The NFL Blog: 2009 Week 16 Power Rankings

Power Rankings After Week 16

1. San Diego 12-3 (4th)
2. Indianapolis 14-1 (1st)
3. Philadelphia 11-4 (5th)
4. Minnesota 11-4 (3rd)
5. New Orleans 13-2 (2nd)
6. Dallas 10-5 (9th)
7. New England 10-5 (10th)
8. Cincinnati 10-5 (6th)
9. Baltimore 8-7 (7th)
10. Arizona 10-5 (11th)
11. Green Bay 10-5 (13th)
12. Tennessee 7-8 (8th)
13. Denver 8-7 (14th)
14. Atlanta 8-7 (15th)
15. Houston 8-7 (17th)
16. Pittsburgh 8-7 (21st)
17. New York Jets 8-7 (18th)
18. Miami 7-8 (16th)
19. Carolina 7-8 (22nd)
20. San Francisco 7-8 (20th)
21. New York Giants 8-7 (12th)
22. Jacksonville 7-8 (19th)
23. Cleveland 4-11 (26th)
24. Tampa Bay 3-12 (27th)
25. Chicago 6-9 (31st)
26. Oakland 5-10 (25th)
27. Washington 4-11 (23rd)
28. Buffalo 5-10 (24th)
29. Kansas City 3-12 (28th)
30. St. Louis 1-14 (29th)
31. Detroit 2-13 (30th)
32. Seattle 5-10 (32nd)

-Previous week’s ranking in parenthesis;

Explaining Week 15’s Strange and Static Rankings: Last week I was short for time and was unable to explain my rankings, which were pretty strange. My top 9 spots stayed the same and 21 of the top 22 either stayed in the same spot or moved only 1 space up or down. I just didn’t see much that made me change my opinion of most of the teams. Was I more apt to keep things the same because I was feeling rushed when I made the list? Maybe a little bit. But I don’t think that was a big factor because there were some major changes to the bottom 10 spots in my rankings. 9 of the final 10 spots in my rankings changed last week, with 7 of the bottom 10 teams moving up or down more than 1 space. This contrast of almost no movement in the top two thirds of my rankings and significant movement in the bottom third was a bit odd. But it wasn’t without reason. I guess I just found the play of the bottom feeders (whether good or bad) to be more telling than that of the rest of the NFL.

Last Week’s Risers and Fallers: Still, only 4 teams moved 3 or more spots up or down in my rankings last week. Only 1 team moved up more than 2 spots and that was the Bucs, who moved up 3 spots from 30th to 27th after embarrassing the Seahawks on the road. 3 teams had significant drops in my rankings last week. The Broncos were the only team amongst my top 22 that moved up or down more than 1 spot. I dropped the Broncos 4 spots from 10th to 14th after their stunning loss to the Raiders at home. The teams in the last two spots in my power rankings were perhaps a bit surprising, as both teams had 5-9 records, while the 5 teams ranked directly above them had combined for 11 wins. But the Bears lost for the 8th time in 10 games, getting routed by the Ravens, and they appeared to have quit on their coach and on the season. I dropped Chicago 4 spots last week from 27th to 31st. But the most stunning loss of week 15 was Seattle’s 24-7 defeat at home against the lowly Tampa Bay Bucs. It was the 8th time that the Seahawks had lost by double digits, and again, it seemed like the team had quit on its coach and quit on the season. The Seahawks plummeted 7 spots in my rankings from 25th to dead last at 32nd.

Explaining Week 16’s Radical Rankings: If my week 15 power rankings were the most stagnate of the year, this week’s rankings might be the most radically changed of the year. 30 of the 32 teams moved at least 1 spot up or down this week, including 14 teams that moved at least 3 places. Why so much change? Well, part of it was probably a bit of unconscious overcorrecting on my part in reaction to last week’s static rankings. But having more time to do my rankings this week wasn’t the main reason things got shaken up so much. There were simply a number of surprising outcomes in week 16: San Diego blowing out Tennessee on the road; Indianapolis forfeiting; New England demolishing a Jacksonville team fighting for its life; Baltimore self destructing; Carolina violating the Giants in their final home game at Giants Stadium; the Bears beating the Vikings; and (of course) Tampa Bay coming from behind to beat the Saints in OT at the Superdome. Also, some patterns began to show in week 16, after so many of the events of week 15 could be dismissed as flukes or stand-alone occurrences. The Vikings lost for the 3rd time in 4 games; the Saints lost their 2nd straight game, again at home; rising teams continued to rise and falling teams continued to fall; the Panthers and Bucs had surprising wins for the second straight week; and the Redskins and Seahawks had despicable performances for the second week in a row.

Risers and Fallers: There were 14 teams that rose or fell 3 or more spots in my rankings this week. 8 teams climbed at least 3 spots; 6 teams fell at least 3 spots. I moved the Chargers 3 spots up from 4th to the #1 spot in my rankings after their blowout win of a red hot Tennessee team in Nashville. It was San Diego’s 10th straight win. The Cowboys won their 2nd straight road game in December and I moved them up 3 spots from 9th to 6th. New England crushed the Jags for their 3rd straight win and climbed 3 spots in my rankings from 10th to 7th. After soundly beating the Vikings in week 15, the Panthers closed out Giants Stadium with a stunning blowout win over the G-Men, who were trying to make a run at the playoffs. The Panthers moved up 3 spots from 22nd to 19th. The Browns beat the Raiders by 14 points for their 3rd straight victory and all of the sudden they have the same record as the Redskins. I moved Cleveland up 3 spots this week from 26th to 23rd. Tampa Bay pulled out a stunning overtime win over the Saints, winning on the road for a second straight week. The Bucs climbed 3 spots this week from 27th to 24th. While their win was not one of the week’s most impressive or surprising victories, the Steelers pulled out a nail biter over a solid opponent for the second week in a row to stay alive. That was enough to shoot up 5 spots in my rankings, going from 21st to 16th. The team making the biggest move up my rankings this week was the Bears. It may have been an overreaction on my part to drop the Bears 4 spots in week 15, and their gutty win over Favre and the Vikings in OT on Monday Night led me to bring them up 6 places in my this week from 31st to 25th.

While 6 of the 8 teams that rose more than 2 spots this week climbed exactly 3 spots, only 2 of the 6 teams that fell more than 2 spots dropped exactly 3 spots. The Saints lost their 2nd straight game, again at home, this time choking away a big lead and falling in OT to a Tampa Bay team that had won only 1 more game than the Saints had lost coming in. The Saints fell 3 spots in my rankings from 2nd to 5th. The Jags were crushed by the Patriots for their 4th loss in 5 games and I dropped them 3 spots from 19th to 22nd. The Titans were buried by the Chargers at home, looking like a team that had run out of gas. I moved them down 4 spots from 8th to 12th. The Redskins were absolutely pathetic in front of their loyal fans and a nation wide audience for the 2nd straight week, this time getting shutout by Dallas no less. Washington dropped 4 spots from 23rd to 27th. The Buffalo Bills gave a great effort and tried the best they could to put up a fight in Atlanta last week but they just don’t have enough to compete right now. I moved the Bills 4 spots down from 24th to 28th. Finally, the team making by far the biggest move up or down my rankings this week was the New York Football Giants. Their 41-9 loss to the Panthers in the final game at Giants Stadium, with so much at stake, was a jaw dropper. It was inexplicable and inexcusable. New York slid 9 spots in my rankings this week from 12th to 21st.

The Colts Forfeit the Game and the Top Spot: If the Colts had “played to win the game” and had their perfect season come to an end in a loss at home to the Jets, it’s possible that I would not have moved them out of the #1 spot. The Chargers look like the best team in the game right now, but even if San Diego had lost to Tennessee on Friday, after what the Colts did on Sunday I would have figured out some way to move Indy out of the top spot in my rankings, perhaps making them ineligible for the rankings this week. Their actions in the 2nd half of the game against the Jets were appalling. For the first 30 minutes or so of that ridiculous charade I simply could not believe what they were doing. When I finally began to accept that they were really going to go through with it I was overcome with a mixture of anger and disgust. The fact that there are people out there trying to defend their actions is disturbing. The only bright spot in one of the darkest moments in NFL history was the behavior of the crowd. I spent 3 years of this decade living in Indianapolis and I got a good sense of the relationship between the team and the city while I was there. It felt like they were an expansion team, and really they were, as they were moved from Baltimore to a place that had never had pro football before in 1984. Honestly I don’t think the Colts became that area of the country’s team until the Colts beat the Bears in the Super Bowl. There were a lot of Bears/Colts fans in that area and that game would have forced people to choose one side or the other and probably for good. I never wanted the Colts to win a championship because I didn’t like how they had left Baltimore. But those fans earned my respect on Sunday. They booed the team’s actions from the start to the finish.

I honestly believe that this is going to come back to bite the Colts. It showed me that they are really still the same team they were under Tony Dungy. They are a team that plays like a machine. That works in the regular season, but you have to play with fire and with fearlessness in the playoffs. They’ve been the favorite or co-favorite to win the Super Bowl almost every season since Dungy arrived and they’ve won it once. Most of the time they choke and I believe they will again because they don’t care enough about winning. Plus, San Diego has their number and is not at all scared. I believe this will start to effect the Colts mentally and emotionally and they will not recover. Had they gone for the win and lost it would have been disappointing but it would also have taken all the pressure off of them. Instead, they gave up the chance at perfection and they put more pressure on themselves than they would have had if they were 18-0 going into the Super Bowl. If they do not get to the Super Bowl it will be blamed on their actions against the Jets and it will be a stain on the franchise. And I tell you this: Even if they do win the Super Bowl they will not escape the shame of what they did and people will always look at them as the team that gave up the chance at history. Strangely, if they get to the Super Bowl and lose it will be a bit different because it will probably not be blamed on what they did against the Jets. They will have obviously rebounded and regrouped enough to win 2 playoff games and they will be able to tell everybody that their goal was to win the Super Bowl. At the same time, it will end a lot of those “what if” questions because you could say that they wouldn’t have had an undefeated season anyway. However, they will still have the shame of being the team that gave up a chance at a perfect season, and they wouldn’t even get a ring out of the deal.

NFC Powerhouses Losing Steam: Aside from the travesty in Indianapolis, the most upsetting development of the last few weeks has to be the decline of the two teams that have been the cream of the crop in the NFC the entire season. Just a few weeks ago it seemed like an epic NFC Championship Game between the unstoppable (and perhaps undefeated) New Orleans Saints and Brett Favre’s Vikings seemed not only likely but damn near inevitable. But things have deteriorated rapidly in the last few weeks. At this point I would have to say it would be somewhat surprising if that match up ends up taking place in the conference championship game. It’s starting to feel like the NFC is going to be wide open again. It could be Arizona and Philly again in the NFC Championship Game. Dallas could finally break through. Amazingly, at this point I think the Favre-less Green Bay Packers have as good a chance of making the Super Bowl as the Favre-led Vikings.