As the man said, to be the man you gotta beat the man – and the San Francisco 49ers just did it with their chest in a rematch of last year’s NFC Championship game. All season the Philadelphia Eagles had been winning close, come-from-behind games – incredibly going 5-0 while trailing at halftime heading into Sunday’s matchup.
However, that run of good fortune came to a definitive end on their home field yesterday when they were totally decimated by the 49ers by a score of 42-19. Naturally, the Niners are once again the No. 1 team in our power rankings. Meanwhile, the Eagles have dropped four spots to No. 5.
At the bottom of our power rankings, the Carolina Panthers still have a very strong case to make for being the worst team in the NFL right now. Then again, at least they were able to score a point this week – which is more than we can say for the New England Patriots, who lost 6-0 to the Los Angeles Chargers. They are now ranked No. 32 on our list.
The team that made the biggest jump this week was once again the Green Bay Packers, who took down the Kansas City Chiefs and have now won four of their last five games, with the last two coming against top-10 teams. As such, the Packers are now in the top-10 themselves. Other teams that took significant steps forward include the Houston Texans, the Los Angeles Rams and the Arizona Cardinals.
The team that fell off the most this week is the Pittsburgh Steelers, who not only get upset by Arizona, but also lost starting quarterback Kenny Pickett to an ankle injury that may require surgery and will definitely sideline him at least a few weeks. The Cleveland Browns and the Kansas City Chiefs also suffered serious dropoffs.
As for the Seattle Seahawks, their heartbreaking loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night dropped them to a 6-6 record. That combined with LA’s victory over Cleveland has pushed them out of the NFC Playoff picture for now. However, Geno Smith playing the way he did against a top-five defense inspires some hope after a run of awful offensive performances. So, we only dropped them a couple of spots in our rankings this week.
Here’s how we rank all 32 NFL teams heading into Week 14.