Power ranking Week 3 NFL power rankings: From stats to eye-test, who has it right?

When you look at almost every single power ranking, you’re going to see two things: the Philadelphia Eagles, the Buffalo Bills and the Green Bay Packers at the top, and the New Orleans Saints at, or near, the bottom.

The beautiful thing about power rankings is that you can base them on pretty much anything. PFF does it based on make-believe ratings, ESPN does it based on a whole bunch of opinions,  some people do it based on who’s actually good and bad, and some people do it just to get people riled up. This is the power ranking of power rankings, so you know which ones are the ones you should pay attention to.   

From numbers to reality

Some people don’t care about power rankings. They have their own opinions, and they don’t really care about other people’s; that’s enviable. That means seeing Fanduel’s power rankings doesn’t make them feel any kind of anger.

That’s a terrible power ranking. Not only is it wrong, but it provides absolutely zero context. The good power rankings are the ones that are moderately correct, give context, have valid opinions, and have names behind them so people can be held accountable. 

For the sake of brevity, when I’m power ranking these power rankings, I’m only going to talk about the top six and the bottom six teams that they have ranked. 

5. PFF

PFF is great for the raw data they have (that’s stuff like snaps at positions, drops, quarterback performance based on play action or not). The thing is, they hang their hat on their player ratings, which is an ethereal number that comes with zero context. They use those ratings for just about everything that they do, especially with their power ratings. 

Numbers, stats, and analytics definitely have their place in football, but if you only go off the numbers, you’re not getting anywhere close to the full picture. Because that’s what PFF does, they have a nonsensical Week 3 power ranking. 

At the top of their list:
1. Ravens
2. Bills
3. Eagles
4. Packers
5. Lions
6. Chiefs

Those are all good teams. Hell, they might be the best teams. But the Packers buried both the Lions (who just dropped a 50-burger in Week 2) and the Commanders. That seems like it might be worth more than a spot at number four.

Also, hey… two weeks ago, the Bills came back from a two-score deficit to beat the Ravens. Then, the Ravens followed that up with a Week 2 game where they were outgained by the Browns.

But the PFF player ratings put the Ravens at the top spot, so that’s just how they’re gonna go with it. 

As for their bottom six:
27. Dolphins
28. Giants
29. Jets
30. Panthers
31. Titans
32. Saints

Just to drive the point home: The Titans have been playing better football than the Panthers. Numbers without context are dumb.

Good job to PFF, though. They have a thing and they’re sticking to it, even though people dump on them relentlessly. That’s genuinely admirable. 

4. ESPN

ESPN’s weekly power rankings are a cop out. Instead of one single person, or even a small group of people doing the ranking, their “power panel of more than 80 writers, editors and TV personalities evaluates how NFL teams stack up against one another, ranking them from 1 to 32.”

That means this is less of a power ranking and more of a survey. I guess it makes sense since they have the resources to do it, but it still feels cheap.

At the top, they have:
1. Bills
2. Eagles
3. Packers
4. Ravens
5. Lions
6. Rams

The Rams making it into the top six is certainly something. In Week 1, they beat the Texans 14-9, and in Week 2, they beat the Titans 33-19. The only time that offense really looked good was in the second half of the Titans game. I don’t know if 30 minutes of good football warrants an upper-echelon ranking.

At the bottom:
27. Titans
28. Dolphins
29. Giants
30. Browns
31. Panthers
32. Saints

This is pretty good: it’s got all of the stinkers on there, and it’s not disparaging anyone who doesn’t deserve it. The Dolphins are too high, but otherwise, there are no huge complaints.

Don’t get it twisted, this is a good power ranking, but because they kind of cheated, it’s getting ranked right below PFF’s robot brain.

3. CBS Sports

It’s always fun to see what CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco has going on. The dude has been around for a long time and is incredibly connected… but he has some of the worst football takes of all time. 

At the top:

1. Eagles
2. Bills
3. Packers
4. Buccaneers
5. Ravens
6. Commanders

Again, the Eagles, Bills, and Packers deserve to be in some combination of the top three. Tossing the Buccaneers at four? Woooo, buddy. To justify that, Prisco says, “That was a big-time game-winning drive for Baker Mayfield with two backups on the offensive line. Two road victories to open the season has this team off to a great start.”

Does that mean the Buccs deserve to be above teams like the Ravens, the Lions, or the Chargers? Probably not. Up until that drive, the Buccaneers' offense was largely inefficient. It was against a good Texans’ defense, but if you’re getting a top-five rank, you should be able to put up points and have a more complete game against a good defense. 

Then the Commanders at six? Well, that’s downright foolish, especially when you consider that he put the Lions at 12 (and the Chiefs one spot ahead of them). 

At the bottom:

27. Dolphins
28. Browns
29. Jets
30. Titans
31. Panthers
32. Saints

Maaaan, the Jets aren’t good, but they don’t deserve this. They went toe-to-toe with the Steelers in Week 1 and then got buzzsawed by the Bills (the team he has ranked second) in Week 2. Putting them in the bottom six is fair, but dropping them below the Browns is just bullying.

2. Pro Football Talk

It’s important to note that Pro Football Talk’s power rankings are done by Mike Florio and not Chris Simms. Say what you will about Florio’s general NFL takes, but he’s undeniably got a pretty solid idea about the standings in the NFL.

He also makes his power rankings very digestible. He writes the rank, the team, the previous rank, the record, and then one sentence about the team. It’s great if you don’t like reading. 

At the top:

1. Eagles
2. Bills
3. Packers
4. Ravens
5. Chargers
6. Buccaneers

Putting the Buccaneers at six, and not in the top five, is totally acceptable. He did put the Commanders at eight, which is weird. 

At the bottom:

27. Giants
28. Jets
29. Saints
30. Panthers
31. Browns
32. Dolphins

Not putting the Saints as a bottom-three team is a choice, and probably not the right one. The Browns aren’t a good team, but at least they have a defense.

1. Bleacher Report

Bleacher Report’s power ranking kind of nails the process: “Bleacher Report NFL analysts Gary Davenport, Kris Knox, Maurice Moton and Brent Sobleski have come together to make sense of the madness and rank the league's teams from worst to first.”

Perfect. A small group of people who don’t hide behind a wall of anonymity. 

At the top:

1. Eagles
2. Bills
3. Packers
4. Ravens
5. Chargers
6. Rams

This is a good power ranking. Another one where the Chargers are getting the recognition they deserve, and just out of the picture is the Lions at No. 7. 

The bottom:

27. Giants
28. Browns
29. Dolphins
30. Titans
31. Panthers
32. Saints

This is almost perfect. The Titans are a little low, but other than that, it has all the right teams. Teamwork works when it comes to power rankings.

0. Jake Beckman, Fansided

At the top:

1. Eagles
2. Packers
3. Bills
4. Chargers
5. Ravens
6. Lions

You can put the top three in any order, but the Packers get the second spot because they haven’t allowed offenses to do anything against them. That’s including the Lions, who just showed that they can drop 50 points given the chance. The same logic (but to a lesser extent) goes to putting the Chargers over the Ravens. 

At the bottom:

27. Titans
28. Giants
29. Panthers
30. Browns
31. Saints
32. Dolphins

The Dolphins are a terrible team. Sure, they hung around with the Patriots in Week 2, but that was mostly because they returned a punt for a touchdown. That defense is truly, truly abysmal. Through two games, their opponents have scored on 12 of 14 drives. 

The Saints are a bad team, but they’re playing better than they should and definitely better than the Dolphins. 

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