NFL Power Rankings Week 9: Are New England Patriots NFL's Best Again?
It's time for your NFL Power Rankings for Week 9, and there's a whole lot of movement at the top after this weekend.
As the only team left in the NFL with just one loss, do the Patriots claim the top spot? Or was Pittsburgh's hiccup in New Orleans merely a bump in the road?
Meanwhile, just how good are the Raiders? Just how bad are things going to get in Washington?
Start the slideshow to find out.
The Bottom of the Barrel
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32. Dallas Cowboys: The Boys are officially uninterested in showing up to play on Sundays. What a joke.
31. Minnesota Vikings: The amount of strife in Minnesota has been turned to 11.
30. Buffalo Bills: They'll have to win one of these overtime games sooner or later, right?
29. Carolina Panthers: Followed up their first win over the season by adding to Sam Bradford's growing rookie legend.
28. Denver Broncos: They have the Orton-to-Lloyd thing worked out. Now they just need the rest of it.
27. San Francisco 49ers: Gotta lover former Heisman winner Troy Smith taking England by storm.
26. Arizona Cardinals: Made life pretty tough for the NFC's "best team."
25. Cleveland Browns: Have had two weeks to celebrate win over New Orleans. Will now host new England and the Jets.
24. Cincinnati Bengals: The whole Batman and Robin thing isn't working out very well, is it?
23. Detroit Lions: Did you know they have the NFC's best offense?
22. San Diego Chargers: Big win over Tennessee, but they still got booed by the home crowd at halftime.
21. St. Louis Rams: They'll probably crack the Top 20 next week.
20. Seattle Seahawks
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Welcome to the NFC West, where the team in first place is just barely good enough to crack the Top 20 in the Power Rankings.
The Seahawks didn't earn a first down until midway through the second quarter on Sunday against Oakland, and they couldn't even stop Darrius Heyward-Bey from having the best game of his career.
They also finished the game with 162 yards of total offense and just the three points.
Pathetic.
19. Jacksonville Jaguars
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Jags fans probably should read too much into Jacksonville's thrashing of the Cowboys. The Jaguars aren't that good. The truth is that Dallas is just that bad.
Yes, even if David Garrard did pile up five touchdowns against them.
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18. Washington Redskins
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Never mind Donovan McNabb, who does it say about where the Redskins are as a team that Mike Shanahan can't even come up with a good reason for benching his starting quarterback in favor of Rex Grossman.
And we thought Brad Childress throwing Brett Favre under the bus was bad.
The Skins are 4-4, but this past weekend's loss to the Lions has "sinking ship" written all over it.
17. Chicago Bears
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Finally, a weekend that didn't require us to watch any horrible quarterback play by the Chicago Bears!
That's because they had a bye.
True, they may be 4-3 and second in the NFC North, but they feel like they're a lot worse than that. Don't be surprised if they lose at Buffalo, who could have won either of their last two games.
16. Miami Dolphins
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If it hadn't been for some officiating tomfoolery in their game against Pittsburgh, the Dolphins would probably be 5-2 right now, and tied with the Jets for second in the AFC East.
As it is, they're the only team in football with a 4-0 mark on the road, and they're still very much in the thick of things at 4-3.
Also, their defense is still very underrated. It's very hard to move the ball against them (309.4 yards/game).
15. Oakland Raiders
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Left for dead after their loss to the then-winless 49ers, the Raiders have tapped into some kind of black magic that hasn't been seen in Oakland for years.
They've beaten their last two opponents by a combined score of 82-17, and have gained 500 yards in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history.
We'll see if they're for real this Sunday when they host the AFC West-leading Chiefs.
Also, Darren McFadden is for real.
14. Philadelphia Eagles
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The Eagles loss in Tennessee in Week 7 was pretty terrible.
But things are looking up with Michael Vick ready to start against the Colts coming off the Eagles Week 8 bye. With all respect to Kevin Kolb, who is very solid in his own right, Philly is a much more dangerous team with Vick under center.
They face a tall task at home, however, as they have to host the Colts. We shall find out soon enough just how good (or bad) they are.
13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
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We all know that the Bucs aren't as good as Raheem Morris thinks they are. But since they are tied for the best record in the NFC, we can't afford to underrate them all that much.
How about a big shoutout for LeGarrette Blount? The undrafted free agent out of Oregon had 120 yards on 22 carries and got into the end zone twice against Arizona. Not bad for a guy who was once suspended an entire season for decking a Boise State player.
12. Houston Texans
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The Texans got their comeuppance in Indianapolis last night. In the process, they validated something we were all thinking since opening day: there's no way the Texans are better than the Colts.
Matt Schuab, Arian Foster and Andre Johnson are only going to be able to do so much. The defense is going to need to get seriously squared away before the Titans can advance any further this year. They're dead last in the NFL in yards per game (404.1), and allow more yards through the air than anybody else by quite a wide margin.
11. New Orleans Saints
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The champs were back! And then they weren't. And then they were! And then they weren't.
And now they are!
Big win over Pittsburgh, who was pretty obviously the best team in the AFC before Sunday night's action.
But perhaps the best news for Saints fans (and fantasy owners) is that Drew Brees is finally getting the ball to Marques Colston again. In addition, Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas are going to be back sooner rather than later.
10. Kansas City Chiefs
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They just won't go away.
Of course, they would have if the NFL had finally implemented a rule that outlaws all that nonsense about last-second timeouts to isolate the opposing team's kicker.
Nevertheless, it's hard to hate on the AFC West leaders. Especially not while their defense continues to be a huge surprise.
9. Tennessee Titans
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Outside of Chris Johnson's video game 29-yard touchdown run, not much went right for the Titans in San Diego.
Vince Young hut his ankle again, Kenny Britt is now out indefinitely with a hamstring injury, and the Titans lost their five-point halftime lead and the game 33-25.
All against the AFC's biggest underachiever. Things definitely don't look as bright in Tennessee as they did before this past week.
8. Green Bay Packers
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After the Packers lost their second game in a row at home against Miami a couple weeks ago, things looked really bad.
Since then, they've beaten Brett Favre to a pulp and then pitched a shutout against the Jets. Big ups, Packers. Now they're 5-3, and alone on top of the NFC North.
Big ups.
7. Atlanta Falcons
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The Falcons also enjoyed some well-deserved time off in Week 8. They still sit atop the NFC South, and will get a chance to gain a stranglehold on the division when they host Raheem Morris and "the best team in the NFC" next week.
One suspects that Atlanta will take care of business and make the Bucs coach take another look at the teams he's beaten.
Remember, it will be the NFC's second best rushing attack against the NFC's worst rushing defense.
6. New York Jets
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The Jets had two weeks to prepare for their home tilt against Green Bay, and they laid an absolute egg.
Three turnovers, 360 yards of offense, and zero points. At home. After a bye week.
That's enough to make a team that looked like the best in the land to take a significant hit in the polls.
In addition, it's about time the real Mark Sanchez showed up again. We hadn't seen him since Week 1.
5. New York Giants
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By now, we all know that the NFC is pretty lousy this year. But the Giants are the best of the bunch, and that's worth certain considerations.
They can't really play defense, but their offense is the second highest scoring offense in the NFC behind the Lions.
The football Giants enjoyed a weekend off in Week 8, giving them two weeks to celebrate their thumping of Dallas. But they've still won four in a row, and have very winnable games the next two weeks at Seattle and at home against Dallas.
4. Pittsburgh Steelers
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They were pretty clearly one of the top teams in football after the first seven weeks, if not the top team.
Exactly what went wrong in New Orleans—aside from very poor pass defense in the second half, of course—is hard to figure. Thus, it's probably a good idea to give the Steelers the benefit of the doubt after their 20-10 loss to the defending champs.
At least they didn't get shut out.
3. Baltimore Ravens
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After their Week 8 bye, we don't know anything about the Ravens that we didn't know before. They're a dangerous package of a top ten defense, a star-studded offense, and years of experience on both sides of the ball.
The only real trouble at this point is that they end their two-week hiatus by hosting the Dolphins and their 4-0 road record.
2. Indianapolis Colts
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We now know that Peyton Manning can succeed without Dallas Clark, Austin Collie, and Joseph Addai, and he did it against a very solid Texans team.
Sure, Houston can't defend the pass to save their lives, but it seems foolish to say that last night was their failure more than it was Indy's success. Give the boys in blue some credit.
1. New England Patriots
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Have they beaten up on some pretty unimpressive teams? Yes.
But are they once again the most tightly run ship in the NFL? Yes.
Many people seemed hell bent on keeping the Pats out of the top spot for a good majority of the season. But now that they're the only remaining one-loss team at the midpoint, and they have the top scoring offense in football, it's time to finally give them their due.
Besides, how smart do they look for trading Randy Moss right now?
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