Welcome to the first edition of my XFL computer ratings for 2020!



Once upon a time, I told myself I wouldn’t be doing this. The AAF left me thinking I wouldn’t be able to love a new upstart football league. But here we are, with a fresh set of ratings after three weeks of action.







It might seem incredible that there’s such a big gap between the top 4 and bottom 4 teams in the league, but that’s par for the course in any league when we’re this early into the season. As more games are played and more error is introduced into the model—i.e. as game results start to deviate more and more from expectations—that gap should narrow and we should have a few teams in the range of -5 to 5, while we have one team currently in there, and only barely.



Here’s what really stands out to me: the teams on top were all in the same “pod” in the first two weeks; then, they all won in Week 3. Let me explain what I mean.







On the first night of the season, the Roughnecks hosted and defeated the Wildcats. The ne…