Commentary by Kid Nate (with a few small edits by Richard): We opted to skip the December Meta-Rankings because all the sites pretty much waited until after the big events UFC on December 27th, Dynamite! on the 31st and some even waited for Sengoku on January 4th.

Obviously the big news was #2 Shinya Aoki submitting #3 Eddie Alvarez on New Year's Eve. Had Aoki not lost to alternate #5 Joachim Hansen at the DREAM tourney finals, he'd have a strong case to be considered the best in the world. As is, the situation in Japan is cloudy as ever. Hansen was supposed to fight #5 Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante on the same card but had to drop out of the fight with a concussion.

That wraps up a hard luck year for JZ. He started the year as a consensus #2 or #3 but after a no contest followed by a loss to Aoki, he was out with an injured knee for most of the year. Hansen's injury canceled what might have been his redemption fight for 2008.

Alvarez is jumping right back on the horse with a match against UFC washout Naoyuki Kotani at Extreme Challenge in New Jersey on January 23rd. He'll also be fighting in the Bellator tournament on ESPN Deportes in April. Interesting how Monte Cox can keep his fighters busy and outside the UFC.

#1 B. J. Penn will obviously be moving up to welterweight to fight #1 meta-ranked Georges St. Pierre at UFC 94 on January 31. That leaves #7 Kenny Florian waiting for his title shot. #6 Sean Sherk wanted to welcome #6 meta-ranked welterweight Diego Sanchez to the division, but Sanchez will face #15 Joe Stevenson at UFC 95.

The other big fight since the last rankings was #14 Satoru Kitaoka's submission over #8 Takanori Gomi at Sengoku 7.  The impact of that fight is only beginning to be felt on the meta-rankings, most of the sites updated before the 1/4 event.

NOTE: The Meta-Rankings are not the subjective opinion of the BloodyElbow team, but rather a compilation of the rankings of over twenty leading MMA web sites. It is our opinion that these are the most informative MMA rankings anywhere.

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There were three parts to the San Diego victory on Sunday: Defense, Special Teams and Darren Sproles.  The stats verify the first, don't touch on the second and seem to disagree with the third.  I'd like to start by explaining why the stats are "wrong" about Darren Sproles.

Sproles ran the ball 23 times on Saturday night for 105 yards (4.6 ypc).  The problem was that he was stopped for gains of three yards or fewer on 14 of those carries and not one of those was in a short yardage situation.  He was stuffed* on eight of his attempts.  Stuffs are almost entirely the fault of the offensive line and to a lesser degree, so are carries of 1-3 yards.  If we remove the stuffs from his line (a reasonable action), Sproles' success rate jumps almost 20% from 34.8% to 53.3% (a most respectable rate and more representative of his play on Saturday).  Also his yards per carry balloons from 4.6 to 6.5.

Sproles' 20% success rate in the passing game is also weighed down by factors outside of his control.  Of his eight failures, five incomplete passes that were thrown at his feet and not actually at him.  If you remove those from his line (a reasonable action), his success rate doubles to a still less than stellar 40%.  Still, his two successes are a big 17 yarder on first down and a huge 13 yarder on third and long which the success rate system doesn't effectively reward.  However, that is balanced out by his goal line fumble which the system doesn't effectively punish.

There is also Sproles' stellar night returning punts and kicks that isn't included at the numbers at all, but that I'm certain you're all aware of.

The defense was excellent.  58.5% is damn good against an average offense.  Against the Colts, is downright incredible.  Things didn't look good early.  On the Colts' second drive of the game they went 85 yards on nine plays (seven of them successful).  Once they hit the red zone, it took the Colts only three plays (all three successful) to punch it into the end zone.  Outside of that second drive of the game, the Chargers' defense had a stop rate of 64.3%.

That drive would be the last time the Colts ran a play in the red zone.

Jamal Williams, Jyles Tucker and Stephen Cooper tied for the team lead in Stops with five.  Igor Olshansky and Eric Weddle tied for fourth with three apiece.  Antoine Cason had two.  Luis Castillo, Tim Dobbins, Jacques Cesaire, Matt Wilhelm, Antonio Cromartie and Quentin Jammer also picked up a Stop.  One really can't say enough about the play of the San Diego defense on Saturday.

We already touched on Special Teams in discussing Sproles' night, but the other star of that unit was Mike Scifres.  I might have to get a Scifres jersey.  He punted six times.  His net average was 51.7.  Tony Dungy called him "the difference in the game."  I have asserted to anyone who would listen that Scifres is the best player on the team and after Saturday, I feel a lot better about that.

And one more stat real quick: the Chargers under Norv Turner are 3-1 in the playoffs.

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Sorry this took so long to go up this week.  Between the holiday, computer troubles and then not being able to get on the internet most of today, this has been a pain in the ass.  I'd also like to apologize for not getting particularly in-depth today because my first draft got wiped out when I lost power to my computer.

On offense, the 54% doesn't tell the whole story because big plays get no extra weigh and the Charger offense hit on several.  Also, they were successful on 62% of plays in the red zone (67% on running plays in the red zone).  Jackson had a great game as did pretty much every Charger who ran with the ball.  It's hard to find much fault when the team scores on almost every possession and the credit can be spread rather evenly.

On defense, the 43% makes it look like they were worked over, but a lot of the Broncos' successes came after the game was out of reach and success rate doesn't fully capture the importance of turnovers.  Weddle and Cason led the team in stops with two each.  Applewhite, Bingham, Cooper, Cromartie, Olshansky, Phillips and Williams also had a stop.

It was a dominant performance, but the Broncos made it look closer by only quitting on the defensive side of the ball.

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