Crazy Week
Upsets galore this week seemed to have impacted the "experts" rankings this week more than mine. New feature this week is the power rankings are weighted so the most recent game has more weight in the final grade than the prior game, going back to Week 1. More on that at the end of the season when I will give an overview of the calculation methods.
Here it is...
Thoughts
- Who's #1? - Only Bleacher Report agreed that the Niners are the top team. That was a hard fought game Monday night and even a Jimmy G doubter like me will admit they saw a lot of good things from their slinger in late Q4 and in OT. The Defense just ran into the Russell Wilson buzzsaw.
- NE coming out of the bye was placed at #1 by two outlets which was an interesting response to the Niners' loss.
- Baltimore was #1 on 2 of the 5 rankings used for comparisons...wow. Imagine if they had not beaten the worst team in the league? They would be, like, Team Zero, I guess. I'm a huge fan of that team but I like them where I had them, unchanged at #6.
- Cement Shoes - The usual suspects are at the bottom of the lake again with the Chargers joining the Sinking 8 (was 22 last week to 26 this week) given their loss to the Raiders. The Experts didn't take much offense to the loss ranking LAC at #17 on average.
- Bullish - Teams I had higher than the Experts include:
- DET - I had them at 18 vs 24 for the Experts; ESPN was closest to me at 21. Losing to CHI when the Bears run the ball and lean on that defense without your starting QB is nothing to be ashamed of but the Lions got notched down to 24 for it.
- BUF - 9 vs 14 with CBS agreeing with me. I think I agree with most of the Experts in that the offense is a huge liability but compared to the current 3 and 4 loss teams, this placing is not egregious.
- CAR - 11 vs 15 with USA Today and SI at 13. Losing to one of the top teams in GB shouldn't cause such hard feelings but the Panthers are Cam-less the rest of the way and that couldn't help in the minds of the Experts. Kyle Allen has been good enough filling in at QB but the road ahead looks pretty rough (NO twice, SEA and IND) so perhaps the Experts are discounting them now.
- Bearish- Maybe the Experts know something I don't...
- LAC - I have them at 26 vs. 19 for the Experts. No less than 20 from B/R. They put up a good fight against the OAK last Thursday but they have been so erratic all year (beating GB and CHI but losing to DEN and TEN?!?!) they just can't be trusted.
- DAL - 17 vs. 11; no lower than #13 for the Experts - The team has one impressive win (over GB) and one impressive loss (against NYJ) so their Jekyll and Hyde routine didn't help when they lost to MIN a team with its own schizophrenia to deal with.
- BAL - 6 vs 2 (tied for 1st overall); with nothing lower than 3rd. Look, I love BAL (they seem to draft my favorite players) and I love Jackson (DraftTwitter had him as the # 17 player in the 2018 NFL Draft so I'm a believer) but I'm going to need a bit more than beating a team that routinely loses by 2 TDs. With HOU, LAR and SF coming up, we will see what this team is all about.
See you next week!
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