NFL Power Rankings – Week 2

The following is my Power Rankings following week 2 of the NFL regular season.

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

As it is early in the season I am giving some teams more credit than they deserve and some teams less credit than they deserve, but again, it’s hard to tell early on.  I expect Indi to rebound and work its way back up and the Steelers to fall a bit simply because their schedule is quite challenging.  Other teams will obviously fluxuate as well.

A Suprising Start

Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans

Week Two of the NFL is about ten hours from being logged away and so far we have seen several surprises.  After two weeks here are the teams that are 2-0:

AFC:  New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans
NFC:  New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinals, and either Philadelphia Eagles or Dallas Cowboys (they play eachother tonight)

Some of these come as no surprise, such as Pittsburgh, New York, Dallas/Philly.  New England is more surprsing than it would have been due to the loss of Tom Brady, but given who they were playing they should be on this list.  Here are the surprsies:

Tennessee Titans:  Who would have thought they could go into Jacksonville and soundly beat them in week one?  Then as an encore they marched into lowly Cincinnati with no Vince Young and spanked them.  The Titans are leading the division.  The AFC South is no schlum division either, with all four teams being at .500 or higher last year and three of them making the playoffs.  Will they remain leaders for the rest of the season?  The answer is yes if they keep playing like this and Indianapolis continues to struggle, especially given their relatively easy schedule over the next five weeks.

Carolina Panthers: These guys are turning into Carolina’s own Kardiac Kids.  Two last minute comebacks against two teams that most thought would win.  Chicago is not as good as San Diego in my opinion and therefore not quite as impressive, but they are coming off of a solid win in Indianapolis.  This didn’t stop Carolina from staging a fourth quarter come back against them.  If they keep playing even close to this well expect to see them for more than 17 weeks; the NFC South doesn’t have too much competition.

Arizona Cardinals:  I’m reluctant to put them on this list because they should be 2-0.  They played the 49ers in week one and the Dolphins in week two who had no more than five combined wins last season.  I would like to point out, however, that the NFC West is so open that even I could compete in it.  The Rams are a joke, and the 49ers are not much better.  The Seahawks just lost to the 49ers and that should say enough about them.  What I’m trying to say is Arizona already clinched the division.

To close this blog I’d like to go and see how well I did with my predictions.  I actually did pretty bad, only accurately predicting 7/15 of the games thus played, though in my defense it was a fairly surprsing week.

Make sure to tune into tonights football game as we see the Cowboys play the Eagles.  Should be a good one!