Now that Week 1 is over, it’s time for me to introduce yet another feature where I look at the NFL power rankings on all the major sports sites and determine which one is least bad. You can view my power rankings on my new Instagram page.
7. Sports Illustrated – So much wrong with this list. The Niners first I can live with, but putting not only the Cowboys over us but the Chiefs, too, after a week where they lost put this list in a hole just four teams in. Their fifth team was a team that not only lost in Week 1 but looked horrible in the Bengals, and if you’re doing a power ranking, which is supposed to be a ranking of the teams that look best right now, the Bengals simply should not be in its top 5.
6. Yahoo! Sports – Another list that puts the Cowboys over us. I will not tolerate this disrespect!
5. USA Today – The Lions at 5 is a joke. They barely beat a Chiefs team with no good receivers, so putting them over multiple teams that looked great in wins just because they beat the hobbled champ is something that doesn’t sit right with me. Also, moving the Cowboys up 13 spots after one win against a putrid team is something I don’t love, either.
4. NBC Sports – I respect the Dolphins for their upset win over the Chargers, but in no way does that make them better than us. The Jets also looked horrible for most of Monday night’s game, and the Bills gave it away more than the Jets won it, but NBC was already overrating them, so perhaps it didn’t make sense to them to drop the Jets after a win. Losing Aaron Rodgers for the season guarantees they won’t stay in the top 4 for much longer, however.
3. Fox Sports – I don’t mind Fox’s top 6. Everyone thinks the Niners are better than us right now, so I’ll just have to let the rest of the season sort that out. The Chiefs looked alright without Kelce, and they should look really good again when he’s healthy. The Cowboys I have to begrudgingly acknowledge do look like a top 5 team, but one thing I’ll give NBC props for is leaving them out, anyway. The Dolphins and Ravens looked good in Week 1, too. It’s when we get down to 7 that I have issues. The Bills losing to the Jets when they didn’t have Rodgers at all during the game is humiliating, and Buffalo definitely should have fallen more for doing that. The Giants should be lower, too, for being the reason Buffalo didn’t have the most humiliating primetime loss this week. Plus, they were at home and not in New Jersey. Shame on them.
2. CBS Sports – This list has good arguments for everybody in the top 10, but I don’t like that they dropped the Jets after a win, even though they lost something way more important than that game. The Jags looked really good against Indianapolis, but top 3 is questionable. The Giants should be a lot lower than 22, and having them as well as the Titans and Vikings over a Raiders team that actually won isn’t something I agree with. CBS complained a lot about overreacting to Week 1 results in the intro to their rankings, but overreactions are the best thing about lists like these, and I wish we got just a couple more in this one.
- ESPN – As much as I hate to give it to the mouse, ESPN did have the least bad power rankings out of the ones I went through. Their top 6 was the same as Fox’s, but unlike Fox, they were able to mostly maintain that quality throughout. Dropping the Bengals ten spots from their inflated week 1 rating was something I liked a lot. The Jags maybe could have been higher, certainly higher than Detroit, and I don’t like the Bills top ten in any list. Overall, though, the list was solid, and even though Disney’s been firing sports people left and right, they clearly still have lots of guys who know their stuff. Let’s hope they’re the first site to put the Eagles at the rightful position of #1, too.
