There are more losing teams than winning teams through three weeks of the NFL season, which makes sense when you scope the landscape of the league. It’s basically the Patriots and Broncos doing the usual by holding firm to the perch of the AFC, while in the NFC only Minnesota truly inspires confidence at this point. The rest of the league already seem like also-rans.
That will change. A handful of the 1-2 teams will end up with a winning season, and a few might make the play-offs. It’s early yet.
Here are the Week 4 Power Rankings. Find last week's here.
• 1 New England Patriots (3-0, Last week No 2)
• 2 Denver Broncos (3-0, LW 4)
• The more things change, et cetera. Despite trotting out quarterbacks named Jimmy, Jacoby and Trevor instead of Tom (suspended one more game) or Peyton (retired), the Patriots and Broncos are still the teams to beat.
Basically, these are the only two teams worth truly investing in right now. There are a lot of nice teams below and some cool stories emerging, especially with rookie quarterbacks doing so well. But each team not named the Patriots or Broncos have obvious flaws.
The only questions about the above two coming into the year regarded the quarterback position. Both New England and Denver have already answered them.
• 3 Minnesota Vikings (3-0, LW 7)
• 4 Green Bay Packers (2-1, LW 8)
• There’s plenty to like about Minnesota, who can claim a win over the Packers and defending NFC champion Carolina Panthers among their opening three wins. This team has shown it is for real.
Green Bay’s offence answered a lot of questions on Sunday, as Aaron Rodgers finally looked like Aaron Rodgers again, throwing four touchdowns against the hapless Lions. But their defence and poor coaching in the second half allowed Detroit back in the game. As high as we have them here, the Packers are far from an impressive product.
5 Philadelphia Eagles (3-0, LW 14) | Sunday takeaways: Carson Wentz proving already he belongs
6 Pittsburgh Steelers (2-1, LW 1)
• 7 Houston Texans (2-1, LW 6)
• The Texans may have been multiple Super Bowl winners by now if the Patriots didn’t exist. Houston are now 1-7 against their betters in the AFC, with the one win coming in 2010. That run of futility includes an blow-out defeat in the 2012-13 play-offs that ended Houston’s best season in franchise history. The 27-0 loss on Thursday to third-stringer Jacoby Brissett is just the latest showing of the difference in class between the two teams.
8 Kansas City Chiefs (2-1, LW 10)
• 9 Seattle Seahawks (2-1, LW 12)
• Seattle’s offence looked much improved with 37 points on the bad 49ers on Sunday, but Russell Wilson tweaked his knee in the win. Wilson has proved very durable in his 5-year career, and is expected to suit up against the Jets next week.
Nine is fairly high for a team that has looked as beatable as Seattle thus far, which says more about the depth of the league thus far than it does the Seahawks.
10 Baltimore Ravens (3-0, LW 15)
• 11 Carolina Panthers (1-2, LW 5)
• There’s reason to doubt Carolina following their bad home loss to Minnesota on Sunday, in which their makeshift offensive line finally caved in, leading to eight sacks of Cam Newton. But look for them to at least assert their place at the top of a weak crop of NFC South teams in quick succession: the next three games for the Panthers are at Atlanta, home to Tampa Bay and at New Orleans. Improving to 4-2 before their Week 7 bye with a perfect start against their division should be the goal, and it’s an attainable one.
12 New York Giants (2-1, LW 11)
13 Dallas Cowboys (2-1, LW 20)
• 14 Arizona Cardinals (1-2, LW 3)
• 15 Cincinnati Bengals (1-2, LW 9)
• These are perhaps the two most disappointing teams in the league. It's not just that both Arizona and Cincinnati — two great play-off teams from last year — are 1-2. Both have had relatively tough opening schedules. The disappointment lies in how they've lost.
Flying to Buffalo for an early Sunday game will always be annoying for faraway Arizona, but there’s no excuse losing 33-18 to this year’s bad Bills team, travel or no. They better hope it was an aberration.
The Bengals, meanwhile, have excusably lost to better Pittsburgh and Denver teams, but they disappointingly never looked competitive in either game. That doesn’t inspire confidence they’re in the same class.
It's not quite time to panic, but it is time to start winning for these two preseason Super Bowl hopefuls. Only 6.2 per cent of 1-3 teams have ever recovered to make the play-offs.
Now, here’s a giant swath of the league filled with mediocre-to-bad teams for which there really isn’t much to say at this point:
16 Atlanta Falcons (2-1, LW 17)
17 Oakland Raiders (2-1, LW 18)
18 Indianapolis Colts (1-2, LW 22)
19 Los Angeles Rams (2-1, LW 26)
20 San Diego Chargers (1-2, LW 19)
21 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-2, LW 13)
22 Washington (1-2, LW 23)
23 New York Jets (1-2, LW 16)
24 Miami Dolphins (1-2, LW 24)
25 Detroit Lions (1-2, LW 21)
26 Buffalo Bills (1-2, LW 31)
27 Tennessee Titans (1-2, LW 28)
28 San Francisco 49ers (1-2, LW 27)
• 29 New Orleans Saints (0-3, LW 25)
• Drew Brees has 1,062 shiny, league-leading passing yards with zero wins to show for it, which says everything you need to know about the state of the New Orleans Saints.
30 Jacksonville Jaguars (0-3, LW 30)
• 31 Cleveland Browns (0-3, LW 32)
• This Browns team is fun and it doesn’t matter how many games they lose. Watching former Ohio State quarterback-turned-NFL receiver Terrell Pryor play quarterback, running back and receiver all in the same game was one of the highlights of the young season. Overtime loss to Miami to cement a 0-3 start aside, no person with a heart would put the Browns at the bottom, especially when there’s another team with a putrid, league-worst minus-38 point differential. Welcome to the bottom, Chicago!
32 Chicago Bears (0-3, LW 29)
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