NFL Power Rankings Week 7: Will Matt Cassel Make A Difference?

Here's a look at the Dallas Cowboys and NFC East power rankings heading into week seven of the 2015 NFL season.

Opinion-based rankings

CBSSports.com (Prisco) - No. 16 (16)

They come out of the bye with a new quarterback in Matt Cassel. Is that a good thing?

CBSSports (Kirwan) - No.16 (16)

Is Matt Cassel the answer? I don't know. But Brandon Weeden wasn't winning. Dallas needs to show they can stay in the race without Tony Romo.

Shutdown Corner - No. 16 (14)

All that stuff I wrote about the Steelers up there? About how they figured out ways to win without their quarterback? Yeah, it can be done.

FOX Sports - No. 16 (16)

Matt Cassel is an excellent play-action passer, but his play relies on the strength of the running game. We could get our first glimpse at Christine Michael as the featured back in Week 7. With Randy Gregory on the way back from injury, the Cowboys could emerge as one of the NFL’s elite pass-rushing units.

ESPN - No. 16 (18)

Will Matt Cassel make a difference? He's 9-17 as a starter with a 38.2 Total QBR since the start of the 2011 season.

Newsday - No. 17 (16)

Matt Cassel gets his turn to see if he can jumpstart the offense in place of Brandon Weeden. The stakes are high in his first start: the Cowboys are at the Giants on Sunday.

Bleacher Report - No. 19 (19)

Cassel is proof that even experience with being awful is still experience, and he'll give Dallas another source of game-managing hope. But please recall that in 2014 with the Minnesota Vikings he completed only 57.7 percent of his pass attempts.

Washington Post - No. 19 (21)

The QB switch to Matt Cassel has drawn the most attention. But the promotion of rookie La’el Collins to the starting lineup at guard could have the more lasting impact. Collins could make the offensive line even stronger long after Cassel has given back the starting job to Tony Romo.

USA Today - No. 21 (18)

In span of nine months, we may have gone from these triplets (Romo, Murray and Bryant) to Cassel, Michael and Williams.

NFL.com - No. 22 (18)

Cassel should provide the Cowboys a better shot at winning this Sunday. His career TD-to-INT ratio (96:70) is much better than Weeden's (28:30), and unlike the latter, Cassel has experienced success in the NFL before. Granted, it came in 2010, but work with me here.

MLive.com - No. 24 (20). No comments this week.

Stat-based rankings

BeatGraphs.com: No. 6 (4). Interesting take from BeatGraphs, who provide rankings that cannot be defeated by a chain of A beat B beat C scenarios. In the end, when all ambiguity is removed, if A has beaten B, A will be ranked above B.

Oddsshark: No. 10 (12). Oddsshark use a multitude of stats to establish an offensive and defensive power ranking, which they then adjust for the strength of schedule.

FiveThirtyEight - No. 12 (13). Elo ratings are a simple system that estimates each team’s skill level using only the final scores and locations of each game.

Teamrankings.com - No. 13 (16). This site measures the relative strength of all teams using team performance, home/away status, margin of victory and other factors.

Sagarin Ratings: No. 15 (12). These are rankings based on W/L record, points differential and schedule strength.

Coldhardfootballfacts - No. 15 (19). This indicator ranks teams based on their average ranking across a range of CHFF's Quality Stats.

Massey-Peabody - No. 20 (15). These guys generate their predictions by working up from play-by-play data to calculate a performance figure for rushing, passing, scoring and play success.

Numberfire - No. 20 (17) These rankings are based on expected point differential against a league average team. If the team's rating is 10, they would be expected to win by 10 points against a league-average opponent.

The table below summarizes the power rankings for the four NFC East teams.

	Wk 6	Wk 5	Wk 6	Wk 5	Wk 6	Wk 5	Wk 6	Wk 5
CBS (Prisco)	16	16	12	17	17	10	28	20
CBS (Kirwan)	16	16	11	20	14	10	26	19
Newsday	17	16	12	18	14	12	23	20
Shutdown Corner	19	16	12	18	13	12	23	19
Foxsports	16	16	12	18	17	10	23	17
ESPN	16	18	9	15	14	12	22	21
USA Today	21	18	12	20	14	13	26	19
Bleacher Report	19	19	11	15	16	14	26	22
M-live	24	20	11	19	13	10	22	18
Washington Post	19	21	11	16	13	9	28	19
NFL.com	21	22	11	18	14	10	19	17
Avg.Opinion-based	18.5	18.0	11.2	17.6	14.4	11.0	24.1	19.1
Beatgraphs	6	4	19	17	7	5	11	7
Oddsshark	10	12	16	16	11	8	26	27
FiveThirtyEight	12	13	9	12	17	14	29	29
Sagarin	15	15	8	11	14	12	23	21
Massey Peabody	20	15	10	14	11	10	23	25
Team Rankings	13	16	9	14	11	6	18	15
Cold Hard Football Facts	15	19	10	14	13	12	26	13
Numberfire	17	20	12	13	18	14	16	16
Avg. Stat-based	13.5	14.2	11.6	13.8	12.7	10.1	21.5	19.1
Total	16.4	16.4	11.4	16.0	13.7	10.6	23	19.1