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I could ignore third-down efficiency stats no more. They are added into the Index due to how well they correlate with wins, especially, at least this year.

The benchmark for the 2006 regular season, for correlative purposes, is this: average top 10 in winning percentage, .700; bottom 10, .300. The closer you get to these, the better the single stat at this point in time for 2006. These are the winning percentages of the top and bottom 10 team in each of our categories: Net Yards Per Pass Attempt top 10, .656, bottom 10, .356; Net Points Per Pass Attempt top 10, .625, bottom 10, .344; INT-Net top 10, .638, bottom 10, .363; Move Net (runs plus completions) per game top 10, .625, bottom 10, .363; Net Red Zone possessions (per game) top 10, .656, bottom 10, .363; net third down percentage top 10, .694, bottom 10, .400. Note the records for some other categories not included: net yards per rush top 10, .519, bottom 10, .494; net red zone TD efficiency top 10, .619, bottom 10, .388; net average yards on first down top 10, .563, bottom 10, .400; net fumbles (lost/recovered) top 10, .556, bottom 10, .413.

One good criticism of this system is that it doesn't adjust for quality of opposition. But changes made due to this are usually marginal. Plus, there's a case to be made that quality of opponent works both ways. And, technically, the Yerkes-Dodson arousal curve makes a good case for teams playing up or down to their level of competition.

The points teams earn in each category merely reflects where they rank among the 32 teams in each stat. For example, 1 point means the team is first in that category, 21 means they're 21st. The Power number is the sum of all these rankings. So, the lower the Power number, the better the team.

The point of this Power Index is to learn why teams win or lose. It's not to be used as a predictive tool. While we are confident that the good teams and bad teams as reflected here will play that way prospectively on balance, it's impossible to know which teams will play well or poorly in one game, as performance can deviate too far from average "on any given Sunday."

Key: YPA Net=Yards per Passing Attempt (sack yards included); Move Net=runs plus completions; PPA=Points per Passing Attempt (TD passes times 7 divided by passing attempts); RZ Net=Inside the 20 possessions, 3D-Net=percentage of third downs converted minus percentage allowed; Proj. Wins=number of wins if Power rankings perfectly correlated to wins and if rankings points were distributed as are wins.

	Team	YPA Net	INT Net	Move Net	PPA Net	RZ Net	3D-Net	Power	Proj. Wins
1	New England	13	2	3	1	1	6	26	14
2	Baltimore	8	1	2	12	3	1	27	14
3	San Diego	4	5	4	5	4	7	29	14
4	Indianapolis	3	6	14	4	6	3	36	13
5	Jacksonville	9	6	6	7	2	12	42	13
6	Chicago	5	11	7	6	8	8	45	12
7	New Orleans	1	18	1	21	5	2	48	12
8	Philadelphia	2	2	25	2	14	10	55	12
9	Pittsburgh	6	22	8	15	6	11	68	11
10	Dallas	7	22	10	16	8	9	72	10
11	New York (A)	12	13	13	17	15	4	74	10
12	Kansas City	14	10	15	14	12	13	78	10
13	Green Bay	19	9	8	29	12	5	82	10
14	Cincinnati	10	6	22	9	16	25	88	9
15	St. Louis	16	4	10	19	17	28	94	9
16	Denver	17	14	21	3	24	16	95	9
17	Minnesota	24	12	5	18	20	20	99	8
18	New York(N)	23	14	22	11	11	23	104	8
19	Seattle	22	30	12	13	18	14	109	7
20	Buffalo	11	14	29	10	24	22	110	7
21	Carolina	15	22	16	22	26	18	119	7
22	Arizona	18	14	24	23	20	21	120	7
23	Miami	21	32	17	28	8	17	123	6
24	Atlanta	31	22	18	8	19	26	124	6
25	Houston	30	18	19	26	23	24	140	5
26	Washington	25	26	20	30	22	27	150	4
27	San Francisco	27	18	28	25	29	30	157	4
28	Tampa Bay	32	28	26	31	26	19	162	3
29	Detroit	20	30	32	20	30	32	164	3
29	Cleveland	26	28	27	24	28	31	164	3
29	Oakland	28	27	30	32	32	15	164	3
32	Tennessee	29	18	31	27	31	29	165	3