2026 - Team Ratings After Round 16
/MoSHBODS changed the ranking of eight teams this week, but none in the top 2 or the bottom 4. One of the changes was to move Hawthorn ahead of Sydney into 3rd, making its Top 3 now Fremantle, Geelong, and Hawthorn.
Further down the order, the only multi-spot mover was Port Adelaide (up 3 into 11th).
MARS rerated 12 teams to arrive at a Top 3 that matches MoSHBODS’.
Its multi-spot movers were Carlton (up 3 into 7th), and Gold Coast (down 4 into 11th).
MoSHBODS RATINGS
Overall, MoSHBODS still has 12 teams rated as above average with Gold Coast very nearly joining that list.
On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSHBODS still with a Top 3 of Swans, Cats, and Lions, while on defence it now has a Top 3 of Dockers, Hawks, and Crows. Twelve teams are rated as above average on offence but only seven on defence.
Offensive ratings currently span a range of 1.43 standard deviations (down) and defensive ratings a range of 1.40 standard deviations (up). The standard deviation of offensive ratings across all teams is 0.40 and that for defensive ratings 0.34. Teams therefore continue to be more differentiated by their offensive abilities than their defensive abilities.
The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.71, which is up a little on last week.
We can put the MoSHBODS Ratings into an historical context by looking at the offensive and defensive ratings that teams in other seasons had after Round 16 (recognising that this will have meant different numbers of games per team in different years)
We see that the Dockers, Cats, and Hawks are the only teams rated above the median for Grand Finalists at this point of the season in the context of history, with the Dockers very close to being in the top decile.
We can also look at the trajectory that each team has taken so far in 2026 to arrive at their current rating.
MARS RATINGS
MARS still has 12 teams rated better-than-average, with St Kilda next best on 997.4.
As noted earlier, it has now has exactly the same Top 3 as MoSHBODS having shuffled all three of them this week.
The gap from 1st to 2nd is now 0.9 Rating Points (down), from 1st to 4th is 13.7 Rating Points (up), and from 1st to 10th is 33.5 Rating Points (up).
Across all 18 teams, the Ratings span 90 Rating Points (up), the mean is 1,000 Rating Points, and the standard deviation is 25.5 Rating Points (steady).
COMPARISON OF MOSHBODS AND MARS
The correlation between MoSHBODS’ Combined Ratings and MARS’ Ratings stands at +0.986 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.0265 times its MARS Rating less 26.5.
Looking firstly at the comparison between the ordering of the teams on MoSHBODS and MARS compared to their ordering on the competition ladder we see that the teams with the largest discrepancies are:
HIGHER ON THE LADDER THAN ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS
North Melbourne (and maybe Western Bulldogs)
HIGHER ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS THAN ON THE LADDER
Carlton
MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 12 teams now, and differ by at least three spots on four teams, most of all on GWS, who MARS have 8th and MoSHBODS have 14th.
Overall, the rank correlation between the two Systems is +0.92.
