DEATH, taxes and Gary Ablett leading all and sundry in the Official AFL Player Ratings. Guess what. One of these certainties is about to change.

After three years and seven days – or a little more than 157 weeks – Ablett has been the unrivalled No.1 in Player Ratings.
 
However, his reign at the top will almost certainly end after round five, with Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury projected to take the mantle from the injured Ablett for the first time since the inception of the system in round one, 2012.
 
Pendlebury needs to score just 10.1 points against Carlton on Friday night to surpass Ablett, who has lost ground since he had his left shoulder reconstructed in July last year.
 
The likelihood of Pendlebury reaching 10.1 points is extremely high, with the Magpies captain hitting that mark 114 of the 120 times (95 per cent) since Champion Data began recording Player Ratings points in 2010.
 
For those unfamiliar with how Player Ratings works, Pendlebury would need to gather six contested possessions among 17 disposals, kick one goal and operate at around 70 per cent disposal efficiency to overtake Ablett.
 
To put that in context, so far in 2015, Pendlebury has averaged 29 disposals per game and 12.8 contested possessions per game, while tracking at a 74.1 disposal efficiency rating.
 
The Official AFL Player Ratings are based on a players past 40 games, and delivers a long-term view of a player's standing within the AFL.
 
A player's rating is determined by aggregating his points tally based on a rolling window of the previous two seasons.
 
This creates a buffer for players missing matches through injury, suspension, omission or by not being involved in finals. A player's most recent 20 matches are given greater weight in determining his rating. Matches 21-40 are progressively reduced in weighting, from 100 per cent down to five per cent for the earliest game in the window.
 
For instance, Fremantle star Nat Fyfe is the highest-scoring player in the competition in 2015 with 80.4 points.
 
However he remains locked in at No.7 in the competition in the overall standings, on 580.1 points, behind North Melbourne's Brent Harvey.
 
One player who has soared in the overall ratings is North Melbourne ruckman Todd Goldstein.
 
Since the start of last season, Goldstein has moved up 34 spots and is now the 11th ranked player in the competition and No.1 ruckman.
 
Ablett said during the week that he was only "a couple of weeks" away from a return to the field, after being ruled out indefinitely with discomfort in his surgically repaired left shoulder ahead of round three.
 
But his return will not come soon enough, with Pendlebury to become the undisputed Player Ratings king.