This week we have a new #1, and not surprisingly, it’s none other than the undefeated Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. The 49ers moved up to #2 by dethroning the #1 Lions, while the Lions moved down to #3, Ravens moved down to #4, and the Patriots moved up to #5 over the Bills, who lost again this week.
This begs the question….Are the 49ers for real? All of sudden they are 5-1 and running away with the NFC West. They have 5 games left against their miserable division and also get to play Cleveland and the John Beck led Redskins. If they run the table in those games, they are 12-4 and will likely have a first round bye. One thing that makes me feel good about them this year is that they are based in having a strong defense that gets a lot of turnovers, and their offense doesn’t make too many mistakes and Alex Smith has turned into a good Trent Dilfer-ish game manager, which is all they need. The offense, though, isn’t so ineffective that they can’t score points or play from behind. I guess we’ll see how it plays out…
The bottom 5 teams remained the same, but they moved positions. The idle Cardinals passed the Jaguars and despite losing 24-3 to the Packers, the Rams jumped 2 spots to #30 thanks to the strength of schedule boost of playing the 6-0 Packers. The Dolphins are now the new #32 team and if you watched the Monday Night game this week, it shows.
The biggest gainers this week were the Bengals, who are surprisingly 4-2 are beating the pathetic Colts. They jumped 6 spots. The biggest losers were the Saints, who dropped 8 spots after losing to the Buccaneers a week after they were embarrassed in San Francisco, and the Redskins, who dropped 8 spots as well after being shut down by the Eagles.
Playoff Projections:
AFC
Byes:#4 Ravens, #5 Patriots
#7 Bills @ #8 Chargers
#6 Bengals @#12 Titans
Top 5 Out: #10 Raiders, #13 Steelers, #17 Jets, #20 Texans, #21 Browns
NFC
Byes: #1 Packers, #2 49ers
#14 Bears @ #9 Giants
#3 Lions @ #11 Buccaneers
Top 5 Out: #15 Saints, #16 Redskins, #18 Falcons, #19 Cowboys, #22 Seahawks
Here are the full ranks:
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