Hock's Take: NFL Power Rankings For Week 9

1. New Orleans Saints
Last Week: 1
Little bit of a scare there against the Rams. But seriously, it was just the Rams, was there ever a doubt?

2. Indianapolis Colts
Last Week: 2
Remember when Peyton Manning used to be a huge choke artist who couldn’t win a big game to save his life? I think that’s a thing of the past.

3. Minnesota Vikings
Last Week: 3
One can only hope that someday, Adrian Peterson will learn how to hold onto the football.

4. Cincinnati Bengals
Last Week: 6
You know, if one half-crazy disappointment of a running back can succeed in this system … why the hell not?

5. Pittsburgh Steelers
Last Week: 4
The Steelers suddenly find themselves with mounting injury problems and stuck in a race for the Wild Card.

6. San Diego Chargers
Last Week: 9
If only LaDanian Tomlinson could make a woman pregnant every week. Oh wait, that’s Travis Henry.

7. New England Patriots
Last Week: 5
You kind of had to know that, at some point, that fourth-down play would come back to bite the Patriots. Lucky for them, nobody else in the AFC is really playing hard.

8. Dallas Cowboys
Last Week: 7
The Cowboys just looked flat on Sunday. Which is difficult, considering the presence of Wade Phillips.

9. Denver Broncos
Last Week: 8
Kyle Orton is hurt and the Broncos are in a tailspin. Good news/bad news: They play the Chargers this week for control of the West.

10. Arizona Cardinals
Last Week: 16
Hey! Look everyone! A running game! Sort of! I wonder if Beanie Wells will be able to maintain this for the rest of the season.

11. Atlanta Falcons
Last Week: 10
If Michael Turner is out for a while, the Falcons could be in trouble. Matt Ryan is turning the ball over too much, and they’re falling further and further behind New Orleans.

12. Baltimore Ravens
Last Week: 13
The offense hasn’t looked good in the past few weeks, but they’re running out of opportunities for the defense to save them. Flacco and company need to start flashing like they did earlier this season.

13. Philadelphia Eagles
Last Week: 8
McNabb was brilliant, but the Eagles’ issues run too deep. Let’s start with a lack of running game. At all. Not that they’ve ever had one, really, in Philly, but you have to at least pretend you’re going to try.

14. New York Giants
Last Week: 10
As good a week for a bye as you can get in New York. They’ve got to stop the bleeding pretty soon or Tom Coughlin is going to have to show some emotion.

15. San Francisco 49ers
Last Week: 20
Mike Singletary’s defense looked strong this week, holding off the Bears and gaining some measure of revenge for coach Singletary’s … successful career in Chicago.

16. Houston Texans
Last Week: 17
Houston took a bye this week, and they’re fresh and ready to come back. Up next? Deciding what three games to win so they can finish 8-8.

17. Miami Dolphins
Last Week: 15
Ronnie Brown is out, so the Wildcat won’t be so wild against the Panthers. Not that anything about a Dolphins/Panthers matchup is.

18. Green Bay Packers
Last Week: 19
Perhaps a playoff run for the Packers is not entirely out of the question. But this team is so schizophrenic that I think it probably is.

19. Jacksonville Jaguars
Last Week: 25
Heads up play by Maurice Jones-Drew, and he was even polite enough to apologize to his fantasy owners for not scoring. I wonder, though, if the Jags missed the kick, if he wouldn’t have been the goat.

20. Chicago Bears
Last Week: 17
It’s clearly not about the quarterback, you could put Jay Cutler in that backfield and he’s going to look terrible at times. There’s a culture of disaster developing in Chicago.

21. Carolina Panthers
Last Week: 22
The Panthers looked OK, but they’re just playing for pride now. And even that might be a bit of a stretch.

22. New York Jets
Last Week: 18
And this year’s hot start followed by the team somehow living up to their amazingly low expectations award goes to…

23. Tennessee Titans
Last Week: 25
Join us next week as Professor Bud Adams continues his lecture on, “How to React When You Find a Team Somehow Worse Than You.”

24. Buffalo Bills
Last Week: 21
You know, I’ve had my popcorn ready all season, and now, I’m just going to go ahead and eat it. I’m sure it’s pretty stale by now, but I hate seeing it go to waste.

25. Seattle Seahawks
Last Week: 23
Jim Mora has assimilated into Seahawks culture pretty well. It only took him nine weeks to start blaming the referees for his team’s horrible record.

26. Washington Redskins
Last Week: 31
Do the Redskins really have three wins now? How in the world have they been able to find two teams playing poorly enough to lose to them?

27. Kansas City Chiefs
Last Week: 28
So that’s the secret! Cut your best player and suddenly everything will fall into place. Todd Haley is a genius.

28. Oakland Raiders
Last Week: 26
Supposedly, the Raiders are weighing the options as to whether a guy running on one leg, Charlie Frye, or JaMarcus Russell will give them the best chance to win. Well….

29. St. Louis Rams
Last Week: 27
Honestly, if they were any better, they’d probably been able to wrap that game up against the Saints. As it was, I guess we should just all be proud that they gave it a try.

30. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Last Week: 29
Back to their losing ways. But at least they’re taking it on the chin and not bitching about the officiating. Oh … wait.

31. Detroit Lions
Last Week: 28
Whatever they fed Phillip Buchanon before the game, they should give it to the whole team. How he caught Adrian Peterson from behind, I’ll never know.

32. Cleveland Browns
Last Week: 30
Not even extra timeouts are going to help the Browns this year. The NFL should just spot them 14 points every game and see what happens.