Top Five Teams - Week 9
Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis was where, supposedly, the best regular season game in the NFL was played. Both the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts were undefeated heading into Sunday’s big game. And the result? A hum-ho game that had a pretty good ending but proved nothing not already known. With that said, lets move on to this week’s power rankings as usual;
1. New England Patriots - They beat Indianapolis and that alone will keep them secure in their top position. 9-0 is not an easy mark to achieve. With that said, the game on Sunday revealed major problems in their run defense and showed that a good secondary can stop Tom Brady and the passing game. I can’t imagine the same effort they put in last weekend would win them a playoff game against the Colts.
2. Indianapolis Colts - Sure they lost their first game but they also outplayed the Patriots for all but ten minutes of the game. Consider that Manning only had two wide receiver options for most of the game and still managed to keep his team in the game. It isn’t much of a stretch to believe that Marvin Harrison and a healthy Anthony Gonzalez could have helped the team score more than twenty points.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers - Pittsburgh is playing as well as anybody in the NFL right now. They didn’t just beat Baltimore on Monday night, they destroyed them and exposed all of their weaknesses. With that said, do you really think New England or Indianapolis would have given away two winnable games (Arizona and Denver) like this team did earlier in the season?
4. Dallas Cowboys - I know Green Bay was ranked four last week and won, but no one was more impressive than Dallas was (outside of maybe Detroit) in the NFC last week. They annihalated the Eagles, pushed their record to 7-1, and proved they can get it done in all aspects of the game.
5. Green Bay Packers - Look there is no question that the team is somewhat over-performing right now, but come playoff time Lambeau is going to be a huge advantage. The Packers shouldn’t get too cocky, however. The aforementioned Detroit Lions are only one game back and have two shots to knock off this team coming up.