NFL Power Rankings: Exploring the League Landscape Heading into Week 3

The NFL season might be 16 games long, but fans waste little time in panicking over one bad result.

The 2014 season is only two weeks old, so it would be foolish to put too much importance in early results. The New Orleans Saints aren't going to finish 0-16, and the Buffalo Bills aren't going to finish 16-0. The first two weeks' worth of games do give you a rough idea for how the campaign might unfold. Maybe the Saints were overrated and the Bills underrated.

Considering how little evidence there is to reach too many conclusions, the power rankings below are only a rough sketch for the league's hierarchy. The teams underlined built the most momentum coming out of Week 2.

32. Oakland Raiders (0-2)

Rather than a silver lining, the Oakland Raiders have a silver-and-black lining, which means they can't have anything nice. The team made the right decision in starting Derek Carr, but he's gonna have some rough patches before everything comes together.

31. Jacksonville Jaguars (0-2)

When you have a rookie quarterback waiting in the wings, it's always nice to have a solid offensive line so as to put him in the best position to succeed. According to Football Outsiders, the Jacksonville Jaguars rank dead last in both run blocking and pass protection. That can't be reassuring for Blake Bortles whenever he makes his regular-season debut.

30. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-2)

Sorry to keep making this about quarterbacks, but Josh McCown looks like a completely different player without Marc Trestman there to help him along. Couple that with injuries to Michael Johnson and Gerald McCoy, and you get a downright bad Tampa Bay Buccaneers team.

29. New York Giants (0-2)

Bill Kostroun/Associated Press

With Carson Palmer out for the Arizona Cardinals, the New York Giants had an opportunity to make a nice statement of intent. Instead, they turned the ball over four times and allowed Andre Ellington and Jonathan Dwyer to rush for 122 combined yards. The Giants made a statement, and it's that they aren't very good.

28. St. Louis Rams (1-1)

Give credit where credit's due. The St. Louis Rams won one of their most winnable games on their schedule this year. The Rams didn't elevate themselves too much, but maybe they won't be one of the worst teams in the league.

27. Minnesota Vikings (1-1)

At this point, the Minnesota Vikings don't have anything to lose. Matt Cassel's not an NFL-caliber starting quarterback, and the league placed Adrian Peterson on the exempt list, per ESPN.com. Would starting Teddy Bridgewater make things all that much worse?

26. Kansas City Chiefs (0-2)

Things may be looking up for the Kansas City Chiefs very soon. Knile Davis filled in for Jamaal Charles well, and Travis Kelce looks like he could be a nice weapon in a passing game bereft of consistent receiving options. Kansas City also has a winnable game against the Miami Dolphins to build some much-needed momentum.

25. Washington Redskins (1-1)

Kirk Cousins arguably gives the Washington Redskins a better chance to win right now than Robert Griffin III when he was healthy. The problem is, the Redskins aren't exactly loaded at every other position. Is Cousins good enough to win 10 games with this Washington team? Probably not.

24. Tennessee Titans (1-1)

The problem with ranking a team like the Tennessee Titans is that the first two weeks completely contrasted with one another. The Titans beat the Chiefs in Week 1 26-10 and then lost to the Dallas Cowboys by the same score in Week 2. Tennessee doesn't inspire much confidence based on its recent history, so Titans fans should remain cautiously optimistic.

23. Dallas Cowboys (1-1)

Jason Garrett may have found the best way to compensate for Tony Romo's propensity for being Tony Romo: run the football. DeMarco Murray ran the ball for 167 yards and a touchdown against the Titans. Murray also allowed Dallas to possess the ball for a little over 41 minutes of the game. The more the defense stays off the field, the better the Cowboys will be.

22. Cleveland Browns (1-1)

How many false dawns have the Cleveland Browns had since coming into the league in 1999? The fanbase is so starved for success that at the faintest hint of something good, it goes into complete overdrive, only to be disappointed weeks later.

The Browns most likely aren't a playoff team, but 8-8 or 9-7 may not be out of the question. Any improvement you see this year starts with the guy calling the plays.

Bleacher Report's Will Burge wrote that head coach Mike Pettine is building the team in his image and allowing the players to delegate their own business in the locker room:

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Pettine let the leaders on the roster call their peers to the carpet. He let them question whether or not the team was going to fight or roll over and die. Sometimes the best leaders delegate to their most trusted underlings.

He has his team playing with a chip on its shoulder, as if responding to a perceived slight from the rest of the NFL. No one gives the Browns the respect they feel they deserve. That sounds familiar as well.

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Playing the Baltimore Ravens at home will be a good test for the Browns to see whether last week's win over the New Orleans Saints was a fluke or a sign of things to come.

21. New York Jets (1-1)

Don't let one boneheaded timeout cloud what was still a good performance from the New York Jets. How many fans expected them to take a 21-3 lead over the Green Bay Packers on the road and lose by just a touchdown? If the Jets can get out of their own way, they'll be above .500 at year's end.

20. Pittsburgh Steelers (1-1)

The Pittsburgh Steelers in the first two quarters of 2014? Very good. The Steelers in the six subsequent quarters so far in 2014? Not so good, per NFL on ESPN:

The officials made a couple of questionable calls against Pittsburgh in Week 2, but that alone doesn't cover for the fact that the Steelers were clearly second-best to the Baltimore Ravens. They'll have to step their game up a lot in Week 3.

19. Houston Texans (2-0)

Although the Houston Texans are 2-0, those wins came against the Redskins and Raiders, who are far from behemoths of the league. Let's not forget last year's Texans, who started out 2-0 before finishing 2-14. Houston's obviously a better team in 2014, but pump the brakes on the bandwagon for now.

18. Miami Dolphins (1-1)

Bill Wippert/Associated Press

Much has been made of Ryan Tannehill's lackluster performance so far in 2014, but Pro Football Focus' Sam Monson argued that he hasn't had much help from his wide receivers, which distorts how he's actually played:

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Tannehill has suffered from seven dropped passes already this season (only Joe Flacco has experienced more). He has lost 113 yards of passes due to drops (at a minimum – that only counts the yards in the air the ball traveled, not the potential yards after the catch the receiver lost by dropping the ball). That is more than any other passer in the league, including Flacco. If you add those plays into his official stats his passer rating jumps twenty points into the 90s. Sure, you could do that for every quarterback, but as we have already pointed out, Tanneill has suffered more than most from his receivers not helping him out.

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PFF ranks Tannehill as the third-best QB right now. Maybe if the Dolphins receivers start pulling their weight, Miami can get back on track.

17. Detroit Lions (1-1)

The Detroit Lions remain one of the most confounding teams in the league. They looked like a million bucks in Week 1 and followed it up with an abject performance in Week 2. Do the Lions deserve the benefit of the doubt, given how the last few seasons have played out?

16. New Orleans Saints (0-2)

The New Orleans Saints defense has nearly regressed to its 2012 level of performance. That year, the Saints gave up the most total yards in NFL history. Jairus Byrd was supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle. Instead, he's just plain missing, per Jimmy Kempski of Philly.com:

New Orleans should abandon its Super Bowl hopes, but it can't go much longer playing like this.

15. Atlanta Falcons (1-1)

Over the last two weeks, the Atlanta Falcons have given up 56 combined points and an average of 472 yards of total offense a game. Those numbers aren't sustainable even when you have one of the best offenses in the league. The Falcons will continue to be held down by their defense until the unit makes positive strides.

14. Indianapolis Colts (0-2)

The Indianapolis Colts have the perfect remedy to cure their winless record: the Jaguars. Losing to the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles by a combined 10 points isn't all that bad. Perhaps the Colts should've done better, but if they're 2-2 by the end of Week 4, their first two weeks will largely be forgotten.

13. Baltimore Ravens (1-1)

As B/R's Mike Tanier tweeted out at the time, Joe Flacco looked about as much unlike Joe Flacco as he ever has in the Ravens' 26-6 win over the Steelers:

Flacco finished 21-of-29 for 166 yards and two touchdowns. Baltimore is almost always worse off when the former Super Bowl MVP is throwing a high volume of passes, so if he can remain this efficient, the Ravens could be the class of the AFC North.

12. Buffalo Bills (2-0)

With their 29-10 win over the Dolphins, the Buffalo Bills proved that Week 1 was no aberration. EJ Manuel hasn't been blinding through the Bills' first two games, but he's making nice strides in 2014, and with C.J. Spiller in the backfield, Manuel doesn't need to put the entire offense on his back.

11. San Diego Chargers (1-1)

DENIS POROY/Associated Press

Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates have been playing for so long that they score touchdowns almost completely by accident. Rivers said after San Diego's win over the Seattle Seahawks that he and Gates improvised a few of their biggest hookups, per Ricky Henne of Chargers.com:

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It doesn’t surprise me, but I will say that the touchdown catches for the most part didn’t come up exactly like they were drawn. It’s just two guys who have been together a long time. I read him. He felt probably what I was seeing and thinking. Those ones are really gratifying, when you make plays together like that. They’re a little bit backyard. We ended up close to the spots we were trying to, but it was just kind of different based on better technique. They were obviously huge plays.

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With the way that the Chargers closed out 2013 and started off 2014, you shouldn't sleep on them too much. The AFC West looks extremely competitive. Playing the Bills on the road on Sunday will provide a gauge for how good San Diego really is right now.

10. San Francisco 49ers (1-1)

Maybe the San Francisco 49ers' loss to the Chicago Bears was so crazy that it's a complete outlier. Will San Francisco play that bad again? Colin Kaepernick never threw more than one interception in a game that wasn't against the Seahawks. He threw three against the Bears. John Harbaugh also failed to capitalize on the success of Frank Gore, who averaged 4.8 yards a carry in the defeat. Wait a little bit before hitting the panic button.

9. Chicago Bears (1-1)

The Bears are who we thought they were! Winning the first regular-season game inside Levi's Stadium is a massive accomplishment early on for the Bears, as is coming back from 17 points down to win. The most important aspect of that game for Chicago was the emergence of Kyle Fuller. If he can step right into the shoes of Charles Tillman, that defense won't miss a beat.

8. Carolina Panthers (2-0)

The good news for the Carolina Panthers is that Cam Newton looked great in his 2014 debut. The bad news is that the Panthers placed Greg Hardy on the exempt list, per David Newton of ESPN.com. The defense will be tested against a motivated Steelers team.

7. Arizona Cardinals (2-0)

It shouldn't be a huge surprise that the Cardinals can win without Carson Palmer. He's arguably the weakest part of the team's starting lineup. The defense is one of the strongest in the league, and with a consistent ground game, Arizona can win with Stanton.

6. New England Patriots (1-1)

The New England Patriots look like the Patriots again. That New England beat Minnesota wasn't by itself impressive or surprising. The way in which New England beat Minnesota deserved praise. The Pats jumped on the Vikings early and never took their foot off the gas.

5. Green Bay Packers (1-1)

Some might look at the Packers' win over the Jets and be left wanting more. However, that victory should be viewed in much more positive terms. Making up an 18-point deficit against an underrated New York defense wasn't easy.

4. Philadelphia Eagles (2-0)

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Thirty-one-year-old Darren Sproles may have found the fountain of youth in the form of Chip Kelly's offensive system. If he's coming out of the backfield to catch seven passes for 152 yards, then opposing defenses might as well give up now.

3. Seattle Seahawks (1-1)

Any talk of an unbeaten season or budding dynasty for Seattle was extremely premature. You can't read too much into the Seahawks' loss to the Chargers. What team doesn't have issues this year? After two weeks, Seattle's still the best team in the NFC.

2. Cincinnati Bengals (2-0)

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Questions continue to hover over Andy Dalton that won't be answered until the playoffs. That he's completed 65.6 percent of his passes and failed to throw an interception through the first two games are steps in the right direction.

The defense is doing its best to take some of the pressure off Dalton. Having a strong running game featuring Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard helps compensate for the loss of A.J. Green as well. Right now, the Bengals are one of the best teams in the league.

1. Denver Broncos (2-0)

The Denver Broncos must figure out how to play four quarters of football. Two weeks in a row they've started out really well in the first half and tailed off in the second. Denver's still the best team in the league, but it's showing some concerning signs early on.