The Weekly "National Poll"

Six weeks are complete, and the National Poll has officially reached the point where nobody can hide behind draft grades, preseason expectations or reputation anymore.

With ten results now available for every manager, preseason expectations have essentially disappeared from the equation — record, normalized all-play performance, scoring, consistency and schedule are determining the poll. And we have a new No. 1.

Week 4 was the week the National Poll finally stopped looking anything like the preseason. Only two teams remain perfect at 8-0, several of last week’s unbeaten teams finally took their first losses, and some enormous Week 4 performances completely reshuffled the middle of the rankings. At this point, preseason expectations and manager history have faded into little more than tiebreakers — actual wins, median results, normalized all-play, scoring, consistency and schedule dif

Six managers remain perfect at 6-0, while several teams that began September buried in the preseason rankings have forced their way into the playoff conversation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, after a week of being sick and catching up from vacation, your favorite Commissioner is back! Week 2 is complete, and the National Poll is beginning to look much less like a preseason projection and much more like a résumé.

Week 1 is in the books, which means the National Poll finally has real football to work with. This week’s rankings give actual Week 1 performance slightly more weight than the preseason model while still keeping enough of the Week 0 information to avoid completely overreacting to one Sunday.