There’s only three weeks left in the 2023 NFL season. That’s a lot of football left to play, to say nothing of the minefield that is the playoffs. All that said, two teams have distinguished themselves as the clear favorites in their respective conferences.
Whether they get to the Super Bowl or not is anybody’s guess, but right now nobody is playing better ball than the 49ers and the Ravens, who occupy the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in our latest rankings, respectively. This past week they both boosted their standing as the heaviest heavyweights in the league. San Francisco dropped another 40+ points on their latest victims, the Cardinals. Meanwhile, Baltimore took down a potent Jaguars team on Sunday night. As it happens, the Niners and Ravens are scheduled to play next Monday night on Christmas. The winner of the game will have a very strong claim to be the Super Bowl favorite.
Trending up: Raiders, Bengals, Colts
The three teams that made the most progress this past week were all in the AFC. The biggest jump belonged to the Raiders, who dropped 63 points on the Chargers in their win on Thursday night. Vegas is up 10 spots from last week. Further up the list, the Bengals and Colts both jumped four spots each after scoring clutch wins in the playoff race on Sunday.
Trending down: Broncos, Cowboys, Packers, Falcons
Several teams took huge tumbles this week, as well. The worst of it happened to the Broncos, who got destroyed by Detroit on Saturday night. Denver is down six spots from last week. The Cowboys also fell by six spots after getting dominated on both sides of the ball by the Bills, who have risen all the way up to No. 3. Meanwhile, the Packers lost their second-straight game, dropping them five spots from last week. Perhaps most-embarrassing of all, a talented Falcons team found a way to lose to the Panthers. Atlanta is now down from No. 18 to No. 23.
Look out next year
A few teams held steady at their positions despite losing tough games – the most unlucky of which were the Bears. If Justin Fields’ hail Mary ball had managed to stay still in Darnell Mooney’s hands it would have resulted in a massive up set over the Browns. Overall, Chicago has been playing much better since they traded for Montez Sweat and may be a team to watch next season.
Seattle up four spots
As for the Seahawks, they finally snapped their losing streak and kept their playoff hopes alive with a huge upset win over the Eagles on Monday night. Seattle is up four spots to No. 15, while Philadelphia sank another three spots down to No. 9 after their third-straight loss.
Let’s get to the full list.. Here’s how we place all 32 teams heading into Week 16.