NFL Power Rankings: 3 Teams That Are Falling Fastest

Three teams are slipping down the power rankings, as big losses keep piling up in consecutive weeks while the teams fall flat in nearly every facet of the game.

Take the New England Patriots, for example, who sat at No. 4 headed into Week 8 but have slipped to No. 9 after losing two straight games.

The Patriots have struggled all season with fielding a strong defense, relying on their high-powered offense to carry the entire team to victories. They did this with some success, boasting a single loss heading into their Week 8 contest against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

However, the Steelers were able to exploit that weak defense while simultaneously stifling quarterback Tom Brady and the rest of the New England offense, defeating them convincingly.

The New York Giants clearly studied the Steelers' strategy, employing similar tactics when they handed the Patriots an almost unheard of second consecutive loss.

I warned at the beginning of the season that that weak Patriots defense would be their undoing—while there's still quite a bit of the season remaining, the going will only get tougher for New England as the weeks roll by.

With the New York Jets up next, the Patriots are staring down yet another drop in the rankings—another loss will send them out of the top 10.

The Washington Redskins have fallen for the last four weeks in a row, corresponding with losses suffered in each of those weeks.

They started 3-1 but did not convince me that they were one of the NFC's—let alone the league's—strongest teams, and the evidence is mounting for Washington's inclusion in the very bottom basement of the power rankings, which is where they sit heading into Week 10.

Ranked 26th in Week 8 (after topping out at No. 13 in Week 6), they've plummeted from 28th in Week 9 to 31st going into Week 10.

The team barely has any offense to speak of, with quarterback John Beck becoming increasingly incapable of throwing deep, while their defense—which started strongly—isn't responding well to adversity in its own right.

The Redskins' fall is based on four consecutive weeks of failure, but for the Buffalo Bills, their five-spot drop from Weeks 9 to 10 is caused by just one single loss.

Of course, that loss was a significant one, dropping 27-11 to division-mates New York Jets, leaving the team in a three-way tie for first place in the AFC North. 

The game was rife with turnovers—the Bills turned the ball over three times while the Jets did so twice. But what really killed the Bills was their inability to score points, a problem that they've not had with much frequency in their surprising 2011 season.

Buffalo didn't get on the board until the third quarter, when kicker Rian Lindell hit a 24-yard field goal, and the team only managed a touchdown in the fourth quarter when the game was out of hand.

The Bills are under a lot of pressure, to be sure. It's how they manage it that will determine not just their future standings in the power rankings but also their ability to reach the playoffs for the first time since 1999.

NFL Power Rankings, Week 10*
 
1. Green Bay Packers
2. San Francisco 49ers
3. Baltimore Ravens
4. Houston Texans
5. New Orleans Saints
6. Cincinnati Bengals
7. Detroit Lions
8. Pittsburgh Steelers
9. New England Patriots
10. New York Jets
11. Atlanta Falcons
12. Buffalo Bills
13. New York Giants
14. Philadelphia Eagles
15. Chicago Bears
16. San Diego Chargers
17. Dallas Cowboys
18. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
19. Oakland Raiders
20. Tennessee Titans
21. Kansas City Chiefs
22. Carolina Panthers
23. Jacksonville Jaguars
24. Cleveland Browns
25. Miami Dolphins
26. Minnesota Vikings
27. Seattle Seahawks
28. Denver Broncos
29. Arizona Cardinals
30. St. Louis Rams
31. Washington Redskins
32. Indianapolis Colts

*Subject to change pending outcome of Monday night's Bears-Eagles contest