NFL Power 10: Redskins Continue Surprising Climb Up the Power Rankings

The top two teams stay the same, but after that, the NFL Power 10 gets shaken up!

OK, not really, but the teams are in a different order!

1 (1) Giants (4-0)

The Giants are just pounding the snot out of everyone right now. The difficulty in assessing how monstrous this team really is lies within the everyone they’ve been pounding.

That "everyone" consists of the winless St. Louis Rams, the winless Cincinnati Bengals, the one-win Seattle Seahawks, and the Washington Redskins, who were playing their first game under a rookie head coach.

We won’t know anything about this team until Week Eight, when they play the Steelers. The Giants play the Steelers (away), Cowboys (home), Eagles (away), Ravens (home), Cardinals (away), Redskins (away), Eagles (home), Cowboys (away), Panthers (home), and Vikings (away) in the second half of the season.

If they’re still winning the NFC East after that stretch, they’ll deserve their spot at the top of the Power 10. That’s what you call a tough, tough stretch run.

2 (2) Titans (5-0)

The Titans have also benefited from an easy early schedule. They’ve had games against the winless Bengals and Texans and the disappointing Vikings. They played the Jags in Week One, but the Jags were hardly a bastion of good health.

They do have one challenging win, the Baltimore Ravens. But the jury is still out on the Ravens.

Like the Giants, the Titans’ schedule gets infinitely tougher down the road, though not nearly as hard. They’re a lock for the playoffs right now. They already have five wins. They still have the Chiefs, Texans, Lions, Jets and Browns on their schedule.

So pencil them in for at least 10 wins, probably somewhere closer to 12 or 13.

3 (5) Redskins (4-1)

I picked the Redskins, and they didn’t let me down!

OK, so I picked the Redskins to cover the spread but lose the game. Doesn’t matter. I still get my money.

You know, if gambling were legal.

4 (4) Cowboys (4-1)

The Cowboys have dropped below the Redskins for all of the following reasons:

*T.O. crying on the sidelines made me question their manhood.

*Wade Phillips yelling at the press for questioning how good his team is after they barely beat a zero-win team made me question his ability to be an NFL head coach.

*In retrospect, the Cowboys’ schedule hasn’t been as tough as if first appeared.

*Ummm…the Redskins beat the Cowboys.

5 (7) Steelers (4-1)

Since 2001, every good young quarterback who has any success as a starter is immediately compared to Tom Brady. Remember the Chad Pennington-Tom Brady comparisons?

Ben Roethlisberger was immediately compared to Tom Brady when he enjoyed early success with the Steelers. He wasn’t Tom Brady. The moronic sports media touted this comparison endlessly, to the point where it actually turned me against Roethlisberger.

That’s unfortunate, because my blind and misplaced hatred is the primary reason why I missed this guy morph into one of the toughest and best quarterbacks in the National Football League.

Still not Tom Brady, but not many quarterbacks are.

6 (3) Bills (4-1)

That noise you heard over the weekend was the wheels coming off the Bills’ bandwagon. I’m still on-board, but with J.P. Losman driving the bus—let’s say I’m ready to jump.

On a related note, the rest of the AFC would like to welcome J.P. back to active duty. Every week he has to play is a week that Matt Cassel isn’t the worst starting quarterback in the AFC East.

7 (6) Broncos (4-1)

Was that defense I saw the Broncos playing last weekend? How pathetic is the Tampa Bay offense? Only scoring 13 points against the “vaunted” Denver defense is inexcusable.

The Broncos reward for beating the Bucs is a home game against the Jaguars. Of course, had they lost to the Bucs, this would have been their punishment as well.

Lousy predefined schedules.

8 (8) Panthers (4-1)

I’ll say this about the Panthers: They sure do know how to take care of inferior teams. Over the last two weeks, they’ve beating the Falcons and Chiefs by a combined score of 58-9.

That, my friends, is domination.

Of course, the week before the Falcons game they lost to Gus Frerotte...

9 (-) Patriots (3-1)

I still don’t like their offense. I still don’t believe in their defense. I still hate their starting quarterback. But really, who else deserves to be in this spot? Everyone stinks this year. It’s parity at its best (worst).

The Patriots go to San Diego this week to participate in the battle of teams who thought they’d win the Super Bowl but were smacked back to reality with losses to the Miami Dolphins in consecutive weeks.

I can’t wait!

10 (-) Bears (3-2)

This spot could have gone to a number of teams. But only one team features a quarterback who scored nearly 40 points for my fantasy football team this week.

Of course, he was playing against the Lions...

Dropped Out

(9) Buccaneers (3-2)

13 points against the Broncos’ defense? Seriously?

(10) Ravens (2-2)

Two tough losses in a row knock them out, but if they keep playing like they’re playing, they’ll be back in the Power 10 sooner than later.

Bottom Three

30. Bengals (0-5)

On the bright side, they made T.O. cry. On the downside, their own fans stopped crying years ago when they stopped caring.

31. Rams (0-4)

When you don’t play for a week, sometimes we forget exactly how bad you are. Which is why, for the first time this year, the Rams are out of last place!

32. Lions (0-4)

Good God, it really, really sucks to be a Detroit Lions fan right now.

Sean Crowe is a Senior Writer and an NFL Community Leader at Bleacher Report. You can email him at [e-mail]. His archive can be found here. You can find everything he writes, including articles for other publications, here.