Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 6

in Headline Sports by griffn — October 13, 2009 at 8:00 am | 4 comments

1. New York Giants (5-0, last week: #1)
The Giants defense didn’t just make Raiders QB Jamarcus Russell look like a bust, they made him look like he had never played football before in his life.  They sacked him six times and forced fumbles on three of them.

2. Indianapolis Colts (5-0, last week: #3)
The Colts effectively ended the Titans season Sunday night by pushing them to 0-5 and taking a 5-game lead over them in the division.  What was incredible though was the degree to which the Titans could do nothing about it.  And the thought just occurred to me that we could be headed for an all-Manning Super Bowl.  Oh, God.

3. New Orleans Saints (4-0, last week: #5)
The Kardashian sisters are like catnip to young black sports stars.  Khloe got the NBA covered, Kim is handling the NFL, and Kourtney was probably on her way to dominating Major League Baseball before she dropped the ball and got knocked up by a douchebag.  That’s all the Saints analysis I got this week.

4. Philadelphia Eagles (3-1, last week: #6)
The Eagles have crushed three bad teams and been crushed by a good one, so it’s hard to tell exactly how good they are.  And we won’t learn anything about them next week in Oakland.  Also, they’re doing Michael Vick an enormous service, but they have absolutely no need for him.  There are at least five teams (Buffalo, Carolina, Oakland, Cleveland, St. Louis– maybe Tampa Bay too) with hopeless quarterback situations who I bet would give up a second round pick for him right now.

5. Denver Broncos (5-0, last week: #10)
I can’t tell you how annoyed I am to have to rank the Broncos in the top 5, but they’ve given me no other choice.  They held the Patriots offense scoreless in the second half, and Kyle Orton has a 97.4 QB rating this season.  This week, Peter King repeatedly compared Orton to a young Tom Brady.  I don’t know if I want to live in a world where Kyle Orton is considered an elite NFL quarterback.

6. New England Patriots (3-2, last week: #2)
I can’t keep ranking the Patriots based on what I think their underachieving offense is capable of.  Brady is just straight up consistently missing throws now.  He badly overthrew a wide open Moss on a deep corner route to the end zone, he hit Wes Welker in the foot on what would have been an 80-yard catch-and-run slant pattern, and he’s thrown just 6 TDs in 5 games.  Until that situation is rectified, the Pats won’t be seeing the top 5.

7. Minnesota Vikings (5-0, last week: #7)
The reason I have the undefeated Vikings ranked below a 3-2 team is because I know nothing about them.  They’ve beaten the Browns, Lions, 49ers, Packers, and Rams.  So what?  The next two weeks against the Ravens and Steelers should tell us exactly how good they are.

8. Baltimore Ravens (3-2, last week: #4)
The Ravens have lost two straight games in the final minute.  But on the plus side, it appears as though John Harbaugh has finally realized that Ray Rice is by far their best running back and that Willis McGahee is a vulturous vulture who should stay on the bench and stop vulturing touchdowns from my fantasy team.  The next part of their schedule is brutal though: Vikings, bye week, Broncos, Bengals, Browns, Colts, Steelers.  That’s five top-ten caliber teams in less than two months.

9. Atlanta Falcons (3-1, last week: On the bubble)
The Falcons absolutely destroyed, demoralized, and delegitimized a 49ers team that last week looked like the new class of the NFC West.  I’ve made it no secret how much I like Matt Ryan, Roddy White, Michael Turner, and that young Falcons offense.  They finally lived up to my hype by posting 45 points on a defense that was giving up just 13 points a game.

10. Cincinnati Bengals (4-1, last week: unranked)
For the second straight week, a team forces me to leapfrog them over the On the Bubble teams directly into the top ten.  Not only are the Bengals leading the AFC North over the Ravens and Steelers, but they’ve already beaten both of them.  The one red flag is that they’ve won three of their games by 3 points, and their combined margin of victory in four wins this season is 16 points.  So basically they’re about two touchdowns away from being 0-5.  But, hey, that’s the NFL.  The Bengals deserve this spot for now.

On the bubble: Pittsburgh Steelers (3-2, last week: #8), New York Jets (3-2, last week: #9), Green Bay Packers (2-2), Dallas Cowboys (3-2), Chicago Bears (3-1)

Related posts:

1. Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 7
2. Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 2
3. Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 8
4. Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 4**
5. Forbes NFL power rankings: Week 5

Tags: Eli Manning football New York Giants NFL Peyton Manning rankings