Week Three Power Rankings

LET'S GO! (Movement in parentheses. So (+1) means they moved up one, (-31) means they moved down 31, and (-) means they didn't move. It's real complicated.)

1. Seattle Seahawks (-). The Seahawks looked great against the Broncos. The defense held up against Manning, and Wilson and the offense converted. PFF may hate Wilson, but he is also leading the league in passer rating. Mvp. MVP. MVP! MVP!! MVP!!! MVP!!!!!!! MVP!!!!! MVP!!!!! The Seahawks are now 2-1 and look to be in a good position to roll to an easy 15-1 and win the Super Bowl for the next three or four years. gg nfl

2. Denver Broncos (-). No, the Bengals aren't #2 yet. Most people who make power rankings moved the Broncos down because they lost. But that's stupid. The expectation in power rankings is that the #2 team should lose a close game to the #1 team, which is exactly what happened. The fact that the Broncos lost to the Seahawks has zero impact on the comparison between the Broncos and the Bengals. The argument would be that the performance of the Broncos this week was relatively worse than their prior performance, while the performance of the Bengals this week was relatively better. I have no idea whether other power-ranking-makers think this is the case (I don't), but I DO know that this isn't the reason most people are moving the Broncos down. (The reason is because they're stupid. Also, other people value wins more than me. That's why I have Philly way lower than everyone else does. Because wins don't matter. If I beat the worst team in the league by 1 point and you lose to the best team in the league by 1 point, odds are you're better. But I'm 1-0 and you're 0-1.) Moving on. The Broncos haven't looked quite up to their world-beating standards this year, winning against the MediOlts (mediocre Colts) and the Chiefs by one touchdown apiece and losing to Seattle by the same margin. But having an elite QB is incredibly valuable in this league, and the Broncos have the second-best QB in the NFL by passer rating. Haha.

3. Cincinnati Bengals (-). Yes, the Bengals are #3. Again. They have a talented team with studs everywhere. But they also have a lot to prove to me before they jump ahead of the Seahawks or the Broncos. If they do okay in their week 5-8 stretch (@NE, vs CAR, @Ind, vs Balt), we'll talk. Their defense looks INCREDIBLE though.

4. Arizona Cardinals (+10). Okay, so I was low on the Cardinals. I wasn't expecting this. But that defense is elite. It's tied for second in the NFL (for points allowed). With... wait for it...wait for iiiiiit...

5. San Diego Chargers (+4). No, not the Chargers. I said wait. I was already high on the Bolts, but they just leapfrogged both the "high because they used to be good"-tier teams (NE, SF, Car, who got three weeks' grace and now get ranked based on their performance), and the "they're better than everyone else thought, but I was still overrating them"-tier teams (Was, Hou, who now fall because they broke my heart). I believe in Filly Rivers. I believe in the team from the part of southern California that's neither Los Angeles nor Orange County. You know. Mexico.

6. Chicago Bears (+4). Same deal. Also, hahaha, San Francisco is totally in the toilet this year, huh. I love this. (I know the Bears didn't just beat San Francisco. Get off me.)

7. Detroit Lions (+8). FUCKING DETROIT! (This is what you were waiting for.) Like I mentioned earlier this week, they finally got their big win over a semi-legit opponent (although GB does NOT look good this year). But that DEFENSE. What??

8. Carolina Panthers (-4). I have NO idea how good Carolina is this year. I think they're worse than this. But this is where they are.

9. Philadelphia Eagles (+3). I don't trust the Eagles. I'm the one. They've won all three of their games, yes. But those games were a blowout win against Jacksonville (which I'm pretty sure my middle school team could do at this point. I mean, Jax just made ANDREW LUCK look elite), a close win against Indy (who--spoilers--are in the bottom ten of these rankings), and a close win against Washington (we'll get to them. Really soon). The weird part is that Philly doesn't HAVE a game against a Really Good team (top 6) until week 8 (@AZ), and after that week 14 (vs Sea). So we'll have to wait to see if they belong in the elite.

10. Washington Redskins (-4). Yep. I'm the guy who still has the Redskins top-10. But they're a GOOD team. They're top 10 on offense and defense, and they're one of the few teams I think can probably hold their own against just about any team in the league. I probably have Washington about 10 spots above anyone else. But that's because wins don't count. All that counts is future wins. The past is dead.

11. Buffalo Bills (+2). The Bills went up two spots when they lost to the Chargers by 12 points. That's how big the gap is between #5 and #11 here.

12. Dallas Cowboys (+8). Don't ask me how the Cowboys are this high. I don't know. They just are.

13. New England Patriots (-5). Pull it together, fuckers.

14. Atlanta Falcons (+3). I'm just gonna say it. A 56-14 win against Tampa Bay is not impressive. This is like when the Patriots were playing normal teams in '07 and blowing them out, except that the Bucs are way worse than most of the Patriots' opponents, and the Falcons are way worse than the Patriots. (In other words, the skill disparity between the '07 Patriots and an average team is comparable to the disparity between an average team like the Falcons and one of the worst teams in the league.) Any competent offense can just keep scoring on Tampa Bay at will until the numbers start looking like Madden. There's no sport in it.

15. Baltimore Ravens (+1). I'm not that impressed by a 23-21 win over Cleveland. I'm especially unimpressed by Flaccastrophe. Bro. Come on.

16. Houston Texans (-11). There was always going to be a team this week that would crash and burn and destroy me emotionally. I know it was you, Texans. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.

17. Pittsburgh Steelers (+6). I don't want to talk about it.

18. San Francisco 49ers (-11). HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

19. New Orleans Saints (-1). They won, but they went down one. Um. Let's go with: That's a testament to how accurate my rating of them last week was, even though they were 0-2. Yeah.

20. Green Bay Packers (-9). Say goodbye to the last of the "high because they used to be good"-tier teams. BYE-BYE PACKERS!

21. New York Jets (+1). This is how old I am.

22. Kansas City Chiefs (+7). No comment.

23. Indianapolis Colts (+2). First. The Jags are like the Bucs except worse (at least defensively), so it's not impressive to blow them out. Second, their secondary just made LUCK look like a god. The Colts aren't as good as everyone else thinks. At no point in the past two years and change have they been.

24. Cleveland Browns (-). Still don't believe in Cleveland.

25. New York Giants (+6). I still have no idea how this game even happened. I'm speechless. See:

26. Miami Dolphins (-7).

27. Minnesota Vikings (-1).

28. St. Louis Rams (-1).

29. Tennessee Titans (-8).

30. Oakland Raiders (-).

31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-3). Just kidding. I just didn't want to talk about those boring teams. They're just bad, but not bad enough to be funny. The Bucs, though... the Bucs are bad enough to be funny. Ha. Hahahaha. The Bucs are 0-3 overall. In 28th in points for, 31st in points against, and they have the second-worst point differential in the league (wait for it...). Josh McCown is preposterously bad. He's substantially worse than Tebow. And Vincent Jackson is fucking sinking my fantasy league. I'm done with this team.

32. Jacksonville Jaguars (-). Yep. 0-3, 30th in PF, 32nd in PA, and 32nd in PD. Let me elaborate. The third-worst point differential in the league is St. Louis, at -29 through three games. And that's pretty bad. Then you have the Bucs, who are at -50. That's just awful. And then--and THEN--you have the Jags. At -75. They've lost their three games by 25 points, ON AVERAGE. They've allowed 34, 41, an 44 points, and they've never broken 17. But I'm not actually here to criticize the Jags. If you scroll down to the bottom of this recent post, you can read all about how high I am on Blake Bortles. He legitimately has a chance to pull the Jags out of cellar and maybe as high as the ground floor.