23. St. Louis Rams 4-5

Sam Bradford is still 0 for his young career in road games, blowing a late lead to the 49ers on the road. However, he remains great at home, with a 4-1 record, 4-0 since the opener. Could the Rams not win a road game all season and still win the division? If they can beat Atlanta, Kansas City, and San Francisco at home, they could go to a playoffs as a 7 win team having not won a road game. Ladies and gentlemen: The NFC West (yes, I will repeat this throughout the Power Rankings)

22. Jacksonville Jaguars 5-4

The Jaguars lead the league in beating up on crappy teams and getting miracle wins against division opponents. They’ve beaten 2-7 Dallas, 3-6 Denver, 1-8 Buffalo, and then Indy on a 59 yard field goal at the end of regulation and Houston on a 50 yard Hail Mary at the end of the regulation. This not only makes them the worst 5-4 team in the league, but the most unpredictable. I am 1-8 picking their games against the spread this season.

21. Miami Dolphins 5-4

The Dolphins appear to have lost their two top quarterbacks (the hanging chads) Chad Pennington and Chad Henne for the season, thus eliminating themselves from the playoffs. For any Dolphins fans that don’t agree with me, just ask the Dolphins. They reportedly contacted the agents of Daunte Culpepper and JaMarcus Russell. Nothing says white flag like Culpepper and Russell.

20. Cleveland Browns 3-6

This is the best 3-6 team I’ve seen in a while. This season, they hung within a touchdown of Tampa Bay (6-3) Kansas City (5-4) Baltimore (6-3) and the Jets (6-3), beat New England (7-2) and New Orleans (6-3), beat the only sub .500 they played Cincinnati (2-7) and only lost by double digits twice to Atlanta (7-2) and Pittsburgh (6-3).

Hopefully for Browns fans, they have an easier schedule next season, and Colt McCoy, with a top receiver added through the draft, takes his game to another level and puts this team into playoff contention. More likely, they’ll draft a crappy defensive player, McCoy will get hurt week 1, and they’ll go 2-14, but you never know. Maybe the football gods will finally go easy on them (and the entire city of Cleveland) next year.

19. Kansas City Chiefs 5-4

Well, the Chiefs are finally playing like most people thought they would to start the season, needing overtime to beat the Bills, losing to the Raiders, and losing by 20 to the Broncos. I’ll give them credit though. I didn’t have them winning more than 5 games all season, but I don’t think there’s any denying it. This isn’t a good team. They can win in games where they can establish the run and make sure Matt Cassel has to do as little as possible, but if they have to play catch up, they’re dead.

18. Houston Texans 4-5

Another team the football gods seem to hate, last year they lost several games on failed goal line conversions or missed field goals. This year, after starting 2-0, they have fallen to 4-5 because of their tough schedule and couldn’t even win a game they should have against a bad Jacksonville team because a late Hail Mary fell into the hands of Mike Thomas after it was batted down by Houston corner Glover Quin.

17. Washington Redskins 4-5

This team isn’t as bad as they looked on Monday Night and I liked their resiliency and a lot of what I saw from their offense, or at least McNabb. His receivers once again didn’t help him out much as they were responsible for 2 of his 3 picks (desperation was responsible for the other one). However, that defense has problems. Their defensive front is terrible. They are on the whole an average team, despite what people are saying after their 31 point loss, but that defense does have problems.

Also, I wasn’t a fan of the McNabb deal until I found out only about 10 million of that was really guaranteed. In that case, I like the deal. Sure beats letting him walk a year after giving up a 2^nd rounder and a few mid round picks for him.

16. Seattle Seahawks 5-4

This team really doesn’t like playing close games. They either look great or terrible every other week. Week one, 25 point win over San Francisco. Week two, 17 point loss to Denver. Week 4, 17 point loss to St. Louis. Week 7, 12 point win over Arizona. Week 8, 30 point loss to Oakland. Week 9, 33 point loss to the Giants. Week 10, 18 point win over Arizona. How can a team this inconsistent be in first place? Ladies and gentlemen: The NFC West.

15. Oakland Raiders 5-4

They had a bye last week, but I want to comment on one thing. 15. Oakland Raiders 5-4. That just doesn’t look right. However, after the NFL’s middle class was terrible week 10 (Kansas City, Houston, Washington), the Raiders have moved to 15 in my Power Rankings. Huge game in Pittsburgh this week to prove they’re for real.

14. Chicago Bears 6-3

I still don’t believe they’ve fixed their problems coming out of the bye. They faced two teams with a combined 4-14 record and a combined 25 sacks. They can beat those types of teams. I don’t think they can beat Miami, who they face this week, or Green Bay in a rematch, or any playoff team. But, we’ll see. The Miami game will be telling, as will Philly week 12.

13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 6-3

The combined record of the teams they’ve beaten is 14-40 and the combined record of the teams they lost to is 19-8. One of these days, they’ll play a team that’s average and we’ll finally be able to judge how good they are. However, credit them for beating the teams they should have. They’ve got that much going for them. That and Josh Freeman’s 6 career comeback wins already. BEAST.

12 Tennessee Titans 5-4

They may have lost last week, but if they had been able to establish their running game, that game would have gone a lot differently. Randy Moss drew double teams, as he was supposed to. He’s the best decoy in the game. This allowed Chris Johnson to rush for 117 yards on 17 carries. The Titans lost, because their defense couldn’t stop anyone and they weren’t able to run as much as they’d like to. If they get a chance to do that this week against Washington, look out.

11. San Diego Chargers 4-5

Bye.

10. Baltimore Ravens 6-3

Last week, I brought up a stat about how often home teams win on Thursday Night Football (24-10). This doesn’t really seem fair, but I didn’t think much of it until Ray Lewis complained about it. Ray Lewis is a scary dude. Women want him, men want to be him, and animals want to learn how to talk so they can hang out with him (Old Spice FTW). It takes a lot to make him complain. Thursday games made him complain. Now I’m starting to think these aren’t a good idea. Then again, they do give people an excuse to get drunk on Thursdays, so maybe it is a good idea.

9. New York Jets 7-2

They won’t be moved up until they play like a team that should be moved up. In their last 5 games, they’ve beaten Minnesota by 9, needed PI to beat Denver by 4, gotten shutout by Green Bay, and needed overtime to beat Detroit and Cleveland. In those 5, Mark Sanchez is 103 for 195 (52.8%) for 1280 yards (6.6), 4 touchdowns, and 6 picks.

Once they stop playing like a mediocre team, I’ll stop treating them like a mediocre team. They need to get their act together for New England week 13, otherwise they’re getting their asses handed to them in Foxboro. Hell, they need to get it together this week. Houston better than any of the 4 teams they’ve beaten in their last 5.

8. New York Giants 6-3

They spent 1.6 billion dollars on a stadium, you’d think they’d make sure the lights would work. That might not have been as embarrassing as their play against Dallas though. They looked like they were playing in the dark all game, completely caught off guard. They had three turnovers and allowed 430 yards of offense plus a 101 yard pick six.

7. New Orleans Saints 6-3

Bye.

6. Green Bay Packers 6-3

Bye.

5. Philadelphia Eagles 6-3

Can you say statement game? The entire NFL is shitting their pants after watching that performance on Monday Night in Washington, including teams ranked higher than them on this list. I am a Patriots fan. I couldn’t get to sleep last night because I was imagining Vick tear apart our defense. If they can do that more than once, they’re better than any team in the NFL, with Vick, plus DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy. So much speed and big play ability.

I fully take back everything I said about how Kolb should start over Vick. This is not the Vick of old. The Vick of old wasn’t as good as Kolb. This Vick is the type of player you design in Madden with 99 arm strength, 99 speed, and 99 arm accuracy. I didn’t realize that in his first few starts because they were against bad or banged up defenses, but I’ve realized that now.

Vick was absolutely playing Madden out there. He killed the Redskins like he killed those dogs (or as DeSean Jackson put it, they were “like pitbulls, ready to get out of the cage). It didn’t look fair. I don’t know what the hell kind of steroids he used in jail or if he just spent all day getting jacked because he had nothing else to do, but this Vick is faster than pre-jail Vick, stronger than pre-jail Vick, and mostly notably, a better decision maker than pre-jail Vick.

I don’t know if he has just spent 2 years in jail just watching game film, or if Andy Reid is just a genius, or if he’s just taking it more seriously now, but he’s every bit the player he was supposed to be as the #1 overall pick in 2001. And that scares everyone in the league. Actually the sight of his name alone puts fear into me *cringes*.

4. Indianapolis Colts 6-3

Two remaining games against the Patriots and Chargers appear very tough for them. They also have Tennessee, Jacksonville, hell even Dallas and Oakland could be tough, and one loss to spare to have their 8 straight 12 win season. They might not be able to pull 12-4 out of their asses this year. They didn’t look good in a 6 point win over Cincinnati.

It helps that Peyton’s getting some of his receivers back though. He was down to Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon (who keeps dropping passes), Jacob Tamme (who keeps dropping passes), and Brandon James (an undrafted rookie running back), as his top 4 receivers last week. Austin Collie will be a welcome sight for Manning this week against New England.

3. Atlanta Falcons 7-2

I’ve said it before and that win over Baltimore just confirms it. If this team gets home field, they are probably the favorites to make the Super Bowl in the NFC. There isn’t anyone who can beat this team in Atlanta. Well, except maybe Michael Vick *cringes*.

2. Pittsburgh Steelers 6-3

Remember when this team was 3-1 with Big Ben coming back and looked like a shoe in for the Super Bowl. Now, they have multiple injuries on both the offensive and defensive lines. Their defense isn’t playing at 110% anymore, like they were to compensate for Big Ben’s absence. Their offense is still out of sync with Big Ben. And they are now 1-2 in their last 3 with tough games against Oakland (yes, Oakland), Baltimore, and the Jets in their near future.

1. New England Patriots 7-2

The Patriots are my AFC favorites. First of all, if they get home field, that’s a huge advantage. They’ve won their last 23 regular season at home. I know they lost to the Ravens in the playoffs at home last year, but everyone has a bad day and they avenged that loss earlier this season. Still 23-1 isn’t bad.

Second of all, they have Tom Brady. Peyton Manning is the better quarterback, but he can’t do what Brady does in big games. He doesn’t have Brady’s passion and will to win big games.

Third of all, it just makes sense. The Patriots are always at their best when they’re doubted. This year, coming into the season, this was all they heard. Tom Brady is more concerned with being a celebrity than a football player. Tom Brady’s wife cut off his balls. Tom Brady’s hair makes him look like a girl, or even Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber called Tom Brady out in a rap video. The Pats lost to the Ravens in the playoffs big time. The upstart Dolphins and the upstart Jets are better. Tom Brady is getting old. Randy Moss is becoming a diva again. The defense’s average age is 25. Even into week 2, when they lost to the Jets, people doubted them.

Their response, as it always is, fuck you guys, we’re winning the Super Bowl. That is unless they run into Michael Vick *cringes*. Hopefully someone figures out how to stop him between now and then.