FanHouse Nfl Power Rankings

Ah, Thanksgiving. Our annual chance to eat too much, argue with relatives and watch the Lions is back again. We like to take a moment during the course of the feasting and gridiron fun to reflect on the year gone by and offer some thanks for things that have affected our lives. It doesn't have to be anything major or life-affirming, but it's always nice to remember the idea behind the holiday in the first place.

Football teams aren't excluded from the moments of reflection, as even the Browns and Rams among us have something to be thankful for this season. So that's the theme for this week's version of the Power Rankings as we run through the 32 teams and find them giving thanks for something.

Another week, another pair of close calls for the two teams at the top of our Power Rankings. The Saints and Colts both survived, though, and that means they maintain their spots for another week. Since both teams have seen their victory margins dropping, it's a good time to discuss which team should give their fans more reason for concern going forward.

We're going to go with the Saints, simply because their penchant for turning the ball over is the kind of thing that can catch up to you at exactly the wrong time. The Colts, by virtue of Bill Belichick's aversion to punting, have a two game edge on homefield in the playoffs. That gives them more margin for error than New Orleans enjoys with the Vikings breathing down their necks.

There's been a lot of discussion this season about the lack of parity in the NFL. The league has always been very proud of the "Any Given Sunday" thing, and there have been plenty of seasons where that's proven to be true. Because several teams have gaudy records balanced out by a handful of serious laggards, the conventional wisdom is that parity has taken a vacation this season.

The CW is wrong in this case, however. Parity still exists and it exists in the worst way possible. Just take a look at the teams ranked between 12 and 24 and try to come up with any real way of separating them from one another. It's awfully difficult to do because all of them are, at best, mediocre teams who stand no more chance of winning the Super Bowl than the Browns or Redskins. That's going to make for an ugly stretch run as there are only three divisions with fewer than two games between the first and second place teams.

Someone has probably said before that you can't tell anything about the NFL playoff picture until the baseball season comes to a close. If they haven't, I just did and humbly submit that it should be the new credo of football watchers everywhere. The World Series will end before Week 9 kicks off, and it is a week suitably stuffed with games that will actually allow us to do more than guess about the fortunes of the NFL's 32 teams.

Blood will be spilled, hopes will be dashed and these power rankings will look radically different when this week's slate of games are completed. It's finally time to start seperating the men from the boys.

Look past the undefeated teams at the top of the Week 8 NFL Power Rankings, and you'll see a pair of familiar faces staring back at you in the fourth and fifth spots. Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick have navigated some choppy early season waters and righted two of the AFC's stalwart ships in time to ensure that there won't be any dramatic changing of the guard in that conference this season. In both cases, it's been about getting back to basics.

The Steelers defense quieted its critics with a shutdown performance against the Vikings on Sunday, while the Patriots offense has looked like the 2007 version while ringing up blowout victories on both sides of the Atlantic. They're still looking up at the Colts and Broncos, of course, but if those are the top four when we get to January it should be a pretty spectacular fight for the AFC Championship.

The Saints are a clear choice for the top spot after the beating they put on the Giants Sunday, but things are a bit murkier thereafter. How good are the Vikings if their defense can't put teams away? Was that the worst of the Giants, or just the tip of the iceberg for a team that didn't play anyone all that good for the first five weeks? How did everyone in the country not named Josh McDaniels miss so badly on a Broncos team that looks better and better every week?

The clarity isn't helped much by an increasingly muddy midsection in each league. You've got teams like the Jets and Eagles making a mockery of their supporters and teams like the Jaguars and Cardinals offering reminders that a bad week or two early doesn't mean that all is lost. We're coming up fast on midseason and, as it should be, there are more questions than answers in the NFL.

If the NFL were college football, this weekend's matchup between the Giants and Saints would be a de facto National Championship game hyped to the heavens and back. Unlike the NCAA, though, the NFL decides its championship via football and not ballots which means that it is merely a great Week 6 contest that will help settle the top rung in mythical power rankings and, perhaps, serve as a whistle wetter for a NFC Championship Game.

It's still good stuff, but the most notable thing about the current state of power in the NFL these days is how few teams have any of it. There are an awful lot of no-hopers before the second month of the season has been completed which doesn't do much for the long-standing idea of parity being the end all, be all of the NFL.

There's a feeling of deja vu at the top of the rankings this week as each of the top four teams won and, therefore, held their positions. The biggest changes come at the rear where the Lions are finally looking down at something other than the bottom of the page. And it's not going too far out on a limb to say that their replacements will be a regular resident at the caboose of the rankings. The Browns are in disarray, more so than usual even, and show few signs of hope.

For those of you who are bored with the same old, same old up top, this week promises at least one change with the Saints and Jets facing off in a battle of undefeateds. The Ravens are in New England and the Broncos host the Cowboys, which might mean major changes in the top ten when next week's rankings come down the pike.

This week, something a little different: organizational rankings for the long-term rather than the usual list that hasn't changed much.

For what it's worth, here's the present list for the power rankings: 1. Ravens, 2. Saints, 3. Giants, 4. Jets. 5. Colts, 6. Vikings. (Minnesota should have won more easily at home against a team that lost its best offensive player on his first carry.)

At the bottom, Detroit is out for the first time since forever: 27. Washington, 28. Oakland, and then any order you'd like among Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Cleveland and St. Louis.

Now to the long-term rankings, the reasons some teams remain a contender annually in a league designed for parity -- and why others always are at the bottom. No, the good teams don't always win in the short term (Pittsburgh and Tennessee are early examples this season.)

If ranking the 32 teams of the NFL is tough after only one week of games, doing it after two is tougher than Robert Gallery playing on a broken leg. Teams improve to 2-0 but drop in the rankings because their two wins came against the 31st- and 32nd-ranked teams. Elsewhere, teams find themselves ranked behind teams they've beaten, because a team that beat them in Week 1 looked terrible in Week 2. You don't like having that happen, but until there's more evidence to the contrary, the Steelers are above the Bears.

One thing that was clear, though, is that this was New York's week. The Giants pulled out a big win in Dallas to grab the top spot in the rankings, while the Jets jumped 10 spots on the back of their dominant defensive performance against the Patriots. The biggest fall belongs to the Eagles, because regardless of quarterback issues, you can't be that dismal on defense and remain in the top 10.