Both ChiPS and MARS expected the Swans to prevail in the Grand Final, so their loss saw them drop Ratings Points (RPs) on both Systems. Regardless, the Swans end the season as the top-rated team by ChiPS and MARS, while the Dogs finish 7th.

Sydney's final Rating of 1,046.4 on MARS is about 12 RPs below the 2015 Hawks (1,058.2) and about 1 RP below the 2015 Eagles (1,047.7). The Western Bulldogs' final Rating of 1,024.9 puts them roughly on a par with the 2015 Tigers team (1,023.2). Make of all that what you will.

On ChiPS, Sydney's 1,031.9 finish is about 8 RPs below the 2015 Hawks (1,040.3) and about 4 RPs higher than the 2015 Eagles (1,028.0). The Dogs' 1,013.8 Rating is just slightly higher than the 2015 Roos (1,012.6).

Comparing ChiPS to MARS we find that Port Adelaide is the only team ranked more than a single spot differently, they finishing 8th on MARS and 10th on ChiPS. The correlation between raw MARS and ChiPS Ratings finished at +0.988. In the end, score-based ELO rating Systems are almost always going to reach similar conclusions.

MOSSBODS RATINGS

MoSSBODS this week slipped the Swans into 3rd place on Combined Rating and elevated the Dogs into 4th on the strength of their respective Grand Final performances. These moves lifted GWS into 2nd place and relegated Geelong into 5th.

All of that minor shuffling left Adelaide as the top-ranked team at the end of the season on Combined Rating. They were also 1st on Offensive Rating and 5th on Defensive Rating, 1st place on that latter metric going, appropriately enough, to the Western Bulldogs.

So, after colouring the points for the freshly-crowned 2016 Premiers and Runners Up, we can see where the 2016 Finalists sit against the backdrop of all previous Grand Finalists.

The Dogs then finish as one on of the lowest-rated Premiers Offensively but highest-rated Premiers Defensively, while the Swans finish roughly mid-pack on both measures amongst the set of Runners Up.

Lastly, we can review the final Ratings of all 18 of the 2016 teams by plotting them against the final Ratings of every V/AFL team from history.

We see that the 2016 crop of teams spans a large proportion of Ratings-space history, with Offensive Ratings ranging from Fremantle's low of -4.5 SS to Adelaide's high of +6.2 SS, and with Defensive Ratings ranging from the Brisbane Lions' low of -9.3 SS to the Western Bulldogs' high of +5.2 SS.

And that, as they say, is that ... 

See you in 2017. Thanks for reading.