NFL Power Rankings Week 7 - One undefeated team still standing

The NFL’s Week 6 is complete and we are starting to move forward toward Week 7. This week we are down to just one undefeated team remaining, with the Los Angeles Rams sitting atop the rankings, as they have been nearly all season. Behind them, we see some more of the normal shuffling, though our biggest drops of the week both come from teams that last week were in the top six.

Feel free to discuss my rankings, and who is too high and who is too low in the comments at the bottom of the page. There are a couple of teams that I think could fit those categories, but I am not ready to commit to giant drops or gains yet.

On to the rankings:

At the top

The Rams hold the top spot and continue to look like the class of the league this year. The New England Patriots jump up two spots to second after knocking off the former second-placed team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who complete the swap with the Patriots by falling two positions to fourth. In between them, the New Orleans Saints stand still in third after their bye week. The Minnesota Vikings then jump up two spots to claim the fifth position, though they beat the 28th ranked team to get that boost.

The Los Angeles Chargers and Green Bay Packers continue to move up the rankings, both climbing two spots to sixth and seventh, respectively. Both teams should be contenders through the rest of the season - assuming Aaron Rodgers’ knee holds up. The Pittsburgh Steelers in eighth are a hard team to figure out this year, but they are looking good right now, so a slight bump in the rankings, up three, is appropriate. The Philadelphia Eagles move up one position to ninth this week after beating the last ranked team, while the Jacksonville Jaguars round out the top ten.

Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins move up two positions this week, sitting in the Dan Marino spot. They are a hot-and-cold team this year, so 13th feels about right. If Ryan Tannehill is healthy, or Brock Osweiler can continue to play at a level like he apparently always plays against the Chicago Bears, the Dolphins could rebound from their two week slide in Weeks 4 and 5. Ahead of them are the Atlanta Falcons, who are definitely one of the teams I could agree with an argument to put just about anywhere on the board - Atlanta is just 2-4 on the year, seven spots ahead of the next two win team, but they should be a good team and they have shown it in flashes this year. Miami could at least climb over the Falcons if the Dolphins beat the Detroit Lions this week.

I do have Miami one spot ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals, which feels a little wrong given how the Bengals beat the Dolphins just two weeks ago, so you could swap those two teams and I would not argue there either.

Biggest Gain

The Dallas Cowboys have struggled all season, but are somehow 3-3 and, after a dominating performance over the Jaguars, are worthy of the eight position jump they see this week. They are the last of the 3-3 teams, but they definitely do not deserve to be in the 31st position in which they were listed last week.

Biggest Drop

The Jaguars and the Carolina Panthers both had five positions drops, going from fifth and sixth respectively to tenth and eleventh. Jacksonville lost to the Cowboys, who, as stated above, have been struggling this year. The Panthers lost to the Washington Redskins, who are 19th this week and 2-3 on the year. Jacksonville’s performance was probably worse than Carolina’s, with the Jaguars losing 40-7 while the Panthers lost 23-17, but the Jaguars keep slightly ahead of Carolina based on a belief that their defense just is not 40-7 bad.

The Bottom

The bottom five teams are all 1-5, with the New York Giants remaining in the cellar again this week. The Oakland Raiders move down one position to 31st, the Indianapolis Colts are down one to 30th, the San Francisco 49ers down one to 29th, and the Arizona Cardinals are down one to 28th. The 49ers may be the team here that do not deserve to be this low, especially after going toe-to-toe with the Packers, but I need another strong showing to see if I should move them up.