NFL Power Ranks: Week 9

On this election day, I'm sure nothing is more important to you than my computerized NFL power ranks, so I won't let you down. I waited until a little later to do these, because I had a grand idea to make this a special edition called the "power rank electoral college," where I would award the team's power ranking score to the candidate that won the state the team is in, but with a few states up for grabs, it looks like McCain is only going to win states where 8 NFL teams call home, so that's not going to work. If you look at the 2000 and 2004 maps, there were actually exactly 16 NFL teams in red states and 16 NFL teams in blue.

The Flaming Thumbtacks improved to 8-0 this week and still hold a commanding lead on the #1 spot over the Giants, whose impressive narrowed the gap a little. A pretty surprising 3rd is the 5-3 Eagles. They are there because they play in a really great division and are one of only 3 teams (along with the Titans and Giants) that are ranked in the top 10 in the league in offense, defense, and turnovers. If you couple this new #3 spot with the Phillies world series title, I think this post deserves the crazy Eagle fan picture yet again. The idle Panthers dropped to #4, and the Steelers took the Redskins spot by beating them. The Patriots dropped out after their loss to the crazy Colts.

The bottom 5 remained intact but the Bengals first win of the year leaped them over the Lions and 49ers.

There were a lot of big gains and losses this week. Atlanta, Arizona, and Baltimore all jumped 8 spots after getting big wins over bad teams, and all improved to 5-3, which helps the argument that they are all "for real." The biggest losers were New England, who fell back down to earth at the hands of the Colts. Fading Buffalo also dropped 8 spots to #19, as did never good enough to be fading Cleveland and the future definition of "collapse," the Dallas Cowboys. Once again I'll note that the AFC West leading Broncos are ranked #25. Here are the ranks....

1. Titans - 87.31 - Even
2. Giants - 80.39 - Even
3. Eagles - 71.91 - +3
4. Panthers - 70.15 - -1
5. Steelers - 68.68 - +2
6. Bears - 65.38 - +2
7. Buccaneers - 64.94 - +2
8. Falcons - 63.84 - +8
9. Cardinals - 63.05 - +8
10. Redskins - 59.23 - -6
11. Ravens - 58.92 - +8
12. Jets - 58.03 - +1
13. Dolphins - 57.15 - +2
14. Patriots - 56.44 - -9
15. Packers - 54.59 - -5
16. Vikings - 52.36 - +7
17. Saints - 52.07 - +1
18. Colts - 51.94 - +4
19. Bills - 48.05 - -8
20. Browns - 47.64 - -8
21. Texans - 46.28 - Even
22. Cowboys - 45.89 - -8
23. Jaguars - 43.35 - -3
24. Chargers - 40.23 - Even
25. Broncos - 34.39 - +1
26. Rams - 34.03 - -1
27. Raiders - 29.24 - Even
28. Seahawks - 26.73 - Even
29. Chiefs - 23.72 - Even
30. Bengals - 22.27 - +2
31. 49ers - 20.08 - -1
32. Lions - 12.58 - -1