Here are my power rankings for Week 9 of the NFL season.
1. Kansas City Chiefs (7-1 record, No. 1 ranking last week)
If you spent your bye week in KC, you could potentially visit a place where your meals are brought to you by a small train and actually, I’m so sorry. I’m now being informed that the Chiefs actually were NOT on bye it just felt that way because they were playing the Jets. I’m so sorry. I promise a slightly higher journalistic standard moving forward.
2. Pittsburgh Steelers (7-0, No. 2)
I enjoyed Sunday’s football match roughly as much as I’m going to enjoy talking to another human being for the next week or so.
3. Seattle Seahawks (6-1, No. 4)
I’ve seen a lot of “reaction videos” in my life. I’m not certain I’ve ever seen a more appropriate reaction video than this one of ESPN personality/Seahawks fan Mina Kimes after Seattle drafted D.K. Metcalf:
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-2, No. 7)
Congratulations to Rob Gronkowski and Tom Brady, who connected for their 93rd all-time touchdown hookup Monday night, or as Gronk will almost certainly refer to it this week, their “fiftieth 69th touchdown, dude!”
5. Baltimore Ravens (5-2, No. 3)
Sure they turned the ball over four times against their biggest rival and two of their three best players are now unavailable, but at least their top wide receiver is getting pissed off on Twitter, too. Man, if like 5,000 more terrible things happen in the next 24 hours we’ll start to have an idea of what it’s like to be a Washington fan.
6. Buffalo Bills (6-2, No. 8)
Me when Bill Belichick has lost four straight games:
7. Tennessee Titans (5-2, No. 5)
I understand the argument for the Electoral College in 2020 better than I understand how they lost to the Bengals.
(Don’t. Just don’t. It’s not that deep.)
8. New Orleans Saints (5-2, No. 9)
We should probably acknowledge that the Saints are holding things together despite their wide receivers being Tre’Quan Smith, Deonte Harris, Austin Carr, Kendall Kirkley and Juwan Johnson.
Yes, one of those names is fake. You don’t know which one it is, do you?
9. Green Bay Packers (5-2, No. 6)
The Packers reportedly were looking at Antonio Brown before he signed in Tampa. Which makes you think — was there a time when perhaps Green Bay could have acquired a wide receiver? Like, maybe a time when they may have insanely chosen to select a quarterback who hasn’t taken a snap instead?
10. Arizona Cardinals (5-2, No. 10)
If you spent your bye week in Arizona you could visit the world’s largest kokopelli (so I guess mine is only the SECOND largest?) or I guess another option might be Nothing.
11. Indianapolis Colts (5-2, No. 12)
Me when the boss says, “We didn’t expect this to continue as long as it has, and we’re sorry to have to tell you that we’re going to have to cancel next year’s trip to the convention in Indianapolis …”
It’s Ravens-Colts week. A quick reminder that those creeps still recognize Baltimore Colts history. May you never forget how much your grandfather hated them.
12. Las Vegas Raiders (4-3, No. 16)
It’s that thing where we acknowledge that Derek Carr is proving himself as a viable NFL quarterback, but we just know someone is getting ready to say something truly insane and oh, here it is …
13. Miami Dolphins (4-3, No. 17)
Man. A lot of folks questioned it, but you have to give them credit. Making a quarterback change truly proved to be a major upgrade to their defense and special teams. Plus he’s legitimately the second-best quarterbacking Tagovailoa on the planet.
14. Los Angeles Rams (5-3, No. 11)
Sure, Jared Goff turned the ball over four times in the first half against the Dolphins, but at least he’s
15. Cleveland Browns (5-3, No. 13)
Live look at me in college, 10 beers into a night, saying to my buddy, “Dude we should race, it would be funny …”
16. Chicago Bears (5-3, No. 15)
The Chicago Bears are the “McRib” of NFL teams. For some bizarre reason, we choose to pretend they’re good and make a big deal about them when lord knows they’re just the same garbage they always are.
17. San Francisco 49ers (4-4, No. 14)
Things are getting bad in San Fran. Jimmy Garoppolo is hurt, George Kittle is hurt, they can’t sell coconut milk because of all of the monkey labor issues. Dusty Rhodes thinks these are hard times.
18. Denver Broncos (3-4, No. 22)
Live look at me when a third of a strand of icicle lights don’t work and I figure out the perfect way to hide those behind a post and get the rest of them strung anyway …
19. Philadelphia Eagles (3-4-1, No. 23)
They added Dallas Goedert back and finally got Jalen Reagor into the mix and still barely managed to beat something called a Ben DiNucci. The Pac-12 Conference thinks the NFC East is an irrelevant afterthought to football in 2020.
20. Detroit Lions (3-4, No. 19)
21. Minnesota Vikings (2-5, No. 25)
I managed to find some more video of Dalvin Cook’s performance against Green Bay Nov. 1 …
22. Los Angeles Chargers (2-5, No. 18)
Congratulations to Justin Herbert on being the first QB in league history with 1,500 pass yards and 15 touchdowns in his first six games. If he manages to quadruple those numbers during the next six games, he might be able to overcome being a Charger.
23. Carolina Panthers (3-5, No. 20)
Christian McCaffrey appears set to return to face the Chiefs this week, giving them a real chance of … covering the 17.5 or whatever the hell the number it will end up being.
24. Cincinnati Bengals (2-5-1, No. 28)
Joe Burrow is so good that even he might be able to overcome the Bengals’ ineptitude so much that they could … make like one or two playoff appearances in the next decade.
25. Atlanta Falcons (2-6, No. 27)
I cannot believe the Falcons figured out a way to win that game. I thought some traditions were supposed to be sacred! The current American president thinks this is a shocking departure form tradition.
26. Houston Texans (1-6, No. 22)
If you spent the bye week in Houston, you could visit the world’s largest Igloo cooler or this House of 50,000 Beer Cans. Everyone knows 50,006 would just be too many.
27. New England Patriots (2-5, No. 21)
Real shame how Tom Brady and Mookie Betts left Boston and life got so much better for them. Just gotta feel for the folks in Boston, those salt of the earth types.
28. Washington Football Team (2-5, No. 26)
If you spent the bye week in our nation’s capital you could visit this weird mural of a suddenly badass Jesus or you could visit the world’s largest Duncan Phyfe chair, but you probably shouldn’t do that unless you’ve first read up on how furniture companies have basically had a long-standing gang feud about their stupid giant Duncan Phyfe chairs.
29. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-6, No. 30)
If you were to have spent the bye week in Duval County you could have seen, well, about exactly what you’d expect to see in Jacksonville. You know, like a restaurant where they have a pet alligator or perhaps an art installation where you walk through the mouth of a terrified-looking human head. Just typical Jacksonville stuff. That’s all.
30. Dallas Cowboys (2-6, No. 29)
31. New York Giants (1-7, No. 31)
32. New York Jets (0-8, No. 32)
Couple of big prime-time showdowns this week. First we get Drew Brees-Tom Brady on “Sunday Night Football” and then we get Patriots-Jets on “Monday Night Football.” Just a phenomenal weekend of football.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox