Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Power Rankings

1.Patriots – Patriots beat up on the Redskins last weekend and are going up against the defending champion Colts this weekend. They laid down a bunch of points last week which has been scrutinized however, any way you cut it they are still beating up on their opponents.
2.Colts – Colts have the Patriots this weekend in one of the most hyped regular season games. Should be a great game and I believe the difference will be whose defense can get a (may only need one) stop.
3.Cowboys – Cowboys keep rolling after their loss to the Pats. Nothing changes here, still the best team in the NFC.
4.Steelers – Steelers are the only team that statistically still stands with the Pats and Colts, they are ranked 1st in overall defense and 4th in overall offense. We will see if these stats will remain true after meeting the Pats week 14.
5.Chargers - They are rolling, Norv may have found a marble or two. If they can get some resemblance of a passing game this team could get very dangerous.
6.Jaguars – Found a way to win with the back up Qb, although it was to run the ball constantly and to not let Gray hold onto the pigskin for more than 2 seconds at a time.
7.Packers – That they are still winning boggles my mind, however they are finding ways and are succeeding at it. Favre is still playing like he’s in high school and the team is really feeding off of it.
8.Giants – Beat up on a poor Miami team, although it wasn’t as big of a margin as it should have been. May have been due to the weather and the field conditions. Good news is that Jacobs had a great day and he will have to be a huge factor for the Gmen down the road.
9.Titans - The Titans came out on top again, they are winning these games but by small margins. If VY and the offense can get things moving they could have a dangerous second half of the season.
10.Chiefs – I have no clue how this happened. In fact I am thinking about writing a strong worded letter to the producers of Hard knocks.
11.Lions – The lions are sitting pretty at 5-2. They have a tougher second half and should be interesting to see how this Lions group will respond to some rough games.
12.Ravens – Great game this weekend is going to be overshadowed by the Pats-Colts game. Meeting Pittsburgh on Monday night may be a huge decider on how the Black Birds season goes.
13.Seahawks – the hawks made it through a couple games without Deion Branch and have been able to keep a stable record at 4-3. However, Alexander continues to disappoint.
14.Buccaneers – Tough loss to the Jags, specially since they are playing with a back up Qb that I’m probably sure half of the coaches in the NFL had no clue who he was. They need to have a big game this week against the Cards
15.Browns - Still surprised at how Derek Anderson is playing, and although they just beat Miami and St lou the past two weeks its still impressive that they are at 4-3 without having played Brady Quinn once.
16.Broncos – Tough loss to Green Bay. This team has always had a great defense or at least one that would stop the big play, knowing that GB had two touchdown passes of over 75 yards is going to be something the Shanahan should be looking into.
17.Redskins – Getting beat worse than Miami and New Jersey/B is something you should not want at any point. However, this score was not typical of the Skins and they should be able to turn it around.
18.Eagles – Donovan finally is looking like his old self. Andy Reid actually called a Qb sneak which was the first time all season which proves that he is finally comfortable running McNabb. Or he doesn’t care about McNabb in the least and wants him to get hurt. Either is possible.
19.Saints – The saints are on a roll since they won their last 3, of course after losing their first 4. The saints may be rolling but Reggie cannot withstand being the number 1 rb for the entire year, he will get hurt.
20.Cardinals – The Qb issue needs to be fixed, The rest of the team cant handle it on their own.
21.Panthers – Having your best player only touch the ball twice the entire game is not going to produce W’s. Hopefully Carr will come back and fix things up for this team.
22.Bears - Injuries have just plagued this team, now they are saying that Urlacher’s back hurts. That would just be the straw…although maybe that straw has already been broken.
23.Bengals – The Bengal’s defense just can’t do it, they need to step up at some point to give this team a chance but they are not coming close. And going into buffalo isn’t going to be a great place to get a win, considering they have lost their last 8 to them.
24.Texans – Schaub going down is a heartbreaker. This team really needs to get their injured back on the field. Schaub and Johnson need to get back into the game.
25.Bills – Losman back in action. That can’t be great considering a rookie took his spot this year. Positive was that he threw the bomb to win the game last week. Negative was that the ball was under thrown by about twenty yards.
26.Vikings - TAVARIS JACKSON…man he is awful…
27.49ers – They are just bad, Alex Smith and Frank Gore can do nothing to turn this season around…Love how the Pats get their 1st rounder this year, could be one of the best moves a football office has ever made.
28.Raiders – 2-5, after a promising start the Raiders have fallen apart. Should be playing for another #1 pick for next year.
29.Falcons – This team has been ravaged by Michael Vick and now its DeAngelo Hall. Any team that needs to fine their players for speaking out about their coach is not going to go to the playoffs.
30.Jets – Kellen Clemens, Lets see what you got. This team really cant get any worse so why not throw in a back up.
31.Rams – Steven Jackson plays one half then gets out for back spasms. That is not a good sign for Fantasy owners. This has been one hugely disappointing season for the Rams.
32.Dolphins – Can’t even win in London. There is no help for this team, they go defeated on the season.

2 comments:

Joe Badalamenti said...

Wow, these rankings are pretty close to perfect. Why can't ESPN put something like this together? The only move I am interested in...is putting the Skins up past the Broncos and the Browns. Even after getting thrashed by the Pats the Skins still have a very highly rated defense. Denver sports the leagues worst run defense and Cleveland has the worst overall defense. Even though you can make the case that Cleveland's offense is clearly better than the Skins, I would debate that the Skins are in better shape on offense than the Broncos.

I really like your comments on TB and Skins taking tough losses but having seemingly easy turn-around games. This will be a huge lift for their mental states. Two tough losses in a row at this time of the year can devastate teams.

Imagine the Raiders get the #1 pick again...has a team ever had the #1 pick two years in a row without a trade being involved?

My favorite part of this power rankings is that I don't forsee a lot of movement. Pats/Colts/Cowboys/Steelers will all be in the top four for the rest of the season. More impressively it seems like everyone who is 20 and below on your list is officially done. The teams with firepower here have dug themselves too big a hole. And the teams who are mathematically still alive are headless horsemen, looking at you Zona/Chi/Cats. Thats right...I have just eliminated 13 teams from the playoff race before week 9 kicks off.

HW said...

Awesome list. I think your distaste for the Skins may stem from our disputes over the gamesmanship of the Patriots. You probably would have them ranked higher if last week didnt happen. Let me point out that ESPN etc doesn't come up with a lot of the good stuff we bring to the table. They should hire us.