NFL Power RankingsThe NFL Power Rankings Podcast with Mike Yam and Eric Edholm begins with a discussion on the Chiefs victory over the Ravens and the 49ers dominating win against the New York Jets but who deserves the #3 slot? Where should the Philadelphia Eagles be ranked after defeating the Green Bay Packers and an impressive performance by Saquon Barkley? How far have the Cincinnati Bengals dropped after a disappointing loss against the New England Patriots?
NFL Power Rankings is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Well come to NFL Power Rankings.
It is presented by energizer mikey Ham along with my Guru, and you can see his entire list of rankings on NFL dot com. Eric at Hoolm is with me and Eric. Look Week one officially now in the rearview mirror. Just like every other year, we think we know something heading into the first set of games, and it turns out we really don't.
I guess I should have paid past attention to Bengals Week one performances, right, I had everybody, you know, I was just I didn't realize that that was like a bye week for them. But yeah, I mean passing yards are down, rushing yards. I mean they had some big, resurgent running back performances from guys we'd maybe push to the side a little bit, and great kicking two unbelievable and some fantastic finishes in the first few primetime games. Very very exciting and interesting Week one.
Look, we won't leave with Cincinnati, although I think there's an our argument here on power rankings on where they are going to sit. I promise We will get to that in just a bit, but let's unveil one through it. We did see some movement in the top, but not necessarily at one and two Kansas City and San Francisco. The Chiefs in Week one victorious, as were the Niners on Monday Night football.
So Casey at one, San Francisco at two.
The Detroit Lions a GOUTTI win in overtime against the Rams, Philadelphia team that actually flashed the new offensive toy in Saquon Barkley.
Yeah, he was spectacular.
The Ravens obviously suffered that loss against the Chiefs. They fall two spots from those preseason rankings. Now sitting at fifth, Houston run game, it's strong. We'll talk about the Texans in a moment.
They're six.
The Bills got a scare against Arizona, but Eric's got him sitting at seven. And then those Dallas Cowboys, Yes, Dak got paid, CD got paid.
And the Cow's Cowboys. I don't know.
Maybe this nfccas might lec a hohole a lot different than we had anticipated. More on that in just a moment, but let's start at the top of Kansas City, at least on paper. I felt like Kansas City was going to be a better team heading into this season than last year.
I thought they looked absolutely terrific.
And the one thing that I was confident in, just like everyone else, was ever Worthy was going to be a stud and change the complexion of this team.
That's exactly how it played out.
Yeah, I mean, he he's proved positive that you can have kind of a gadget player, if you will, at least at this stage of his career, who could touch the ball, you know, three, four, five, six times in a game and have a profound impact. And you know, he's sort of exactly what they were missing last year.
There's a reliability factor.
I'm sure he'll drop some passes at some point this season, but right now he's got Patrick Mahomes trust, at least in a limited capacity. And then the growth of Rashi Rice as well, kind of you know, bookending that, so you know, they don't have to have Travis Kelcey have a monster game like he did against the Ravens and the playoffs last year to win one of those big contests.
So I was impressed with the diversity.
Isaiah Pacheco ran hard in the second half, and that's the kind of formula that I think is going to be a little smoother offensively and work wonders this year compared to last year, which look, they won this Super Bowl, but still we know how much of a grind it was to get to that point.
Eric, I think most weeks we will probably be starting the show with the Kansas City Chiefs, and I think the San Francisco forty nine ers who sit at number two will also be in this conversation.
Who needs Christian McCaffrey, right, I mean whatever.
Just get Jordan Mason, a guy who had never carried the ball more than twenty two times in a game since high school.
Give him six more than that shocked.
Him when he found out after the game how many touches he had and run that same kind of outside run off the tackle, tight end gap, the sea gap out there, and you know, they kind of simplified things and the Jets didn't adjust to it. So credit to Kyle Shanahan. I thought his game plan was terrific. You know, he caused the Jets to kind of burn some time outs there and you know, have some personnel issues getting the right people on the field, and yeah, six field goals, right, they'd love to convert some of those into touchdowns. But when Jake Boody has a career night and you know, you score thirty two points and hold the opponent under twenty, pretty good formula, right, So Noaan McCaffrey, Trent Williams, Rand and I you still kind of gearing up. You know, Williams left the game, laid Iuk had kind of a quiet game, and there's still this dangerous against the team that supposedly has a very good defense. So yeah, beware, forty nine ers don't appear to be going anywhere.
Yeah, I think he touched on some really important big picture points, especially with Brandon Iuk and Trent Williams. Williams played really well. I think it was like sixty five consecutive snaps, whatever it was. But the point is he was even joking. We had the interview on Monday Night Football on our post game show on Game Day Final with Omar Ruiz and he kind of chuckled and laughed about conditioning.
He's not quite there.
He's close, but it's the guy that wasn't out there for a good stretch of pretty much the entire preseason. He did not play, so the San Francisco forty nine are still scratching the surface here at number three on your list the Detroit Lions, And I think this is fitting based off of one and two.
The Lions deserve this spot.
That was in my mind, an impressive one and it give a lot of credit to the Rams here. But I think we learned some things, especially about this team's offense, and we've been waiting for James and Williams to sort of be the wide receiver that we had anticipated and saw when he was in college.
I think this might be that breakout year for him.
Yeah, there have been a lot of roadblocks for Jamison Williams prior to this. We'd seen the flash plays, obviously the touchdown against San Francisco in the playoffs, some other flash moments even back to his rookie year, but he's never been able to put it all together, you know, since tearing his ACL some offfield stuff, just some maturity and growth said, that's happened, and you hear Dan Campbell and the rest of the team talk about him, It's clear they have a trust and a belief in him. And thank goodness, right I'm in ross. Saint Brown had probably one of his worst games as a pro, or at least impactful at the very least. And the run game, you know, looked okay early but really didn't get going until that last drive there in overtime, so you know, they didn't have the full offensive picture.
Sam Laporta took him a while to get him the ball as well.
Jamior Gibbs had a kind of a limited role early in the game, So even though the Lions built a lead, they did it with kind of limited offense and Williams was really their one true threat in that game. Still worrying about the secondary, you know, Matt the staffer behind a beat up offensive line was picking them apart there at the end. Terran Arnold was up against it and he left a game briefly at the end. But if they could figure that secondary out, you know, and still be able to win games like this where they're not a plus on offense, I still really like.
The formula and think they're going to be one of the winners this year.
Yeah. Look, they try to address that secondary, and I'm glad you pointed it out. It does feel like that is still a work in progress. Last year it was an issue you mentioned Arnold. They drafted him. It's going to be fascinating to see how this plays out from Alliance perspective. And by the way, I do want to love up the Rams, I promise here on NFL Power Run. Yes, we will do that in just a couple of minutes, because there's a lot of hat tips that I think we can give to Sean mcvay's squad. Meanwhile, it's time for Future Champions, presented by FanDuel. This is the odds right now in the nfcas Philadelphia, who flexed in such a big way and their opener in Brazil with sa Kwon Barkley. According to FanDuel, certainly the favorite. The Dallas Cowboys not too far behind the Commanders, and we'll save.
The Giants for the end of the show. And there's a good reason for that.
But look the Eagles, you have them moving up one spot. They are fourth right now. I don't know if the debut for Saquon Barkley like he dreamed about it before this game, he didn't even envision a performance like this.
Yeah, I'm sure.
This was the kind of thing that they sold him on in free agency. Look, you know, we haven't been associated as a team that has these big feature running backs, but they kind of reimagined things. And I'm sure Kellen Moore had some input onto that as well, but basically just saying, you know, with everybody focusing on DeVante Smith and everybody focusing on aj Brown, you and Dallas Goddard have a chance to absolutely gut teams. He did it with that great wheel route on the outside. He did it up the middle with power.
He did it up the.
Middle with finesse too, So there was there was a great showcase of everything he brings. A healthy Barkley brings to an offense. Now, I think internally they would probably say, look, this is the guy who's missed at least a handful of games every year, in some cases more than half a season. So I'm sure they're prepared for lou using Barkley at some point. But when they have them, they are a different kind of offense, I should say, and then you have a breakout on the other side. Was Zach Bond too, a guy who Vic Fangio I think has kind of weaponized in a new role as an off off the ball linebacker. I mean, he led the NFL and tackles in Week one, had two sacks, including the game clincher there. So you know, two new faces along with Fangio and Kellen Moore. That that quartet really had a nice debut in Brazil and they're going to bring up back home and I can't wait to see how it works out this season.
Yeah, they will get to the Atlanta Falcons, who will touch on a little bit later here, and not the debuting her cousins was hoping for. But the Eagles and the Falcons will be playing on Monday Night football.
Meanwhile, at number five.
The Ravens, you know, in our preseason rankings were not ours, yours on.
Our show last they are all of ours.
Okay, Well, I had said this to you.
I thought the Baltimore Ravens last year are the best team in the NFL, and I thought the ranking was deserving, But they dropped two spots after this loss against Kansas City. I gotta be honest with you, Eric, like there were some moments where I'm like, they don't necessarily look like the team that I saw last year. You know, some breakdowns on defense that were certainly uncharacteristic. As the dominant team on that side of the football a year ago.
We knew they lost some stuff we knew obviously. You know, Mike McDonald taking the Seattle job, you elevate Zach Orr, who was thirty one when he took over the job, one of the youngest coordinators or you know, anyone at that level in the NFL with that much responsibility. So there was always going to be an adjustment period there. But didn't feel like there was a consistent enough rush. Didn't feel like the coverage was tight enough, didn't feel like the tackling. And you know when you see the same slant go to Rashi Rice every single time and they don't have an answer for it, you know, you get a little concerned. I realized the game essentially came down to one toe, right. The Ravens could have won this game very easily had one play gone a little different than the next play.
Right.
But at the same time, to your point, I just kept seeing mistake after mistake, a lot of them self inflicted.
Right.
These aren't physical mistake in a lot of cases, they were mental mistakes. And the Ravens just can't have that, right. I Mean, they're not kind of built to be this huge comeback team. They're built to play from ahead. We didn't get to see a ton of Derrick Henry. You know, the formula was just sort of thrown out a whack a little bit with their own mistakes. And if I know John Harbaugh at all, he's going.
To get this thing fixed. They usually do, and they almost always do.
But that's got to be a primary concern that they focused on during this this kind of mini buyas they gear up for Week two.
Look, this is probably the worst that we're going to see this team play, and by the way, almost could have won it on the road against the Super Bowl champs.
By the way, two quick things here.
I don't know if you saw the postgame press conference, Patrick mahomes some advice to to likely there, you wear the white cleats.
Please wear the white cleats.
Smart man, he knows.
And very quickly here, I just want to get your take when when the touchdown looked like it was a touchdown, I don't know if you saw horror on the sideline, He's like too, they were going to go for the win.
Here, are you with me? The King was going to find a way to get into the end zone. They would have won this thing.
I think they yeah, right, they was going to end on the next play, right, that was when the game was going to be decided. You saw Harbaugh, he wasn't gonna be able to drag his team through overtime or one more defensive series. They wanted to go win it.
Yeah, I would.
I wanted to get you in trouble on social media by saying that they were definitely going to win. I thought they were gonna win.
Houston Texans.
They check in at number six here, Eric, two of the big pieces on the offensive side that they brought in absolutely balled out in this game.
Diggs and Mixing were terrific.
They sure were, especially Joe mixed Right.
I mean, we've obviously seen Stefan Diggs perform at a high level, but running backs in general tend to wear down at his age, and you know, we'd seen the kind of gradual decline. There was a reason why Cincinnati was ready to move on from him despite having no obvious replacement for him. So yeah, I mean, I felt he looked great.
Maybe it was the scheme. Maybe it was the fact that obviously c J.
Strouds a quarterback and he's got you know, tankdll, Nico Collins, Stefan Diggs and all the others, and it just looked the way that Mixon did in his first few season the league as a slasher, as a downhill runner, but somebody with a little juice. That was the most spring I'd seen in his step in a while. And yeah, they had to fight through it defensively a little bit. Those Colts had some big plays. You know, they didn't run many, but their big play percentage was extremely high. So that's still an issue as they headed into a big game against.
Chicago week two.
That look, I know they weren't great offensively, but this will be a good test for this defense to face an athletic quarterback and some quality receivers because Week.
One, you know, they didn't have a ton of answers.
Yeah, I think it's actually more of a testament to what the Colts are going to be this year on the offensive with a healthy Anthony Richardson.
All Right, more to come here.
On NFL Power Rankings presented by Energizer, we touched on Cincinnati at the top of the show. How much of a free frawl was there in the rankings After losing a game that quite honestly, no one thought they would lose against the New England Patriots.
That's coming up next.
Back here on NFL Power Rankings presented by Energy, Eric's rankings nine through sixteen.
The Miami Dolphins sitting at nine.
Tyreek Hill was obviously the story before the game, during the game, and then after the game. Cincinnati, they fall to tenth. More on them in just a minute. Eleventh is Green Bay not going to see Jordan Love now for a bit? Twelfth the Chargers.
JK.
Dobbins certainly balled out in this one. The Jets coming off of a loss on Monday Night Football. They are sitting at thirteen. The Rams, a tough loss in overtime they against the Lions are fourteenth, the.
Bears at fifteenth.
Kayleb Williams tough stats, but he does get that w and sitting at sixteen the Tampa Bay Bucks. I feel like, Eric, you were being kind to Cincinnati with the tenth ranking.
Part of it was being kind, part of it was protecting my Super Bowl pick.
I'm not afraid to admit it.
Like I looked, I look a little silly right now putting the Bengals in the Super Bowl.
But hey, that was two weeks ago.
Man. A million things have happened since then. But hard not to look at that game against the Patriots. Now, granted, our opinion of the Patriots has formed from the last couple of years, but.
Hard not to look at it and think what happened?
Right, But you do look back at recent week one history with Cincinnati and they've had some clunkers.
Last year was ugly.
Burrow was terrible against the Steelers, lost to Mitch Schrubisky two years ago. So look, they ended up in the AAFC Championship Game two years ago that season. I'm okay with that, but still the product is what it is.
It did not look good.
Yeah, sitting at number twelve here the Chargers and by the way, Eric, this just looked like a very different Chargers team on offense, dramatically different than what we've seen the last few seasons.
Yeah, a couple bus on defense, riding coverage. They're still tightening that up. And they had the one long game from Madison. They gave up, but hard fought, they were getting after it. There was population of the ball on that side of the ball, slow start on offense, but when JK. Dobbins ripped off those two big runs, it was the perfect formula for a hardball win twenty two to ten, Ugly, tough. There was a fight at the end. You know that was a spur of the moment thing. But still I think it looked vastly different from what we saw Brandon Staley's team a year ago.
I think they're legit. Maybe I had him too high, but I believe.
Yeah, I think most of us are starting to believe because this was the philosophy that we expected, strong upfront run. The football just gonna look a whole lot different with some of those weapons on the outside or lack thereof perceive weapons. For Justin Herbert at thirteen the Jets, there were moments in the first half, Eric where I felt like, hey, Aaron Rodgers looks pretty good. Converted on a bunch of third downs, third and long situations to Garrett Wilson. They just didn't have the ball mutch most of this game and really couldn't make a run.
Got it off to a tough start. Those first two series went badly. Then we saw that third drive when Rogers and breist Hall and everybody else. Wilson was looking terrific. We saw the magic late the old school, get the guy to jump off sides, and it was Leonard Floyd, the guy who injured his achilles. So it was a cool moment for Rogers there he's still got it. But what about that Jets defense, Mike, I mean, this was supposed to be a top ten unit. I know there were a handful of games where they had clunkers last year, but for the most part, they were good on that of the ball. They did give a bad offense a chance to at least try to win games. That was not the case. They could not adjust the same run play over and over. The coverage, the mistakes, the penalties, the substitutionaires, it was all there. It really let me down and it kind of spoiled Aaron's re entry into the NFL.
So we'll see if they can regroup. But that was a tough one.
Robert Solif fired up in the press conference. I was watching that presser when it was done. He said, the team will be better. Got to imagine, especially on that side. For the talent that's on the defense, the arrow skill is pointing up. They got to figure out how to correct some of those mistakes.
Meanwhile, there's some teams that are making some moves.
It's time for power moves presented by energizer up four spots. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baker Mayfield. This dude is just tough Eric when he's out there.
Yeah, I mean, you look at it at last year and even though you know Dave Canalys is now in Carolina, the Bucks said we saw enough of Baker to bring him back, give him the big money, and he you know, he rewarded him in week one with a strong performance. Mike Evans too touchdowns, Jalen McMillan jumping in, Chris Godwin looked really comfortable and explosive in the slot.
So those guys were all locked in.
Granted, some of it, you know, has to be put on Washington's defense, which is not where it needs to be right now, probably a bottom five unit. But I love their cohesion and I just worry a little bit about their defense they head into this top Detroit game.
That's gonna be the biggest thing.
Is the secondary healthy enough to handle Jamison Williams and I'm and Ross Saint Brown are all those guys, because you know, this is the type of game next week that they're going to have to really test themselves again.
But week one did look really good.
I don't expect to see Ajoine Winfield out there, and that's part of the issue that you are describing.
Eric.
There's more to come here, my New York Giants making Sam Donal look like the second coming of Dante Culpepper. More on both of those teams still to come here on NFL power rankings. Beck here on power rankings presented by Energizer. Eric's rankings. I think seventeen through twenty four. The Steelers win with the whole out of field goals, they're seventeenth. The Browns are eighteenth. Not sure what to make of Deshaun Watson, which we'll get to in just the moment. At the nineteenth spot, it's the Jags, twentieth, the Vikings, Sam Darnold ridiculously hot in that game, twenty first ranked team, the Seahawks secondary looking dangerous, The Colts with Anthony Richardson that dude's flashing a canon. They sit at twenty two. The Atlanta Falcons not the debut Kirk Cousins or he morrise we're hoping for at twenty three. Interesting to note the Saints right behind them at twenty four. Let's by the way, ar I got to push back on that in just a couple of moments here at eighteen though the Browns. I honestly, I'm actually worried for this team because Deshaun Watson just he doesn't look right.
Yeah, he doesn't.
And it's easy to just say it's Watson's fault and you know, and clap your hands and everything's good, right. No, this offensive line is a mess right now. The run game is a mess. It doesn't look like they know what they want to do play calling wise, and you're not going to face the front like Dallas's every week. But you know, even my worst fears of what they might have to do coming into this game or what might happen in this game, you know, Dallas just pursued and got after.
Time and time again.
The Browns shot themselves in the foot with penalties. They gave up a long punt return for touchdown too, So it was just every way they could have defeated themselves. But you're absolutely right, we can't brush this Watson thing under the carpet. He doesn't look right. There's a new charges against him as well. What's the dynamic in the locker room. There was a tense moment with Joel Betonio on the field, So, you know, is the chemistry that drove them to such a great season last year there. Now are they able to overcome this at all? I just don't know. I mean, eighteen seems high at this point, but I want to pay homage a little bit to what they have on the roster, what they did last season. So it's a delicate balance here.
I'm with you one hundred percent.
I think based off of this week, we'll figure out maybe get a better sense of clarity around this squad. Meanwhile, at twenty it's the Minnesota Vikings who just dismantled the Giants. Turn that Sam Donald pretty good.
He's a talented quarterback.
I've always said this, right you look at him in his Carolina opener a few years ago. He played great against his old team, the Jets. This time he gets to do it on his old stadium field against a different team. But yeah, I mean after that first stuff, you know, three and out, I thought he looked absolutely great. You know, didn't even need to get the ball to Justin Jefferson. Aaron Jones really had a strong third quarter score the early touchdown to get them on the board, and the defense got pressure from from so many different sources.
This Brian Flores group is going to be fun to watch this year if they have the coverage.
So yeah, really all of a sudden an interesting team, especially with Jordan Love. You know, the NFC North race, I think it's changed a little bit. Caleb Williams Vikings are here. They're ready to compete.
Yeah, I'm with you there and actually wanting very curious to see how this thing unfolded. Sam Donald if he's able to stay healthy, and Aaron Jones also looking pretty good. The Atlanta Falcons a week ago, I told you I was high on the squad. They did not look good candidly kind of across the board here.
I mean outside of the pistol formation stuff.
If I, you know, sort of shook your head up and blindfolded you and I took it off and said, does this look like twenty three Falcons or twenty twenty four, you wouldn't know the difference. It was virtually the same. They didn't get the ball to their playmakers. That was the biggest issue last year. Only six pass from Kirk Cousins went to Drake London Kyle Pitts, the two big guys who have to be the weapons there, and you know, Bjon Robinson had a lot of touches, didn't do a lot with him.
That offensive line also got worked over. So yeah, it was just a frustrating day. They saved.
Everything's fine. They're gonna knock the rust off a Kirk and he'll be okay. But early results weren't that great.
You know what worries me if they lose again on Monday Night football, At what point do we start hearing more of the buzz around Michael Pennix.
I'm just throwing that out there. Wow, amazing, Yeah, that's gonna be a real deal.
I was down there for in Atlanta for inside training camp, and people are already talking about how.
Good Pennix has looked in practice.
Yes, meanwhile, at twenty four, I get why the Saints are only twenty four. Was Carolina they beat up on, But I gotta be honest, they look better than the Falcons. I would have switched flip flopped them.
Yeah, and that's a fair argument.
I think this is sort of covering my butt a little bit in the sense that I had him too low to start the season. I took my apologies in my Power Rankings column this week.
I said, look, you can give it to me. I deserve it.
But the offense, Clint Kubiak, Derek Karr, Rashid Shihed, all those big play weapons, they made it sing even against the team in Carolina that looked absolutely awful. So give them their flowers. I'm still kind of hesitant, but let's see what the big picture looks like. Maybe this is one of our surprise teams this year. Every year we have a handful.
Yeah, I think there's a real opportunity here.
I was talking to David Carr, one of our colleagues and NFL Network, and he just threw his brother, Derek has raved about Clint Kubiak, their offensive coordinating.
How those two guys are really on the same page.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group twenty five through thirty two.
As we go through Eric's.
Rankings, Arizona found a way to lose and they sit twenty fifth. But I think there's some often around this team that you can pull from the Titans collapse.
They are twenty six.
The Patriots twenty seven, who thought they weren't supposed to win.
They do move up four spots according to Eric. Twenty eighth.
The Denver Broncos Bonick still work in progress. Twenty ninth, the Commanders thirtieth, the Vegas thirty first, the g Men, and at thirty two Carolina. That those two teams, they just they didn't look good.
A standout for you for the rest of the group.
Yeah, I mean not too many standouts in this girl. You mentioned the Patriots. I think he got to give Jared Mayo his credit, right, all to talk about seceeding Bill Belichick and not having you know, Drake may ready for week one and all that, what was this team going to look like? They went out and touched the Bengals.
In the mouth. They beat him.
It was sixteen to ten, but it felt like a dominant win. That's impressive. And they had this team in full pads in practice all in camp. That's what got them ready for week one? Can it last?
I don't know.
Yeah, by the way, thank you for not not double downing on me on the on the Giants taking a lot of heat.
Taking it easy on you this week, you know, I don't.
Know, that's my squad.
Look, the Saquon thing was bad enough, and then to see that performance, Oh, my lord, Eric and the best mapp.
We'll do it again next week later.
NFL Power Rankings is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
