Another topsy-turvy week in the NFL... once you get down past the top two teams. I reward the Steelers for their dominant win, and punish the Cowboys despite their 4th-quarter heroics on Monday night. And the Chargers and Bears are back from the dead...
The Patriots are so strong it's freaky, and the Colts just keep winning. But the movement is at the next few spots, where the Steelers and the Cowboys are in a virtual dead heat, the Packers are making big noise, and the Chicago Bears dropped right out of the Top 20.
The Patriots rewrote these rankings this week with a dominant performance. It's early yet, but it wouldn't me surprise if they maintained this ranking for the rest of the season.
Here's what we learned in Week 1: There are three elite teams, a handful of good teams, and after that's it's just pick 'em.
The elites? San Diego, New England and Indianapolis. The Chargers broke down the NFC's best team, Chicago, removing them from any claim to elite status. The Patriots played with the Jets like a kitty toy. And the Indianapolis Colts dominated the New Orleans Saints.
Every week during the regular season I'll be ranking all 32 teams based on performance and potential. This is the first regular season ranking, and it shows that I've learned a few things in the preseason: The Panthers aren't as good as I thought and the Chiefs aren't quite as bad. Go ahead, take a look: My power rankings are completely independent, which is why they don't look like the group-think rankings the mainstream media outlets give you.
For comparison purposes, I've included the position each team held in my first power ranking of 2007 (it's the number in parentheses), and you can always go back a week to see the adjustments I made in the last couple of days. You'll see two predicted records: the one in bold is my official preseason prediction; the one in plain type was the record I predicted for each team on Aug. 10, before the preseason really got underway.
This week I finally give the Colts some love, and there's some grudging acknowledgment that I've been too critical of the Giants, who still suck, but not as badly as I thought. Meanwhile, the Panthers and Jets keep falling. This is the last ranking before my final, for-the-books, 2007 preseason power ranking, and things are firming up.
By the way, the record in parentheses after the team name is what I originally predicted for the team before the preseason started. I'll be adjusting that in next week's rankings.
No real changes at the top, where my four best teams held serve. Meanwhile the Panthers became the highest-ranked team to start a slide. But it's early yet.
No surprises this week -- and, thankfully, no big injuries, either. The Top 5 remained intact, but Baltimore has moved into striking distance (for now).
RISING: Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks, New York Football Giants...
FALLING: Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints...
When you see a number in parentheses, that's where the team ranked last week. The record you see listed is what I predicted for them in my first 2007 Power Ranking.
I began publishing weekly NFL power rankings and office pool picks on our home blog, Xark!, in 2006. Today marks the beginning of the 2007 power rankings season, and I'll be checking back to this post as a baseline for how things change as the action unfolds.
The headline? While the top two spots go to AFC teams, I think the NFC may be improving. And the surprise? The Chicago Bears are closer to the top than most experts think.
Plus, as a one-time special bonus, I'm including my initial prediction for each team's 2007 record.
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