2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 13

Thanksgiving came in Week 13 and that meant three games on Thursday instead of one.  I'm not sure any of them were particularly good, especially the night game between Seattle and San Francisco.  Honestly, I don't understand why either team gets national attention, because their styles are not conducive to a watchable product for a national audience.

Neither team is flashy.  They don't throw the ball down the field effectively and usually don't find many opportunities to do so.

Still, Seattle's win finds them back in the Rankings this week as they are once again one of the top 10 teams in the NFL.

Here are the Rankings for Week 13:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 12

Week 12 in the NFL dialed back the craziness quite a bit.  In fact, the only really nutty result occurred on Thursday, when 0-10 Oakland suddenly became 1-10 Oakland.  They're still eliminated from the playoffs (along with the New York Jets), but hey, it's nice to beat a team that could be a division winner (well, it's possible, but not likely).

Here are the Rankings for Week 12:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 10

Looking at the matchups for Week 10, my initial thought was that it would be Blowout City.

It's never that simple.  Or, rarely so.  There would be a surprise result that I hadn't picked and for whatever reason (read: bias) wouldn't be able to foresee. Really, there were only two of those, and I bumbled into a third by forgetting the first rule of the 2010's NFL: Andy Dalton can't win in the regular season when the game is played in prime-time.  I ignored that, and of course the Browns curb-stomped Cincy.

Boy, do I dislike Cincinnati.

I picked New Orleans to win straight up and that was looking good until the refs called offensive pass interference on Saints TE (not WR, TIGHT END) Jimmy Graham.  The call was bogus because one of the DB's in the area, Perrish Cox, flopped like an NBA or European football player.  So a sure-fire Saints win was turned into an OT game.  Predictably, Drew Brees continued his year of "this guy is an elite QB? you must be joking" by fumbling the ball, thus giving the game to the 49ers.

The other goof was picking Pittsburgh to beat the Jets.  No matter that the Steelers had won three in a row and Roethlisberger had thrown 12 TD's in the previous two games...the Steelers were bound and determined to not only look stupid, but to hand the Jets a win they didn't deserve.  I should have known better, but somehow didn't.

And with that, here are the Rankings for Week 10:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 9

For once, my top 10 didn't go entirely to pot.  This is good.

And maybe, just maybe, we know who's good and who isn't in the NFL this season.

That said, there's still plenty of time for things to go awry.  We're only halfway through, after all.

Here are the Rankings for Week 9:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 7

I find it particularly interesting when I don't have to change the Rankings much from week-to-week.  In the case of Week 7, eight of ten teams that were in after Week 6 won.  As a result, Cincinnati gets knocked out (because really, they haven't done anything since their bye), and San Diego takes a fall.

And yet, all of a sudden, it looks like there are some strong teams out there. Obviously, this is a rather huge departure from the first couple weeks of the season when we had no idea if anybody was good.

Still, there are only four teams with one loss and no undefeated teams.  That's an anomaly after seven weeks, I think.  But things are proceeding nicely and now the thing to be concerned about is the thing that rears its ugly head the most in any NFL season: injuries.  A key injury to any of the ten teams on my list this week could severely derail them.  There's the usual bad luck with INT's and blown coverages that result in losses, to be sure, but injuries (or the lack of them) will as usual determine who can remain successful through the remainder of the season and who will fall off, thus leave us wondering "what if".

Here are the Rankings for Week 7:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 6

Even in a week with fewer surprises than usual, there were still a couple of results that had people shaking their heads.

As I write this, the Monday night game has been over for a few hours.  It wasn't pretty, but when are they ever?  It's not often that those games are any good; NBC has generally taken all the good matchups.  ESPN and CBS/NFLN are left with the scraps for Monday and Thursday.

At any rate, being a Cowboys fan, I have to give them some credit here at the top.  Not only have they won five in a row after that mind-numbingly bad loss in Week 1, but they just went to Seattle and took out the champs.  Unsurprisingly, since the NFL is now a running league, the Cowboys did it with defense and running the ball a bunch of times.  This shouldn't surprise anyone, since Seattle's offense is usually pretty plain (aside from when they're making special effort to be anything other than boring) and when the running game isn't working, there's not a lot they can do otherwise.  The problem with Russell Wilson at this point in his career is that the OC and Pete Carroll don't seem to trust him enough to let him go on a consistent basis.  He was somehow able to do it against Washington, but then again, they somehow have a worse defense than the Cowboys.

Romo played well when he wasn't just handing it off to Murray/Randle and watching them run.  There wasn't the huge mistake like in the game against Denver from last year.  There were mistakes, to be sure, especially on special teams, but Romo isn't responsible for their tomfoolery.

Also, I should probably address the tie.  Cincinnati and Carolina played 75 minutes of football and there wasn't a winner.  NFL coaches are conservative; this is the nature of the beast.  When jobs are highly coveted (outside of Oakland or Jacksonville, at least), guys will do things conservatively and minimize risks to lessen their chances of losing said job.  Marvin Lewis doesn't appear to have anything to worry about, given that his dreadful playoff performance has yet to result in negative consequences, and yet he was obviously comfortable enough going for a field goal when he could have had Dalton...you know, win the game (cue Herman Edwards clip...now).

Dalton didn't get a chance and Mike Nugent honked the kick in hilarious fashion. There's your ball game.

Also, Brady, Peyton, and Rodgers looked like their usual "elite" selves.  I like it.

Here are the Rankings for Week 6:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 5

Ho-hum, just another week in the NFL!

Not a lot of surprises, really, which was nice.  Although we're down to 0 undefeated teams, which is always a bummer.  I try to highlight the ten best teams every week here on NHC, and it's damn difficult to do that when none of them have a 0 in the loss column.  But I'm always flying by the seat of my pants anyway, so I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference.

One surprising result was the sudden "resurrection" of the Patriots.  True, they're still just 3-2, but they looked a hell of a lot better on Sunday night than they had at any point in the first four weeks.  Also, what's up with Cincy and Arizona?  Is it the competition?

I hope so, because teams that start 3-0 shouldn't just fade as we approach midseason.

At least Peyton Manning looks like an "elite" QB.  I can't say that about Drew Brees much longer, I don't think.  Unless he's due for a "resurrection" himself in the coming weeks.

Here are the Rankings for Week 5:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 4

26 of 32 teams reached the quarter pole in Week 4.  The other six will reach it after the conclusion of Week 5.

What does this mean?  Hell, I'm not sure.  It's been a wacky four weeks in the NFL so far, and mediocr...I mean, parity (duh) is reigning supreme.

Well, mostly.  13 teams are 2-2 right now.  Had the teams on a bye in Week 4 played, I'm sure that number would be higher.  The majority of the rest are either flying high at 3-1 or looking like garbage at 1-3.  What's surprising is that New Orleans and New England (perennial contenders and weekly Rankings holders) are not only out of the Rankings but the Saints are 1-3 and the Pats are 2-2.  I find it incredibly difficult to believe that two elite QB's could fall so hard.

Then again, Aaron Rodgers just had his first good game in Week 4.  And while Peyton Manning has looked good, he's clearly not on the breakneck pace of 2013.

So the elite QB's mostly stink and we're left with guys like Rivers, Dalton, and Flacco.  Of this group, Flacco has a ring and an unearned SB MVP (that should have gone to Jacoby Jones, but I digress), which puts him slightly ahead of the other two.  But honestly, Dalton and Rivers have looked better.

I think I'll wait until the halfway point to make a judgment on the Cowboys.

Here are the Rankings for Week 4:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 3

Another interesting week in the NFL and we're down to three undefeated teams.

Who's good?  I still don't know.  So you'll probably notice that a number of teams have dropped out again and a couple who were in previously are now in again after winning.  The least of these, at the moment, is Baltimore, who won on a last-second field goal in Cleveland.  I bet that had people sweating for multiple reasons.

Buffalo and Houston were two previously undefeated teams that dropped out. I thought their performance was a fluke.  Neither team showed up well in situations that were tailor-made for wins.  It seemed.  Buffalo had perennial road chokers San Diego in their house.  Houston went to Jersey to take on the 0-2 Giants.

And now they're both out for the time being.

Four previously undefeated teams lost in Week 3 and four winless teams won in Week 3.  Everything's nice and symmetrical, yet still mostly unpredictable.

Although I did go 11-5 straight up this week, which has me feeling a bit better and less like a monkey on a typewriter.

Here are the Rankings for Week 3:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 2

Parity is mediocrity.

Last week, the NFL season started with a bang.  Week 2 wasn't less surprising, necessarily, but the standings show a stark regression to mediocrity.  There are 32 teams in the NFL, as you know.  18 of them are now 1-1.  Seven are 2-0, seven are 0-2.

Thus, for people who try to figure out which teams are good and which are not on a weekly basis, we really have no choice but to throw our hands up in the air and practically give up on the whole enterprise.

But as I said last week, it's early and things like Rankings are basically a crapshoot.  I don't think that's any less accurate after two weeks than after one, although at least we know that results will have teams trending toward mediocrity rather than greatness, at least in the early going.

Some of the unforeseeable results, like Seattle losing to San Diego, shake up the Rankings quite significantly.  And of the seven 2-0 teams, I would venture to bet that at least four of them weren't on anyone's radar in the preseason. Or maybe they were and I was listening to the wrong people.

Also in Week 2, you'll notice that each team has brackets after their record. What this indicates is the movement since last week.  For example, [+1] means that a team moved up one spot.  A [-] means that the team wasn't in the Rankings in the previous week.

Here are the Rankings for Week 2:

2014 NFL Power Rankings, Week 1

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of the 2014 Rankings.  The 2014 NFL season started this past weekend, and now that all the games in Week 1 are concluded, it is time for me to ramble about them a bit.

I realize that "Power Rankings" are a bit hackneyed in 2014 (just like they were in 2013, and 2012, etc.); this is really just an excuse for me to talk about something I really love, even if this week really tested my patience and love for the game.  As always, my rankings vary week to week based on one simple thing: wins.  Those who win stay put (or move up), those who don't move down (or out).

I'll be honest, the first week is a total crapshoot.  None of us had any idea what would happen going in, really.  So the results of Week 1 are both surprising and unhelpful.  Because let's face it, we don't know what's going to happen the rest of the season yet.  Maybe in a few weeks we'll have a better idea, but at the moment it's all looking confusing and mysterious.

Indeed, there were some mysterious results throughout the league.  How do both teams from Pennsylvania end up in such weird games?  How does Chicago lose in OT to a team that looked like absolute crap in the preseason?

How are the Cowboys an NFL team?  Oh, my goodness.

I've been a Cowboys fan since 1989 (in case you're new and/or don't remember which team I follow most avidly), and that has to be the worst opener I've ever seen.  Then again, I don't really remember the 1989 team, and I believe that one finished 1-15.  Rookies, huh?

Unfortunately, the 2014 version has no such excuses.  What it does have is a QB coming off of back surgery.  Apparently, back surgery isn't conducive to playing QB at the professional level.  Who knew?  Not me.

Without further ado, here are the Rankings for Week 1: