Rnk | LW | Team | Record | Comments |
1. | 1. | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 2-1 | Coming off a bye the Bucs stay at the top of the rankings. This weeks matchup against the red hot Colts should provide a good barometer. |
2. | 2. | Kansas City Chiefs | 4-0 | Showed they can win a close, physical game on the road against the Ravens. |
3. | 3. | Indianapolis Colts | 4-0 | Impressively obliterated the Saints on Sunday night. Now they have what some are calling a real test on Monday against the defending champs. While I think the matchup with the Bucs will be interesting, let me reiterate that I believe the only real test for the Colts comes in the playoffs. |
4. | 4. | Seattle Seahawks | 3-0 | Holmgren returns to Green Bay with a team he can be proud of. |
5. | 5. | Denver Broncos | 4-0 | Plummer and the Broncos have not faced a tough challenge in beating the Bengals, Chargers, Raiders, and Lions. That changes this week in Kansas City. |
6. | 6. | Tennessee Titans | 3-1 | Even though they have already lost to the Colts, in a tough spot I would still have more faith in McNair than Manning. |
7. | 7. | Miam Dolphins | 2-1 | Travel to New Jersey for the second time in the early going. The Giants will provide more of a test that the free falling Jets. |
8. | 10. | Carolina Panthers | 3-0 | Delhomme should have some fun against his old teamates from the Big Easy. |
9. | 11. | Minnesota Vikings | 4-0 | Should be able to put up some big numbers against a scuffling Falcon secondary with either Culpepper or Frerotte in the lineup. |
10. | 18. | Washington Redskins | 3-1 | Spurrier deserves credit for adapting to the NFL. I am still not a big believer in this team and with the Eagles, Bucs, and Bills up next I think they could legitimately be under .500 heading into their bye. |
11. | 16. | St. Louis Rams | 2-2 | Warner's wife needs to shut up. No one can take away the Super Bowl win or MVP awards, but a team can't survive in this league living in the past. |
12. | 8. | Pittsburgh Steelers | 2-2 | Complain all you want about the coaching, offensive line play, and secondary. Simply put in the NFL a team can not overcome their offense giving up 16 points. Maddox threw more interceptions than TD passes in the first quarter of the season after throwing an unacceptable 16 interceptions last year. Anyone that doesn't think this is a major issue for the Steelers going forward has blinders on. |
13. | 13. | New York Giants | 2-1 | Need to make a big statement against the Dolphins at home coming off a bye to really be taken seriously. |
14. | 14. | Oakland Raiders | 2-2 | I don't think a team has ever looked worse winning a game than the Raiders last week in Oakland against the Chargers. With the Bears and Browns up next the Raiders still have time to get untracked. |
15. | 20. | Philadelphia Eagles | 1-2 | Woke up and spanked the Bills. Poor start leaves them with little margin for error. |
16. | 9. | New England Patriots | 2-2 | Defense crippled by long list of injuries. Draft day trades and decision to release Milloy made it seem like Belicheck was more interested in 2004 than 2003 anyway. |
17. | 17. | Green Bay Packers | 2-2 | The Packers did what they needed to do easily beating the Bears at the reopening of newly refurbished Soldier Field. Not an impresive win, but after losing to the Cardinals the Packers will take what they can get. |
18. | 12. | Buffalo Bills | 2-2 | Home opening blowout over Patriots is already a distant memory. This team needs to figure out a way to run the ball. |
19. | 23. | Dallas Cowboys | 2-1 | Parcells should be able to get to 3-1 with an easily winnable home game against the Cardinals. If the Eagles beat the Redskins that would put the Cowboys in first in the NFC East. Unbelieveable. |
20. | 15. | Baltimore Ravens | 2-2 | If Boller develops in the second half of the season this team could be scary. |
21. | 29. | Houston Texans | 2-2 | This is probably too high for the Texans. I still wouldn't expect them to end up with more than 6 wins. There are just so many teams that flat out suck and needed to be moved down in the ratings that the Texans managed to bubble all the way up to this spot. The thing you can say about them is that they play hard every week and seem to have a pretty bright future. Going for a TD against the Jags on 4th and goal with time running out instead of kicking the sure thing FG to send the game into OT took alot of cahones. |
22. | 21. | Atlanta Falcons | 1-3 | Johnson has shown nothing replacing Vick. The shocking part though is the defense has seemingly given up because of the poor play of the offense. |
23. | 19. | Cleveland Browns | 1-3 | Loss to the Bengals had nothing to do with Couch starting in place of the injured Holcomb. The offensive line is a shambles because of injuries. The defense is a shambles because of the cap related cuts made in the offseason. Time to lower expectations and focus on the future. |
24. | 24. | San Fransisco 49ers | 1-3 | A team in turmoil. Garcia has been awful. Owens is already displaying his usual selfish behavior. Through it all Erickson looks clueless. Now Marriucci comes to town. Should the Niners fail to beat the Lions expect all hell to break loose. |
25. | 22. | New Orleans Saints | 1-3 | Although injuries were a factor, no team under any circumstances should look as bad as the Saints did Sunday night. The last 2 years this team has quit on Haslett down the stretch. This year it looks like Haslett will be lucky to still have a job in December. |
26. | 28. | Detriot Lions | 1-3 | I hate to move a team up in the rankings off a loss, but the Lions fought hard and showed alot in their trip to the Mile High city. |
27. | 25. | Arizona Cardinals | 1-3 | Not even competative this week against the Rams. I am still not exactly sure how the Cardinals beat the Packers. Don't expect many more miracles from this team, although if the stars are aligned Blake and the rookie receivers might steal another game or two. |
28. | 31. | Cincinnati Bengals | 1-3 | Congratulations to Lewis for picking up his first win and showing pretty good dexterity in basically avoiding his Gatorade shower. Look, the Bengals simply do not have enough talent at this point to be a contender. Seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel after a decade of futility is at least something. |
29. | 26. | San Diego Chargers | 0-4 | Shottenheimer actually seemed to get the Redskins to buy into his system before getting the quick hook in Washington. That does not seem to be the case in San Diego. |
30. | 27. | New York Jets | 0-4 | Can't run the ball. Can't stop the run. Players seem to have given up all hope with Pennington in a cast on the bench and Coles torching secondaries for the 'Skins. Be interesting to see if Edwards and Bradway can salvage their jobs out of this mess. |
31. | 30. | Jacksonville Jaguars | 0-4 | Nobody said trying to pull this team out of the quagmire created by Coughlin would be easy. |
32. | 32. | Chicago Bears | 0-3 | The really sad part is that after a slow start Stewart didn't even play that badly on Monday night. The defense was abysmal and Urlacher seemed like he was thinking more about Paris Hilton than Favre or Green. Come to think of it, who can really blame him? |