Tag: nfl power rankings week 15

NFL Power Rankings Week 15: Red-hot Cowboys are just the Ravens with better PR

The Cowboys are getting all the credit the Ravens actually deserve. More in our weekly NFL power rankings.

In the current pro football pantheon, there isn’t a team hotter than the Dallas Cowboys.

Ever since they got pantsed by San Francisco in early October, the Cowboys have gone on an absolute tear. They’ve won seven of eight games to vault themselves into prime position for the NFC East title and for a top-two seed in the NFC playoff picture. Perhaps more importantly, Dak Prescott is playing the most efficient football of his career and has a genuine MVP case as he tries to march the league’s marquee team back to postseason glory.

And yet, Dallas’s resume still pales compared to what the Ravens — easily the NFL’s most overlooked team — have accomplished. Even me detailing what the Cowboys have achieved in the last two months ironically felt like it glossed over the current favorite for the top playoff seed in the AFC.

Don’t believe me?

Let’s look at a tale of the tape:

  • The Ravens have five wins over teams with winning records, while the Cowboys have one.
  • According to FTN, Baltimore is fifth, second, and fifth in offensive, defensive, and special teams DVOA, respectively. By comparison, Dallas is sixth, sixth, and eighth in each of those categories. That suggests Baltimore plays a better brand of complementary football.
  • The Ravens are fourth in scoring offense and second in scoring defense. The Cowboys are first in scoring offense and fourth in scoring defense.
  • Baltimore’s coach is John Harbaugh, a man with a proven playoff pedigree accustomed to taking his team on deep runs through January. Dallas’s coach is Mike McCarthy, a supposedly changed man who usually sinks his team’s playoff chances without a second thought.

None of this is to diminish the Cowboys’ resume.

At the moment, even if they do fall short of the NFC East title because of the Philadelphia Eagles’ remaining cupcake schedule, I feel comfortable anointing Dallas as the No. 1 challenger to the San Francisco 49ers for the NFC’s crown. But the Ravens deserve a whole heck of a lot more respect because they’re beating better teams and in style. And they’ve been doing it all year. I mean, it took this team over two months to appear in a primetime game. That is egregious and completely unacceptable. It’s not the Ravens’ fault they don’t have an entire media market backing their every brush with success and drama.

The Cowboys and Ravens are understandably a touchy subject for Christian and me in For The Win‘s Week 15 NFL power rankings. As almost every other contender falls flat on its face, we’ve got a wrestling match of superpowers up top.

NFL power rankings Week 15: Browns, Cowboys and Bears surge

Our updated NFL power rankings going into Week 15 of the 2023 season.

With the “Monday Night Football” matchups between the Tennessee Titans and Miami Dolphins and New York Giants and Green Bay Packers in the books, it’s time to take a look at our updated NFL power rankings going into Week 15 of the 2023 season.

The Dallas Cowboys pulled off a statement win in Week 14, crushing the Philadelphia Eagles, 30-13. With the win, Dallas is tied atop the NFC East with Philly record-wise, but the Cowboys are technically in first place based on tiebreaker.

The other marquee matchup of Week 14 saw the Buffalo Bills escape with a 20-17 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.

The biggest upset of the week came in New York, where the Jets posted an impressive 30-6 win over the Houston Texans. Zach Wilson had the best game of his career, throwing for 301 yards and two scores.

The Jets are one of the biggest movers in this week’s rankings, along with the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts are the team’s taking the biggest fall.

Now, a look at our updated NFL power rankings going into Week 15.

Tennessee Titans power rankings round-up going into Week 15

Somehow, the Titans actually moved up in a few of the NFL power rankings in our round-up.

The Tennessee Titans dropped their third-straight contest in Week 14, losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 36-22 — and as a result, Tennessee is rightly moving down in the NFL power rankings of most experts.

We say most because, well, somehow the Titans moved up in a few of the power rankings in our round-up despite their worst loss of 2022.

The first expert we’re checking in on is USA TODAY’s Nate Davis, who has the Titans moving down three spots to No. 19. Here’s what he had to say about Tennessee:

19. Titans (16): They’ve lost three in a row for the first time since 2018, Mike Vrabel’s first season as head coach. Tennessee has now been outscored by 35 points on the season, worst of any team currently above .500.

While the sky feels like it’s falling in Nashville after the Titans failed to respond against a team it normally dominates, Tennessee still has a commanding lead in the AFC South.

That said, things aren’t wrapped up yet, and the potential for a collapse feels more possible than it did just a few weeks ago.

Now, the rest of the round-up, which features two experts actually moving the Titans up, and one of them has Tennessee moving up two spots.

NFL Power Rankings Week 15: Cowboys look vulnerable and the Lions are ready to pounce

The Cowboys can’t be so sloppy before the playoffs. They should take cues from the roaring Lions.

With the promise of the playoffs just around the corner, a host of NFL contenders started to hold the steering wheel a little too loosely in Week 14.

In Dallas, a combination of Dak Prescott inconsistencies and poor Mike McCarthy decision-making almost had the Cowboys fall to the Houston Texans — the NFL’s worst team. In Los Angeles, the Mike McDaniel-Tua Tagovailoa Dolphins looked utterly lost against the team and quarterback (hey, Justin Herbert!) everyone will compare them to forever.

And finally, among the litany of examples, the Vikings took a few giant southpaws from the Lions in Detroit. Even while the Lions might be the NFL’s hottest and most dangerous team, it was still an alarming result from a Minnesota squad currently sitting with the NFC’s No. 2 seed. At least the Vikings can take solace in knowing they’re not the only contender trying to work some kinks out with just a month of regular season play left.

Here are For The Win’s Week 15 Power Rankings for the 2022 NFL season — featuring those red-hot Lions and vulnerable Cowboys — as the regular season hits its final quarter of games.

Week 15 NFL Power Rankings: We have a change at the bottom!

The New York Jets are on the move up after their first win! Although not too far up. But how did Sunday’s action shake the rankings?

Normally you get excited putting together Power Rankings when there is a reason to make a change at the top.

This week the excitement is because there is a change at the bottom.

In previous weeks it was easy to start out the rankings. Pencil the New York Jets in at 32 and fill the blanks in once the games are final. This week, however, the Jets stunned the Los Angeles Rams, throwing the upcoming draft order into tumult and shaking things up at the bottom of the Touchdown Wire Power Rankings.

And thanks to the Cincinnati Bengals, we have a change near the top as well…

 

Buccaneers crack the top 15 in latest USA TODAY NFL Power Rankings

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been playing some of their best football of late and are climbing up the power rankings.

Less than a month ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were sitting at 3-7 after a Week 11 home loss to the New Orleans Saints. Fans were clamoring for Jameis Winston’s job and the team seemed destined for a top spot in the 2020 NFL Draft.

But, oh how fast things can change in the NFL.

Following Sunday’s win over the Indianapolis Colts, the Buccaneers are 6-7 and riding a three-game winning streak as they prepare to head to Detroit in Week 15 to take on a Lions team that’s lost six-straight.

Tampa Bay has averaged 33.7 points per game during their streak and are proving to the rest of the league that they aren’t going to go down without a fight, even if they have already been eliminated from the playoffs.

This week, the Bucs took another big step forward in their quest for respectability by climbing up two spots in the latest USA TODAY NFL Power Rankings, coming in at No. 15.

As usual, the enigma that is Jameis Winston was the focal point of the analysis.

“Jameis Winston conundrum deepens. Showed toughness playing with injured thumb. Has engineered three straight wins with (mostly) strong play. But he’s one pick-six from matching league’s single-season record (6).”

With the win over Indy, Tampa Bay avoided their third-straight 5-11 season. If they win out, they’ll finish 9-7, which would give them their first winning season since 2016.

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