Power Rankings: Week 5

I’m sorry, but until I see something that makes me think they can win a football game, they have to be last. I’m hardly seeing any improvement, and although the run defense looked okay against the Ravens, nothing else seemed to show up. I just don’t know if this team can put it together to win a football game, because they have been handed so many chances. Week 1, the Jets are one of their easier opponents on the schedule. Week 2, The Eagles tried handing that game over to them, but they couldn’t put it away. Week 3, Winston wasn’t even trying to pass the ball all game, and they couldn’t win. Week 4, Lamar doesn’t play the second half, and they don’t really make it close. They are getting opportunities to take advantage of, but they just simply aren’t. They are the worst team in my eyes through 4 weeks.

I gotta be honest, this team doesn’t really play like it’s the worst team in the league. Now I know they are 0-4, have an awful point differential, but they played the 4-0 Chiefs within 4 points for about 3 and a half quarters and the 4-0 Vikings till the very end. This team has shown me something on the offensive side of the ball, and it has shown me something on the defensive side as well with Rodriguez. They are bad, but there are some young guys who look very promising.

For what it’s worth, Daniels didn’t look completely horrible. The defense had its moments, and overall only gave up 17 points. It’s just a franchise that is put in a really difficult place, because they are on pace to be a top 5 pick, when the whole organization was expecting a division champion. Now Baker might miss even more time, which essentially locks the fate of this team.

Scoreboard watchers might think that this game was closer than it actually was. The Chargers had lost by the 3rd quarter. If Seattle didn’t want them to move the ball, they were not moving the ball, simple as that. The Chargers were simply at the mercy of McDonald’s Seahawks coming off a loss. It really does show the lack of talent there is on that offense when it is lined up against the Seahawks defense though. The Chargers defense played decently for what it’s worth, giving up 30 points. They’ll look to find their first win of the season against the undefeated Chiefs next week.

A much needed bounce back win for the Packers. It was a backup QB, so a win was expected, but were the issues that have plagued their season been addressed? No. They still could not run the ball, averaged 3.4 YPC. However, the offensive line did not allow a sack, which is a positive. The running game has to show some signs of life though, or else they are going to continue to struggle in both wins and losses.

This team really does make me scratch my head. It’s amazing how the pre-season expectations of this team, compared to where they are now. Pre-season, we were expecting the historically great defense from last season to be just as good. Now, they are one of the worst in the league. Stroud had major question marks about him, but he has played very well despite what he has been handed. I’m going to sound crazy, but I do still believe in this team. I think the defense isn’t as bad as they are playing, and that the offense only has room to get better. But for now, they will have to continue to slide on the power rankings.

They got dealt a really crappy hand. Travel all the way to London, look good on the first two drives of the game, and then Mariota gets hurt, and now the 3rd string is off the bench. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they win that game with Mariota, and with Daniels coming back, it does put me in a weird position on where to rank this team on the power rankings. I have no clue what to expect from them next week.

I think this is just going to be the Cardinals experience this year. Lots of high power offense, but not a lot of defense, or clutch play. Not much else input to add for this team.

As scrappy as I think they are, the Jets are going to have to take quite the tumble this week in Power Rankings. Losing by two scores to Tyson Bagent isn’t a terrific look, especially when the offense could get nothing going whatsoever. Not that this game was super winnable to begin with, but I think a decent amount of people were expecting at least a close game, yet both the offense and defense were disappointing.

I get that they won, but the Colts looked bad in London. By a lot of metrics, Daniel Jones was outplayed by the 3rd string QB of the Commanders. They were probably about to be on the other end of a blowout had Mariota not gotten injured. The offense looked bad, and really only started scoring points once they started getting short fields thanks to the 3rd string QB. I can’t give the defense any credit, because it wasn’t stopping Mariota, and honestly didn’t do as good as they should’ve against the 3rd stringer. I continue to be left with more questions than answers with this Colts team.

This is a pretty fraudulent 3-1 team for what it’s worth. That may seem obvious, as they have a backup QB for the rest of the year, and they’ve played relatively weak opponents throughout the year, but I don’t have much faith that they will keep it together for much longer.

I think what we saw Thursday night is what this team is. Just a lot of unsure-ness going around. Was McCarthy the right hire? I’m unsure. Does Aaron even want to/even be able to play the full season? I’m unsure. Is the defense good enough to keep them in games? I’m unsure. By record the season certainly isn’t over, but I feel that morale is pretty low for the Steelers right now.

Gotta feel bad for Saints fans. This was a big emotional game that a lot of them were looking forward to, and getting blown out by your rivals has gotta sting. However, I think they should have plenty of bulletin board material to improve upon. If they can start running the ball efficiently, and just get better all-around on defense. They have an avenue to being good, but they are way off-track.

I think there is a real possibility that either Sirianni or Hurts is no longer with the Eagles next season. It sounds extreme, but I have serious questions about this team’s ability to win enough games to make the playoffs, and I think if that happens, then Sirianni is almost certainly out the door. Hurts has more leash than Sirianni, but if he keeps playing poorly, they’ve moved on from beloved QB’s before. Just an awful game in every way against the Rams.

I get that it’s controversial, but I don’t think the Browns are playing all that good. I understand that they are 3-1, but I don’t think the offensive play is sustainable. I think the defense shows flashes, because they have the young talent, but I wouldn’t consider it a feared unit, as a struggling Pittsburgh team was still able to get 27 points on them. They move up slightly, but I will continue to not buy any stock.

I mean this is just who they are. They are going to score a lot of points, because they have the new generation Barry Sanders on offense, but the defense continues to be a major issue. They are incredibly similar to the Cowboys, only then do I have a little more faith in the passing game. I don’t have a ton of faith in this Lions team. I know their offense is good, but I can’t find the trust.

I thought the Broncos looked okay on Sunday. I wasn’t blown away offensively or defensively by them, It just felt like they could never get the advantage over a Niners team that feels more dynamic offensively, and has more playmakers defensively. The game slipped out of their fingers in the second half, compared to the 30 points they put up in the second half last week. This team feels like it’s just above average.

For what it’s worth, if I were a Raiders fan I wouldn’t feel terrible about that one. The media and Chiefs fans will tell you that it wasn’t that close, but it was. The Raiders offense is really a good WR and some better run blocking away from being a really good unit, and the defense wasn’t bad whatsoever. Outside of the run he broke loose, they were pretty consistently stuffing K9. Of course there is the discourse about if they took their 3 in the redzone in the 3rd quarter, or if they don’t fumble on the kickoff, then we’re talking about a 4-0 Raiders team. I wouldn’t feel that beat up about it Raiders fans, but I will have to drop them a bit.

I think the Patriots were sort of due for an offensive ‘explosion’ and it makes sense that it happened against a weak Buffalo defense. Not trying to diminish what they accomplished though, as I think it can give Maye some confidence back, and see what the offense can look like. I’m far from buying all the way back on this team, but the defense looks solid, and if the offense can continue to be solid, then they can bounce back.

To me personally, this game sort of told me that the Bengals aren’t at Super Bowl contender status. The Jaguars are a good team, and they played them close, but they made so many mistakes, and Super Bowl contenders take advantage of those and don’t look back. Defensively, we may have also crowned them too early. They could still make the playoffs for sure, and I think they are still a good team, but I have doubts about their ceiling.

It’s a win, but not a very inspiring one from the Rams. They did struggle with the Eagles, but this was an Eagles team that was constantly shooting itself in the foot and it took to the last 10 minutes of the game to pull it together. I’ll give credit to the defense I guess, but not very much credit to the offense. Stafford has had a rough first 4 weeks of this season.

I mean this is back to back weeks of an offensive explosion from Atlanta, and I may be drinking the kool-aid but I’m pretty bought in. Their defense was great last year and it’s been great so far this year, and now through two games with a QB, they have had the best offensive EPA/play since Penix has been back. I don’t think they are top of the line contenders, but this placement feels absolutely fair to me. Being good on offense and on defense absolutely gets you put this high on the Power Rankings, considering the lack of that across the league so far this year.

I mean there is a world where this team just plays a shootout every week. Now ideally it’s not a great strategy, but if you are as good of an offense as the Cowboys are, I really don’t mind it. If the defense can make a couple stops a game, it’s genuinely enough for them to win. Stroud played a perfect game, and they only got stopped twice, yet they lost. This is not an offense that I would want to face.

Huge statement win for the Panthers. That’s a game that in years past, the Lions defense would’ve stepped up and figured their stuff out as a ‘get right’ game. For Young and the offense as a whole to play that well is incredibly impressive to me. For the injury riddled defense to step up and get meaningful stops against an offense that has been putting up 30 every week, that was also impressive. This team has some fire.

This team is slowly starting to trend to their old ways… The poor defensive play, the turnovers from Allen, it’s starting to come back. They simply panic if the game starts to go in a dangerous way, and abandon the run and turn the ball over. This team is too good at running the ball to abandon it. I really would like to see a game where Cook shoulders the load, and the defense plays great. It just feels like it always does with this team.

I’ve seen a lot of discourse about how this is the worst 4-0 team, and I disagree. Sure the offense hasn’t been explosive, but context is incredibly valuable. Last week was Kyler Murray’s first full game in almost a full calendar year, and he’s played both games without their best weapon in Jefferson. If you also watched the game, Murray really started to get more comfortable as the game went along, and was having more tight window throws. Sure only scoring 16 on Miami isn’t great, but I saw it more as they were trying to get Murray comfortable in the offense. This is still a really good team all-around, because the defense and special teams have been second to none this season.

We can sit here and talk about Ben Johnson and the offense all we want, but I am far more impressed with how this Bears defense has looked. Back-to-back weeks just completely shutting down the opposing offense. Super impressive. I wasn’t impressed with Bagent and the offense, but they had a gameplan and they stuck to it. The ceiling of this team is very high.

This team is pretty good. I get that playing these close games doesn’t make you look good, or that the defense hasn’t appeared all that impressive. They really won off of a half of football. It was against the worst team in the league (in my opinion), but still, only needing one half of football is insane. Defense looked better, should be a get right game for them, and Lamar is day-to-day, so he probably will play next week. On the caution that he doesn’t, I’m not going to move them a ton this week, but just know that I do like how this team is playing.

I mean I don’t know why this team continues to be underdogs. It’s arguably the most balanced team in the league. They have done essentially everything right this season on both sides of the ball, Lawrence has played like an MVP candidate, truly a scary team if they reach their full potential.

I’ll start with the positives. I liked that they had the big play working, as it was the heart of their offense. All of their scoring drives were because of a big play, so that is usually the sign of a strong offense. The defense had a solid second half of play as well. Now, I will say, losing the two best wide receivers they had hurts them quite a bit. I’m still going to move them up, but I do have massive question marks there. I still don’t love the offense outside of Kenneth Walker. I realize that Mahomes has played well, but having a run game has set up play action, which has been the sole of their passing game. If a team can truly stop the run against them, and now with no receivers, this offense becomes a whole lot less explosive. Rice could be a minor injury, but the point stands that I don’t trust the passing game. The defense also appears to be nothing special either. I just haven’t seen anything that has confirmed to me that they are the best team in the league. They have their issues, just like everyone else.

I promise you, the scoreboard is not an accurate representation of this game. Honestly, nothing will, not even EPA/play. Why is that? There were over 300 yards of penalty yards in the game from both teams. That is a number so high, that the only explanation is that the refs were trigger happy, and that it isn’t to be expected for either team moving forward. The passing game didn’t look amazing for Seattle, but the run game finally did start to emerge for Seattle, as they got creative with Shaheed. I have no concerns about the passing game, as it was top 5 last year and was top 10 coming into the game. Most importantly, the defense looked psychotic. Like how dominant they were last season. Drives were only extended for LA simply because of personal foul penalties. They are the defending champs for a reason.

It wasn’t all too pretty for awhile, but they just continue to be really good on offense. The defense took some strides as well. It’s a well balanced team, and their QB is really yet to make a single mistake this season. Hard to lose, when the most important player on the team plays perfectly.