In week 7 Denico Autry Jersey , the 1-5 Colts destroyed Buffalo 37 to 5. 27th in the NFL, which amazingly was exactly their ranking by record. Oh, NFL media analysts, you add so much to the conversation. At the time, my own take was this: After I wrote that, the Colts won 8 of the next 9 games on their playoff push to eventually be considered one of the better teams in the league. This isn’t to pat myself on the back or trumpet my wisdom (although, I am kind of a big deal), rather I wanted to re-visit that exercise to see where the Colts rank heading into the playoffs. THE DATAHere are the metrics I previously used updated through the end of the regular season.ODDSAfter beating the Bills, Sportsline.com had the Colts odds of winning the Superbowl at 100:1, which put them as the 20th best team. As of today, those odds have improved to 25:1, tied for 8th place with 3 other teams. POINT DIFFERENTIALSWins are obviously highly correlated to point differentials. Through 7 weeks, The Colts had scored 4 more points than their opponents, which ranked 18th in the league. After burying the Titans for the 2nd time this year, the Colts differential ended the season at +89. That’s the 8th best mark of any team. PYTHAGOREAN WINSPoint differentials can be converted into Pythagorean Win Expectation, which estimates the number of wins a team “should have”. When the Colts were sitting at 2-5, Pythagorean Expectation predicted the Colts to win 8.2 games which put them in 17th place at the time. The season long +89 mark translates to 10.3 expected wins, which is eerily accurate and ranks 8th for the year.BLOWOUTSBuffalo was the first blowout win the Colts logged in the 2018 season but it wasn’t the last. Defining a blowout as a 3+ score win Nyheim Hines Color Rush Jersey , the Rams had the league’s most with 4. Along with 7 other teams, the Colts notched 3 (Titans, Cowboys, Bills). So, that means the Colts are at worst 9th in that measure (or 2nd depending on how you look at it). DRIVE SUCCESS RATEThe Colts started the year with a 7 week offensive DSR of 71.1% while the defense gave up 70.6% to opponents. The difference between those numbers was a team measure of +0.5%, ranked 17th at that time. Over the following 9 weeks, Indy improved their season offensive DSR to 75.1% (5th) while the defense held steady at 70.3% (13th). The end of year differential of 4.8% is the 7th best mark of any team. DVOAFootball Outsiders takes a detailed look at team performance and adjusts their data by opponent. In their DVOA measure, the Colts were 14th after week 7, but ended the year 8th (10th offense, 10th defense, 12th special teams).CONCLUSIONMost of these metrics put the Colts at or around the 8th best regular season team, which is also their win record rank (4-way tie). So have we come full circle? Are lazy pundits right and the Colts really are what their record says they are?No. I believe that when incorporating the whole season, then 8th is a good estimate of overall play, but those that have watched the Colts know that this team is much better now than when they started the year.We are overall healthier, Andrew Luck has scraped off the rust and the rookies have developed into some league leading players (Quenton Nelson, Darius Leonard et al.).And while the Colts are seemingly on their way up, other teams slowed from their electric starts. So, season long averages are probably not the best measure of how good a team is after week 17.To power-rank the teams, I need a better methodology (and yes I just verbed power rank . . . and acted as if verbed is a word). In my weekly stats articles https://www.coltsfanshop.com/Johnny-Unitas-Jersey , I show trailing 5 week averages but that is such a small sample that opponent strength can be far too much noise. Football Outsiders applies a recency weighting (early weeks = low weight, recent weeks = full weight) to calculate a weighted DVOA for each team. I think this is the right approach and so I borrowed those weights and applied them to a few of the metrics listed above. Weighted RankingsTeamPlayoff TeamWgt DVOARankWgt Pyth WinsRankWgt Off DSRRankWgt Def DSRRankWgt DSR DiffRankTeamPlayoff TeamWgt DVOARankWgt Pyth WinsRankWgt Off DSRRankWgt Def DSRRankWgt DSR DiffRankUsing weighted data, the Colts rank 4th by DVOA, 4th by Pythagorean wins and 2nd by DSR Differential. To me, this is more indicative of where the Colts team is now, which of course is what a power ranking should be. Heading into the playoffs the Colts are one of the more dangerous teams. The Texans are not playing nearly as well (13th DVOA, 8th DSR Diff), so any given Sunday aside, the Colts should feel confident heading to NRG Stadium.(pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who says the colts are 2.5 point underdogs) INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Adam Vinatieri celebrated one major milestone Sunday by becoming the NFL’s career field goal leader.He would have preferred doing it by adding to his league record for victories.The 23-year veteran made the record-breaking 566th field goal with 2 seconds left in the first half and No. 567 on a 44-yarder in overtime to give the Indianapolis Colts a 34-31 lead before watching Ka’imi Fairbairn make two more field goals to give Houston a 37-34 victory.“It’s more fun when you get a win that’s for sure. But it’s a good record, a fun record, just would have been nice on a win,” he said.“I think I’ll probably think about it more when I’m done and gone. I was thinking about it when guys were congratulating me during the game, and it just kind of hit me just like that that’s more than anybody’s ever done.”The previous record of 565 belonged to Hall of Famer Morten Andersen, who played high school football at Indianapolis Ben Davis.Vinatieri tied the record by making three kicks in last week’s wet loss at Philadelphia before breaking the record on a bright, sunny day on his home turf.Had he not gotten the chance Sunday, Vinatieri’s next chance would have come Thursday at New England, where he started his career in 1996.But the 45-year-old kicker, the oldest player in the league, kept that story line off the books by making the medium-range field goal to get the Colts within 21-10. Afterward Jacoby Brissett Jersey , Vinatieri’s teammates wanted to celebrate more than the new career leader did.“I heard the crowd a little more than usual. I think every one of my teammates came up to me, we were down at the time and was kind of like, ‘We’re down let’s go win this game,'” he said. “Wish I had one more opportunity, I guess.”Vinatieri needs to get used to these sorts of days given the charts he’s still climbing.The South Dakota State alum played in his 341st game, breaking a tie with Hall of Famer George Blanda to move into fourth. If he plays in all 12 remaining games, he will pass Jeff Feagles (343) and tie Gary Anderson (353) for second all time.His next field goal attempt will surpass Anderson (672) for No. 2 all time.And Vinatieri has moved within 26 points of breaking Andersen’s career scoring record of 2,544. Vinatieri has said he also hopes to break that record at Lucas Oil Stadium. He is the only player on Indy’s roster who played on opening night of the stadium in 2008.What Vinatieri, dubbed the best clutch kicker in league history, does best is win.He’s participated in a league-record 226 regular-season victories, owns four Super Bowl rings, has played on six AFC championship teams and is the NFL’s career scoring leader in postseason games (234 points).His most memorable kicks do not count in the official league records.He made the decisive field goals in the final minutes to give New England two Super Bowl wins and two field goals in the infamous “Snow Bowl”, or “Tuck Rule Game”, to help the Patriots beat Oakland in overtime and start the run to the franchise’s first Super Bowl crown.But he would have liked to win this one.“It’s weird, you know, you come off a loss and it doesn’t feel quite the same way,” Vinatieri said. “I’m sure I’ll look back at in years to come and it will be pretty special.”