The last two weeks – last week in particular – have turned the NFL on its head. We’re now a quarter of the way through the regular season. When compiling an NFL Power Rankings weekly list, it’s hard not to let the previous week(s) influence the current. Should a team really move up or down that much based on one game? That’s a totally rational thing to wonder from week to week. However, with the combination of a bigger sample size and ever-growing unpredictability, we’re doing a total reset here with the Week Five NFL Power Rankings.
Week Three 2017 NFL Power Rankings, Tier One: The Favorite
Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City takes over the top spot in the NFL Power Rankings as it’s hard to argue against the Chiefs not being the NFL’s most complete team right now. If teams played in blank uniforms, you could probably talk people into believing this year’s Chiefs are a hybrid of New England teams from yesteryear.
Tier Two: The Next in Line
- Atlanta Falcons
- Green Bay Packers
- Carolina Panthers
- Denver Broncos
- Los Angeles Rams
The Falcons didn’t look good in Week Four. But injuries wrecked their receiving corps. If they can get healthy, they’ve proven they belong this high in the NFL Power Rankings.
Green Bay is figuring some things out defensively by embracing the uber-athletic, small-ball-type game plan by playing a third safety as a de facto middle linebacker. Additionally, rookie defensive backs Kevin King and Josh Jones have played superb and are stealing more and more time from the Packers’ more established veterans.
Carolina’s slow offensive start was expected since they’re so depended on young players (Christian McCaffrey) and players coming back from injury (Cam Newton). The last two weeks have offered a disheartening loss to the Saints and a supremely surprising win in New England. We’re expecting the Panthers to continue to build on their successes, even in the midst of the off-field distractions.
Dannon statement on Cam Newton: pic.twitter.com/yyAqzIOWCS
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) October 5, 2017
With Oakland reeling and upcoming games against the Giants and Chargers, even if Denver doesn’t catch Kansas City, it can separate from the rest of the Wild Card group. As long as the Broncos maintain stable quarterback play, they’re on track to be the NFL’s best non-division-winning team this season.
The Rams’ Aaron Donald might be the NFL’s best player, regardless of position. Plus, L.A. is sporting one of the league’s best offenses. If you saw that coming, you’re either a fortune teller, hot take ninja, or liar. This is the NFL’s biggest surprise. (“Surprise” might not even do it justice.) And it shows in this week’s NFL Power Rankings.
Tier Three: Meet You in the Middle
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Buffalo Bills
- Detroit Lions
- New England Patriots
- Houston Texans
- Washington Football Team
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Tennessee Titans
- Minnesota Vikings
- Dallas Cowboys
- Oakland Raiders
Philadelphia has played as well as anyone. But their schedule has been pretty easy. From purely a performance standpoint, the Eagles’ best games might have been in their loss to the Chiefs.
The pessimist might point out bad teams have gotten off to good starts before, only to falter. The optimist would say the upstart Bills have already surpassed expectations and have an upcoming schedule consisting of: Cincinnati on the road; home for Tampa Bay and a likely Derek Carr-less Oakland team; in New York against the Jets; home versus New Orleans; at the Los Angeles Chargers. A 9-1 start in highly unlikely, but it’s still in the cards, folks.
In the NFL’s only matchup of 3-1 teams this week, the Detroit takes on the aforementioned Panthers. For the Lions, sure, 3-1 is pretty impressive but wins against the Cardinals, Giants, and Vikings (with the loss coming at the hands of the Falcons) doesn’t do all that much to move the needle in terms of placing Detroit amongst the NFL’s elite.
In all honesty, the Patriots probably should be lower. It’s just hard to believe they won’t figure things out on some level though.
Houston, specifically Deshaun Watson, has played surprisingly well. We knew the defense had the upside to be great. But we didn’t know the offense had the capability of scoring 57 points in a game. Still, expecting a rookie quarterback to lead a deep playoff run is not only a tall task but really unfair expectations of Watson.
Washington comes in as the highest-ranked 2-2 team because they’ve played the NFL’s toughest schedule thus far. Despite a game against the lowly 49ers this week, on the aggregate things won’t get much easier for them, as it’s hard to envision a scenario where Washington get into the playoffs given what’s around them in the NFC East and broader NFC.
For different reasons, the Steelers and Titans are both dealing with question marks at quarterback. There’s no doubt Marcus Mariota is the guy in Tennessee, but he’s dealing with injuries. In Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger – and more generally – the Steelers’ offense has looked woefully unremarkable relative to expectations.
Minnesota has been pretty bipolar this year. At this point, putting them in the middle seems like the only answer considering they’ve looked like a top-five team at times and a bottom-ten team at other times. (Yes, that averages out to the middle because the bottom-ten have been worse than the top-five have been good if that makes sense.)
The once insurmountable Dallas offensive line has all of the sudden looked pretty ordinary. Dak Prescott’s played fine, but the Cowboys haven’t gotten anything else going. And things are about to get really tough for them. Their upcoming schedule is as follows: home against Green Bay; on the road for San Francisco and Washington; Kansas City at home; in Atlanta; back home for Philadelphia. Of those games, the 49ers look like the only game that offers anything in the way of breathing room.
Derek Carr’s injury only drags Oakland’s already-murky season further down into the muck. After looking very impressive in the first two games, the Raiders have lost back-to-back games while only scoring ten points apiece in those games. Plus, the move to Las Vegas has to come up in any conversation about the Raiders, because fans could turn on the franchise in a really ugly way. Playing in the NFL’s best division doesn’t help the cause, either.
Tier Four: Running Out of Time
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Seattle Seahawks
- New Orleans Saints
- Arizona Cardinals
- Baltimore Ravens
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Miami Dolphins
Despite plenty of weapons on the outside, Jameis Winston hasn’t developed like Tampa Bay had hoped. Even in a best-case scenario where the NFC South gets two teams in the playoffs (though that’s unlikely), it’s hard to see any advantage Tampa would have over Atlanta or Carolina in order to be in contention for one of those spots.
Jameis Winston has been 68 percent accurate this season, would have ranked 29th last year, one spot behind Blake Bortles.
— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) October 5, 2017
If you’re banking on the Seahawks making a run yet, maybe consider withdrawing. Their two wins have come against (Spoiler Alert!!) the bottom two teams on this list. And Seattle faces a tough task this weekend against the surprising Rams. Despite it still be relatively early on, the Seahawks have to start showing something or else they’ll simply be too far back to make the postseason. No matter how well they play down the stretch.
With even a mediocre defense, the Saints’ offense could go point-for-point with any team in the NFL. But it doesn’t look like even mediocrity is beyond New Orleans’ wildest defensive dreams.
It really hard to see as talented a roster as Arizona’s ranked down this low. But injuries have wrecked their season. And their offense has yet to score more than two touchdowns in a game (they got a defensive TD in their Week One 35-23 loss to the Lions). If the offense only visits the end zone once every other quarter, 20 is actually a pretty generous ranking.
With the aid of hindsight, we can look back on Baltimore’s Week One 20-0 win against the Bengals and realize it’s not nearly as impressive as it seemed at the time. Two weeks in a row now the Ravens haven’t been able to eclipse double-digits on the scoreboard.
By virtue of a tie-breaker, the 2-2 Jaguars are actually leading their division. They still have a bad quarterback leading a bad offense. And not being able to play with a lead has minimized the impact of Leonard Fournette, who has quickly become Jacksonville’s best offensive player. They have a very good defense, but it’s too much pressure to expect a young defense to carry a team to respectability.
It’s kind of interesting how the Dolphins got the benefit of the doubt until late. Their season has been an enigma though, between a game being displaced because of a hurricane which resulted in a Week One bye, an early-season game in London, and not playing a home game until October 8th. Still, Miami has done nothing to suggest they deserve the benefit any longer. Their slide down the NFL Power Rankings continue.
NFL Power Rankings Tier Five: Hope Slipping Away
- Chicago Bears
- Los Angeles Chargers
- New York Giants
- New York Jets
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Cleveland Browns
- San Francisco 49ers
- Indianapolis Colts
Even though it might have been a little fluky, the Bears win against the Steelers was as impressive a win as any by a team this low. It still feels like Chicago is playing for beyond this season. The move to Mitchell Trubisky reeks of desperation.
The Jets are a surprising 2-2, and they play the 0-4 Browns this week. If Cleveland loses, that’s a sign things are going to get worse before they get better. A 3-2 Jets would raise some eyebrows, but you’d still be hard-pressed to find anyone of any credibility that would say New York has any chance of making a run at a playoff spot.
One could argue the Chargers, Giants, and 49ers should be the bottom three teams, given their combined 0-12 record. However, the counter is that they have – especially in the case of the Chargers – played slightly better against better competition than the Colts have. Even though that’s splitting hairs on a really, really, low standard.
This season is already a disaster for the Bengals. The only thing thing that will keep them from getting the top pick is two games against the Browns and a game against Indy in a couple weeks. At least for now, Cincinnati ranks below those Browns in the NFL Power Rankings though.
At -65, the Colts have the NFL’s worst point differential. While the prospect of Andrew Luck’s return might help close that gap on the offensive end, but he can’t do anything about the points allowed side of the problem. Indianapolis’ defense is bad. And even though he returned to practice in a limited capacity, we still don’t have a firm grasp on when Luck will be back. This week brought a change at the top of the NFL Power Rankings and a change at the bottom.
