So, which of the three-peating Hawks was the best of the trio at season's end? If you believe ChiPS and MARS, the 2015 Edition deserves that title.

ChiPS has the 2015 Hawks finishing the year Rated 1,041.7, making them an 8.4 point better team than the 2014 Hawks, which finished Rated 1,033.3, and a 12.1 point better team than the 2013 Hawks, which finished Rated 1,029.6.

MARS has the 2015 Hawks finishing the year Rated 1,061.7, which is 7.4 Rating Points (RPs) higher than the 2014 Hawks, which finished Rated 1,054.3, and 9.4 RPs higher than the 2013 Hawks, which finished Rated 1,052.3.

So, clearly, on that data, the Hawks were not only the best team of 2015 but were also the best team of the past few years.

But what about changes within the current season? Who climbed and fell most in ability across season 2015?

According to ChiPS, the most improved were:

• West Coast (+22.3 RPs)
• Western Bulldogs (+20.6 RPs)
• Hawthorn (+15.3 RPs)
• Richmond (+14.1 RPs)
• GWS (+10.4 RPs)

MARS has a similar list of most-improved, though it swaps Fremantle for GWS and tinkers with the ordering of the top four:

• West Coast (+38.2 RPs)
• Hawthorn (+36.2 RPs)
• Western Bulldogs (+21.5 RPs)
• Richmond (+20.9 RPs)
• Fremantle (+13.6 RPs)

ChiPS assesses the teams that fell most as:

• Carlton (-30.3 RPs)
• Essendon (-26.7 RPs)
• Gold Coast (-16.0 RPs)
• Brisbane Lions (-11.1 RPs)
• Geelong (-10.2 RPs)

MARS, again, has broadly similar thoughts, though is kinder in its assessment of the Cats, and less kind in its assessment of the Saints:

• Carlton (-42.7 RPs)
• Essendon (-32.7 RPs)
• Brisbane Lions (-31.7 RPs)
• Gold Coast (-29.6 RPs)
• St Kilda (-13.5 RPs)

At season's end, ChiPS' and MARS' Team Ratings were highly correlated (+0.9768), slightly moreso in fact than they were at the beginning of the season (+0.9707). The same is true of ChiPS' and MARS' Team Rankings, whose correlation was +0.922 at the start of the season, and +0.975 at the end. In fact, at season's end, only three teams had ChiPS and MARS Rankings that differed by more than a single spot:

• The Kangaroos, Ranked 5th by ChiPS and 7th by MARS
• Port Adelaide, Ranked 8th by ChiPS and 6th by MARS
• Geelong, Ranked 11th by ChiPS and 9th by MARS