Week 3 Power Rankings
By Dan Zinski
Sitting here listening to Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack for the Sean Penn movie Into the Wild. What does that have to do with power-rankings? I don’t know.
- Indianapolis Colts
- New England Patriots
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Dallas Cowboys
- Denver Broncos
- San Diego Chargers
- Chicago Bears
- Baltimore Ravens
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Seattle Seahawks
- Tennessee Titans
- Detroit Lions
- Green Bay Packers
- San Francisco 49ers
- Washington Redskins
- Houston Texans
- Carolina Panthers
- Arizona Cardinals
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Minnesota Vikings
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- New Orleans Saints
- Cleveland Browns
- Philadelphia Eagles
- St. Louis Rams
- New York Jets
- New York Giants
- Miami Dolphins
- Kansas City Chiefs
- Oakland Raiders
- Buffalo Bills
- Atlanta Falcons
Stubbornly, I continue to rank Indianapolis first, even though everyone seems to agree that New England is the class of the league. One question about the Pats though: Have we put aside all our skepticism about Randy Moss’s ability to stay healthy and happy all year? He’s still an injury-prone malcontent – two good games didn’t change that. Plus, what if the NFL finds out more crap about Belichick? That team could take a fast tumble. The top seven were easy to concoct this week – just leap-frog the Steelers up to three, drop the Broncos a couple notches and go into benefit-of-the-doubt mode with the Bears. After that it gets wacky. Going on record, Baltimore should not be number 8, Cincinnati should not be 9 and Seattle should not be 10 – but dropping those 1-1 teams would mean promoting 2-0 clubs like Detroit, Green Bay and San Francisco into the top 10. And I ain’t ready to do that yet. Tennessee’s near-defeat of Indy convinces me that I must pay attention to them. I dropped New Orleans way down because they’re New Orleans – it’s possible they put up one good fluky year and have returned to being inept. Sorting through the bottom-feeders to decide who’s truly the worst is almost as tough as sorting the top. Last week it was Cleveland, but they showed they’ve at least got life. That leaves a lot of proud franchises like the Giants, Jets, Dolphins, Chiefs, Bills and Raiders jockeying for position – with the not-so-proud Falcons bringing up the rear.