It usually feels like we’re headed for a season where three-fourths the league is headed for a season-ending one game on either side of 8-8. And that’s by design. The NFL is a league that values parity. In the Week Four NFL Power Rankings, that reflects itself in the form of teams clustering towards the middle.
This past week was a crazy one in the NFL. And not really for the actual gameplay. Many teams locked arms during the national anthem to show unity. Others found alternative actions more suitable. It seems like the mindset has also taken over in the standing. For better or worse, it seems like most teams have played about four quarters of good football, four quarters of bad football, and four quarters of completely mediocre football, all scattered and smushed together across three games. National anthem controversy aside, the league is still full of fascinating storylines.
Week Four 2017 NFL Power Rankings, Tier One: The Favorites
New England Patriots
Atlanta Falcons
Coaching is the one area in football that doesn’t get injured. While a vast majority of professional coaching staffs are probably interchangeable, Bill Belichick is clearly the best coach in the NFL. The Patriots stay on top despite a closer-than-it-should-have-been victory over the Texans.
Atlanta has pulled away from the pack some in the NFC. And that’s reflected in there only being two teams in the top tier this week. Right on pace for a Super Bowl rematch. Until more information proves otherwise, these two teams stay on top of the NFL Power Rankings.
Tier Two: Playoffs, Here We Come
Pittsburgh Steelers
Green Bay Packers
Dallas Cowboys
Kansas City Chiefs
Pittsburgh quietly has question marks at quarterback starting to bubble up as Ben Roethlisberger has struggled thus far. While those questions deserve more attention every year, Roethlisberger has shown he’s a guy who slow-play a season in order to peak when it matters most. It’s also unclear as to how much (or little) the Steelers’ anthem situation was/is. If the protests divided any locker room, it would appear to have been in the Steelers locker room. Something to keep an eye on.
Steelers player Alejandro Villanueva says he ‘made a mistake’ standing for national anthem without his team. https://t.co/n1JGNtk4dx pic.twitter.com/B2G10EkL33
— ABC News (@ABC) September 25, 2017
Green Bay did not look good in their overtime win against Cincinnati. Heck, needing overtime to beat the Bengals is concerning enough. The Packers play has suffered because of key injuries, but the team has managed to keep most of those guys off the IR, so if they can stay near the top of the NFC North while they get healthy, the Packers stay near the top of the NFL Power Rankings.
Even three games in, Dallas still feels like an unknown. They’ve looked really good, they’ve looked pretty bad. At 2-1 though, they’re still in good shape to win their division.
Kansas City’s offense this season has been a revelation. Still, the Chiefs might be becoming too dependent on big plays. And like a baseball team too reliant on home runs, at some point, they’re going to have to manufacture points. Over the next five weeks, Kansas City plays some of the best defenses in the NFL, it’ll be interesting to see how they come out of that stretch offensively.
Tier Three: On the Cusp
Minnesota Vikings
Philadelphia Eagles
Denver Broncos
Baltimore Ravens
Tennessee Titans
Detroit Lions
Seattle Seahawks
Oakland Raiders
Los Angeles Rams
Carolina Panthers
The Vikings have been largely successful despite uncertainty in the quarterback. But it’s been the matter of who as opposed to what they behind center. Sam Bradford and Case Keenum have been stable. That’s all the Minnesota needs in order to let Dalvin Cook, Stefon Diggs, and Adam Thielen provide the spark. Minnesota holds steady in the NFL Power Rankings.
The schedule is set up really nice for the Philadelphia Eagles to create some breathing room between themselves and the rest of the NFC playoff contenders. Here’s the Eagles schedule the next five weeks: at L.A. Chargers, home for Cardinals, at Carolina Panthers, then home for both Washington and San Francisco. Philadelphia could be on the verge of a 7-1 start. That would catapult them up the NFL Power Rankings.
Denver’s play will vary in direct correlation as their play at quarterback does. Right now it’s up and down. That could take them far – and has taken them far – but doing it that way is kind of football Russian Roulette.
Baltimore and Tennessee are both tied for the lead in their divisions. Baltimore’s season has increasingly looked like fool’s gold in context. They’ve beaten Cincinnati and Cleveland. Lost to
Jacksonville. Tennessee is a bit more impressive with wins against Seattle and Jacksonville, and a loss to Oakland. But both teams are still searching for something that will provide them with direction.
Detroit and Oakland are both in pretty good shape at 2-1. Both have to deal with good in-division competition. And both are about to embark on a set of games that will test their ability.
Although not a particularly trustworthy or meaningful stat just three weeks in, it would probably surprise some to learn that the Los Angeles Rams have a point differential of +38, which is third best behind Jacksonville (+36) and Kansas City (+32). The Rams are also the biggest winner in the ongoing saga “What’s Up with the Seahawks?” At 1-2, the next three weeks will determine whether Seattle’s first three weeks were a comedy or foreshadowing a season of tragedy for Seahawk fans.
All attention in Carolina should be on Cam Newton. If he’s not right, the team isn’t either.
Tier Four: More Questions than Answers
Houston Texans
Buffalo Bills
Washington Football Team
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
New York Giants
It’s crazy how for so long the narrative was that the Houston Texans were only a quarterback away from being a serious contender. They appear to have found one but still sit at 1-2. And with their next two at home against the Titans and Chiefs, things might look pretty for the Texans in a couple weeks.
The Buffalo Bills have already outperformed most people’s expectations for the most part. However, the sum of an impressive win against the Broncos, a loss to the Panthers in which only 12 points were scored total, and a win over the Jets results in a season that thus far has been pretty “meh.”
Washington and Jacksonville both have areas of intrigue, but the more we watch Kirk Cousins and Blake Bortles play, the further away from answering “Are they good or not?” we get. Not a good sign. (Not really that bad, either, it’s just that both organizations are stuck in that they can’t get rid of their quarterback because they couldn’t find anybody better. But at the same time, average quarterback play doesn’t get you many wins of consequence.)
The Buccaneers and Giants play each other this weekend. It’s a really fascinating game in that we’re probably going think pretty differently about each team regardless of the outcome. Tampa Bay will either be on track to be a top contender for an NFC Wild Card spot or has some serious questions to ask themselves about their roster. The New York Giants are either on the verge of suckering us in again into thinking they were done, only to rise and make the playoffs, or their season is on the brink of death and it’s time to look for Eli Manning’s replacement.
Tier Five: The Best of the Bad
New Orleans Saints
Arizona Cardinals
Los Angeles Chargers
Miami Dolphins
It’s interesting that the four teams in this tier have quarterbacks who have proved able to lead a successful NFL offense. All four though teams are on the wrong side of those quarterback’s careers. These four teams are all in a similar boat: they’re floating on a life raft in the ocean of contender-ship but are inching closer and closer to floating into NFL obscurity. It’s not hard to envision these four teams appearing in a tier together in the NFL Power Rankings throughout the season.
Tier Six: You’re Just the Worst
Chicago Bears
Indianapolis Colts
Cincinnati Bengals
New York Jets
Cleveland Browns
San Francisco 49ers
The Bears scored an impressive win against the Steelers. But that game highlighted potential problems with Pittsburgh more than anything about Chicago. The Bears have a running back combination that could beat anybody, but in order to utilize it best, the Bears must be playing with a lead. That doesn’t happen much.
The Indianapolis Colts don’t owe anybody besides Andrew Luck an explanation regarding their handling of the quarterback’s injury. The decision-making around Luck from the organization has been fascinating. And not for good reasons.
Colts QB Andrew Luck will not practice this week.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 27, 2017
Cincinnati has the talent to play a close game against anybody. They just don’t have the talent to finish it off with a win. There’s a thin line between being able to ride a high of a season full of close wins and having a few of those close games go the other way and cause the train to derail. The Bengals are on the bad side of that.
The Jets, Browns, and 49ers continue to rank as the bottom three in the NFL Power Rankings. The Jets moved up to the top of the manure pile with a win, however. These three may jockey for the coveted bottom spot but won’t make much noise otherwise.
