 Results Affected Top of AFC Hierarchy
The Ravens, Bills, and Chiefs have been the AFC’s Big Three in recent years, and that’s how they’re viewed this season as well.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell looked at how the results from Week 1 affected the AFC hierarchy, using ESPN’s Football Power Index as a guide.
Heading into Week 1, FPI gave the Ravens a 20.4% chance of being the AFC’s top seed. The Bills were next (18.8%), followed by the Chiefs (18.4%).
The Bills leapfrogged the Ravens after their win Sunday night, as they now have a 30% chance of securing the No. 1 seed, while the Ravens are second at 16.8%.
The Los Angeles Chargers have the third-best odds (15.8%) after their 27-21 win over the Chiefs in Week 1. Kansas City fell to No. 4 at 7.5%.
Regarding the Ravens, Barnwell wrote: “It seems telling that the Ravens lost their season opener and still managed to mostly maintain their chances of coming away with the top seed. In part, that owes to FPI’s belief that this is the best team in football. The model saw the Ravens narrowly ahead of the Eagles and Chiefs heading into Week 1, and after they became the first team to drop 40 points on a Sean McDermott-led defense in Buffalo since Carson Wentz and the Colts did it in 2021, FPI only likes the Ravens more.
“That might seem weird given that the Ravens lost, of course, but the model is giving Baltimore a boost for playing so well on the road against another highly ranked team. The Ravens recovered only one of three fumbles and went 1-for-3 in the red zone, the latter a surprise for the league’s most efficient red zone offense a year ago. The Ravens averaged nearly 9 yards per play, the most any team has generated against a McDermott defense since he was the coordinator for the Panthers in 2016 and went up against eventual league MVP Matt Ryan and Kyle Shanahan. If you want to pin credit for the fumbles and the red zone stops on the Bills’ defense, you’re entirely within your right to do so, but FPI sees this as a dominant performance by a truly great offense.”
While the Bills hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Ravens, Barnwell noted that advanced metrics such as FPI and DVOA still see Baltimore as the better team.
“This is a very good team, and while the Ravens have the Chiefs, Rams, Texans and Lions coming up before the end of October, five of their next six games are at home,” Barnwell wrote. “Baltimore’s schedule gets very friendly in the second half, too.”
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