The time between Week One and Week Two in the NFL brings about the most knee-jerk (over)reactions in the sports world. In order to buck that trend and remain a bit more rational, the NFL Power Rankings here are going to stay almost the same as they were a week ago. As opposed to making snap judgments on a super small sample size, here we’ll look at each squad as it relates to where they rank in this space going forward.
NFL Power Rankings, Tier One: The Favorites
New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks
Atlanta Falcons
Green Bay Packers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Patriots have built up more “they’ll figure it out” collateral than any team. The concerns, though, are legit. In Week One New England showed no pass rush as well as very little pass protection for Tom Brady. And also fears they may lack depth at several positions. A luxury they’ve enjoyed in the past. Heading into Week Two, the Pats are one of the most intriguing teams to watch. How they respond to their Week One loss could set the tone for the rest of their season. The top spot in the NFL Power Rankings is very much up for grabs.
The Seahawks are as talented as any team in football, but their weakness is a BIG weakness. The offensive line play in Seattle is … offensive. Russell Wilson can move around enough to make a bad offensive line look a little better, but in Week One they were worse than bad. In combination with the Patriots defeat, the Seahawks loss to the Packers proved this season’s race for NFL supremacy is more wide open than many thought.
Speaking of Green Bay, they continue their early season run through the NFC elite by taking on Atlanta in Week Two. In the Packers/Seahawks game, there was probably more to be learned about Seattle’s weaknesses than anything regarding Green Bay. Atlanta was disappointing in their victory in Chicago. But they tend to play like two different teams depending on whether they are at home or not. We’ll have a much clearer vision of the top of the NFC after Sunday night. Expect changes here in the NFL Power Rankings after the results of Week Two are known.
Likewise, Pittsburgh took care of business against Cleveland. Other than that, not much to take away from that game. It was a win-and-move-on game for the Steelers.
Tier Two: Pencil into the Playoffs
Dallas Cowboys
Minnesota Vikings
Oakland Raiders
The combination of Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension getting overturned (for now, anyway) and the beating the Cowboys put on the Giants may put them in Tier One in the near future.
The Vikings win could be seen with a skeptical eye. They are one of the few teams that showed enough to move up this week. But we’ve seen them get out to hot starts before, only to run out of gas late in the season. In order to have the kind of success they’re looking for, Sam Bradford cannot afford to revert to his old check-down self. If they’re as capable of explosive plays as they showed against the Saints, Minnesota is very dangerous.
Oakland’s win, at this point, is dependent on how one views Tennessee. Either the Raiders were impressive against a much-improved Titans team, or Oakland should have beaten an overhyped team in more impressive fashion.
Tier Three: Wild Card Hopefuls
Kansas City Chiefs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Baltimore Ravens
Philadelphia Eagles
Arizona Cardinals
Houston Texans
Carolina Panthers
New York Giants
Denver Broncos
The beat down the Chiefs put on the Patriots was as impressive as any performance of the first slate of games. But they’re still hard to evaluate. Kansas City lost their most important player for the season in Eric Berry. Andy Reid will have to figure out how to invert the Chiefs’ winning formula on the fly: They used to win with defense and mistake-free, conservative offense. Now their success may end up in perfect correlation with the number of explosive plays the offense can produce.
Tampa Bay and Miami got the rare Week One bye due to their game being moved to Week Eleven because of the hIRMAcane. (The Dolphins appear in the next tier down.) Can’t evaluate what you can’t see.
Baltimore looked really good, but their defense isn’t going to force five turnovers every game – or most games. Until we get a look at what the Ravens look like when they have to rely on their offense to make plays, the jury’s still out.
Philadelphia looked good in a win against Washington and emerged as the team most likely to continue to move up in the NFL Power Rankings. However, only so much can be learned from a win against a weak opponent. Washington remains classified as such. The Eagles biggest win of Week One, though, didn’t have anything to do with their game. If the Giants can’t get it together, second place (or better?) in the NFC East is up for grabs. And thus, a berth to the playoffs.
Arizona, Houston, and the Giants were three of the biggest disappointments of Week One. All have quarterback situations worth monitoring. New teammates Eli Manning and Brandon Marshall showed less connectivity than a Bluetooth speaker and a rock. All three appear trending downwards in the NFL Power Rankings.
Carolina won, but in a pretty lackluster manner. They need to be better than they were against San Francisco to prove they belong this high among their NFL opposition.
Evaluating Denver’s win properly needs to get put in the context of their opponent. And that can’t happen until a bigger sample size is available.
Tier Four: Not Quite Enough
Tennessee Titans
New Orleans Saints
Los Angeles Chargers
Miami Dolphins
Here again, the Titans win rests almost entirely on the quality of who they played. In this case, a win against the Jaguars doesn’t offer anything in the way of explanation.
If New Orleans has any hope for a successful season, their offense needs to put up more than 19 points.
In the Philip Rivers’ version of the movie/novel It, Pennywise the clown persuades him into the sewer by giving him the ball down six in the fourth quarter at his own 20 with three minutes left and no timeouts. It’s what keeps Rivers going, but also his worst nightmare. Because his Chargers have put him in that situation virtually every game throughout his career. And they too often don’t have the talent/luck to finish it off with a win.
Miami is still totally an unknown until they play.
Tier Five: The False-Hope Five
Washington Football Team
Los Angeles Rams
Detroit Lions
Cincinnati Bengals
Jacksonville Jaguars
Between a drama-filled quarterback situation in Washington and an owner already on thin ice with most, it’s fitting that the NFL team whose fans dress up as hogs has so much stink around it.
The Rams looked good as well. But Indianapolis’ performance showed that even Tier Five was too high for them. The Colts are really bad, which makes assessing the Rams complicated.
Based on Detroit’s play, there’s an argument they should have appeared higher. Then again, they gladly took advantage of what may end up as the beginning of an unceremonious exit for Carson Palmer as Arizona quarterback.
Cincinnati looked awful in Week One. Regarding the Bengals’ struggles as of late, there is probably no one reason that made all the difference, but has any coaching change appeared to have made such a drastic difference for the two teams involved than Mike Zimmer going from Bengals defensive coordinator to Vikings head coach?
Imagining how good the Jaguars could be is like imagining how cool their two-tone helmet would look if it would just pick a color already. Good defense, but lack of offensive explosivity and injuries make it look like this year will end up just like every other year: a top-ten pick in the draft.
That poor wall. https://t.co/q9VcxlMUAE
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) September 13, 2017
(Sidenote: Jacksonville would have one of the best color schemes in all of sports if they’d ditch all the black and highlight the teal/gold. It doesn’t make any sense for a warm-weather team to dress in all black. And black is played out as being the “intimidating” uniform color. Plus, the Jags even use a real version of gold, not the yellow that so many other teams masquerade around as “gold” just because gold sounds better.)
Tier Six: Let’s Just Have the 2018 Draft Already
Cleveland Browns
Buffalo Bills
Indianapolis Colts
San Francisco 49ers
Chicago Bears
New York Jets
The Browns moved up but stayed in the lowest tier of the NFL Power Rankings. They just have too much inexperience and too many questions. Cleveland goes to Baltimore this week. Another frisky performance and they could continue to move upward. After the Ravens, the Browns are: at Indianapolis, home against Cincinnati, home for the Jets. Adjusted for expectations, a four-game winning streak by the Browns might end up as impressive as what the Indians are doing. (Seriously, what’s least likely to happen in Cleveland: A) The Browns win four games in a row; B) The Indians win forty games in a row, or; C) LeBron stays?)
This is why Hue is gonna live with Kizer’s bad plays more than he would with Kessler. Double move covered, QB goes backshoulder. pic.twitter.com/xwnHYDfiSK
— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) September 13, 2017
The Bills and Jets played in Week One, a game in which Buffalo won 21-12. Just a “meh” win by the Bills. The Jets making a run at 0-16 will continue as the best dark humor subplot of the NFL season.
Indianapolis (probably) deserves to drop lower. Like, maybe all the way lower. The prospect of Andrew Luck coming back sometime early(ish) in the season grants the Colts a slight bit of upside, however.
San Francisco received some buzz as potentially not as bad as what most thought. Any air in that sail died after Week One, though.
Based on the Bears’ performance, it’s easy to see them hanging tough for three-quarters most games, but losing late. On their way to a 4-12 record. And near the bottom of the NFL Power Rankings.
