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A high-stakes comeback to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday night wasn’t enough to help the New Orleans Saints in the latest NFL power rankings from Doug Farrar over at Touchdown Wire.
They Saints are still his No. 13-ranked team, and while they’re now placed above the reeling Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New Orleans has been leapfrogged by the upstart Carolina Panthers.
Here’s some of what Farrar wrote on the Saints after their Week 5 win:
The stories about Brees’ arm going off the charts in a bad way have been circulating for years, but 2020 seems like a reckoning. Brees did complete five of nine passes of 20 or more air yards against L.A.’s defense for 160 yards and two touchdowns, but for the season, he has an average of 6.1 air yards per attempt, which is the second-worst in the NFL ahead of only Jared Goff at 5.9.
Not that Brees has turned into 2015 Peyton Manning — he’s got more on the ball than that in a literal and figurative sense — but it’s also true that New Orleans’ defense in no way resembles Denver’s “No-Fly-Zone” defense that dragged Manning to his second Super Bowl win at the end of that season. Sean Payton will have to manage his limited quarterback and his wildly inconsistent defense as he has all season long.
Somehow, the Saints are still Farrar’s second-best team in the NFC South. The Panthers have surged up to the No. 11 spot (from No. 14 a week ago), while the Buccaneers fell all the way down to No. 18 (from No. 9, after the Chicago Bears made Tom Brady look mortal again). And the Atlanta Falcons have fallen to No. 31 (from No. 29) after firing head coach Dan Quinn and G.M. Thomas Dimitroff.
The No. 1 overall spot in Farrar’s power rankings belongs to the Seattle Seahawks, but they’re just one of three NFC rivals ahead of the Saints (including the Panthers): other teams to watch are the Green Bay Packers (at No. 3) and the Los Angeles Rams (at No. 7). For now, the NFL’s best squads are leaning towards the AFC.
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