NFL power rankings post week 10

New England Patriots

After a brief fall from grace last week, the Patriots find themselves back on top of the power rankings, with San Francisco and New Orleans both losing this week. Bill Belichick’s squad was awfully sloppy in their loss to Baltimore, committing multiple unnecessary penalties, but coming off of a bye, which Belichick is 14-5 all-time off of, the Patriots will look to rebound against a struggling Philadelphia Eagles crew. If quarterback Tom Brady can start to get in sync with rookie wide receiver N’Keal Harry, this offense should take off down the back nine of the regular season.

San Francisco 49ers

San Francisco would still be undefeated had a field goal attempt from kicker Chase McLaughlin not shanked to the left immediately upon leaving the ground in their contest against Seattle. McLaughlin nailed a 47-yarder with one second remaining in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo appeared frustrated in the pocket all day, not from the Seahawks’ pass rush, but from his receivers dropping perfect passes that hit them in the hands. Garoppolo was without the services of his phenomenal tight end George Kittle, who is nursing a knee injury, and veteran wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who left the game midway through the first half with an injury of his own. Though the 49ers lost, Garopollo proved his mettle as a franchise quarterback, executing a perfect two-minute drill and setting up McLaughlin for the game-tying field goal. San Francisco needed a good hard-fought loss to toughen them up before the wintery stretch, but for now, they’ll take on Arizona once more to hopefully regain a lead in their division over Seattle.

Baltimore Ravens

Quarterback Lamar Jackson continues to give the Seahawks’ quarterback Russell Wilson a run for his money in the MVP race. In Sunday’s 49-13 rout over the Bengals, Lamar Jackson threw more touchdowns at three than incomplete passes at two, while adding another touchdown and 65 yards on the ground. Baltimore hangs onto sole possession of the second seed in the AFC and only trails New England by one game. After last week’s win over the Patriots, they would hold the edge in the potential tiebreaker.

Seattle Seahawks

Seattle delivers a massive win in arguably the best game of the entire season to this point. The game needed all of 68 minutes for a winner to be decided and kicker Jason Myers’ kick was the difference Seattle needed. Seattle is essentially primed to be playing in January, but this win was huge for them to close the gap on the race for the NFC West, with two of the NFC’s top four teams coming from that division. Considering the rate at which both Seattle and San Francisco are going, whoever is the winner of the division will likely get a first-round bye. Seattle goes into the bye week trailing San Francisco by only half a game in the loss column. Seahawks fans will be Cardinals fans for the weekend.

New Orleans Saints

It seems hard to tell whether Sunday’s loss to the Falcons, who came into the game 1-7, is a bad loss for New Orleans, or if it’s just another example of how wildly inconsistent and unpredictable the Atlanta Falcons are. In the meantime, the Saints will fall to the third seed in the NFC as they trail Green Bay by half a game, but the Saints have a game against the Bucs where they can settle back into things while Green Bay goes into their bye, giving the Saints a chance to catch up and tie with the Packers for the second seed.

Green Bay Packers

Credit must be given where credit is due, so a tip of the cap to the Packers goal-line defense, which stood tall against MVP candidate running back Christian McCaffrey. The Panthers had multiple chances to punch the ball in and potentially tie the game with a two-point conversion, but the Packers suffocated them at the goal line to end the game. Green Bay has been able to maintain a one-game lead in the division over Minnesota, but following their bye week, the Packers could find themselves sitting in the fifth or sixth seed. The two squads don’t meet again until they face off on Monday Night Football in week 16, a game that could potentially decide the winner of the NFC North.

Minnesota Vikings

Despite having previous imperfections in prime time games and matchups against teams above .500, quarterback Kirk Cousins was able to deliver on Sunday night’s game in Dallas. The Vikings offense rode the hot hand of their stud running back Dalvin Cook, who picked up 97 yards and a touchdown running the ball and hauled in seven catches for 86 yards receiving. Tight end Kyle Rudolph also played an important role in the win by catching both of Cousins’ touchdown passes, including a stellar one-handed grab at the back of the end zone.

Kansas City Chiefs

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, through 28 NFL starts, has five losses in which the Chiefs scored 31 or more points. While Mahomes’ talent is otherworldly, as the tape tells us, this is to give some perspective on how bad his defense has been for the past two years. Considering Mahomes is expecting to sign an overwhelmingly record-breaking contract that will eat up a lot of the teams’ cap space, it’s hard to imagine the defense is going to make strides of improvement unless Kansas City invests a majority of its draft capital on defense, and actually hit on a lot of their picks. Andy Reid is going to have to be creative preceding the rest of the season. The Chiefs had a top-notch performance from Mahomes and electric wide receiver Tyreek Hill, directing the offense to 32 points, yet losing to the Ryan Tannehill-led Titans is extremely alarming.

Houston Texans

Houston, on a bye this week, gained significant breathing room for their lead in the AFC South following the Colts’ shocking loss to the Dolphins. The Texans will hit the road and head to Baltimore and look to knock the Ravens off their five-game winning streak. A win over the Ravens on Sunday would give the Texans the second seed in the AFC. Considering head coach Bill O’Brien has two weeks to plan for Jackson, it’ll be interesting to see how he plans to attack the best rushing attack in football.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles find their way back into the top 10 after being on the outside looking in for the past few weeks. Philadelphia will have a lot on their plate against a Patriots team coming off a tough loss that led into their bye week. Considering the shaky play of the Dak Prescott-led Cowboys, and the regression of Ezekiel Elliott, this division may be Philadelphia’s to lose.