NFL Power Rankings Week 7: Movers and Shakers

The Tennessee Titans move up to their rightful spot among the NFL’s elite after back-to-back mind blowing performances. Meanwhile, questions are starting to pop up surrounding the legitimacy of the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, and Chicago Bears.

As will happen every Tuesday throughout the season, nine of our contributors — Zach Lyons, Mike Herndon, Justin Melo, Jimmy Morris, Robert Greenlaw, Wes Wisley, Austin Nelson, Josh Hong, and Justin Graver — have submitted their power rankings, 1 to 32. Below is the aggregate results of those rankings.

Biggest Risers: Wowzers! The San Francisco 49ers earned a lot of goodwill amongst our voters by cashing in on their win and moving up 9 spots!

Biggest Fallers: The darlings of The Flex, the Carolina Panthers, along with the New England Patriots, both fell 6 spots this week.

Here’s where we landed with our rankings as we head into Week 7 of the regular season…

To see the full list of everyone’s individual rankings click here.

Justin G: The Titans are one of the best teams in the NFL. Only three clubs remain undefeated, and of course the Titans are one of them. The offense is arguably the most explosive, having scored 30+ in four straight and 40+ in back-to-back weeks. They are currently the second-most productive offense in the league despite having only played five games.

Is the defense a concern? Sure, but defense across the league is a concern. To put the struggles into context of the rest of the NFL, the Titans are still in the top-half overall when it comes to points allowed per game, sitting 15th at 25.2 per contest.

It’s been a weird, explosive, high-scoring year — the highest scoring year so far, in fact, since the AFL-NFL merger. The defense will get better as the season progresses, as injured players get healthy, and as the new additions — Jadeveon Clowney, Kristian Fulton, etc — learn to play with their teammates. We can worry about the defense in the playoffs. For now, focus on the offense, which has the ability to carry this team and go blow-for-blow with any competition.

Mike: I’m ready to admit that I was wrong about the Bucs. I thought there was a chance that they wouldn’t make the playoffs this season and that they were being wildly overrated based on the addition of Tom Brady.

The Bucs are absolutely a playoff team and they’re currently the second-best team in the NFC behind Seattle, but it’s not for the reason that everyone thought.

Tompa Bay? No no… this is Dampa Bay, because they’re led by their D. Sure, Brady has been fine and his ability to — mostly — avoid turnovers has been a huge improvement over blind Jameis Winston, but it’s the Bucs top-ranked defense (by DVOA) that has carried them to a 4-2 record against a relatively tough opening slate.

Austin: You know that meme where it goes “I had that going differently in my head”? That’s the Packers.

Their game in Tampa Bay was a complete disaster. After going up 10-0, the Packers gave up 38 straight. Aaron Rodgers threw two interceptions including a pick-six, was sacked four times and hit more than that. The defense could not get a stop and the offensive line was bullied all afternoon by that Buccaneer pass rush. It was an ugly loss, but the Packers have a chance to get back on track Sunday against the Texans.

Zach: The Buffalo Bills are frauds. They’re frauds and losers. I cannot believe that some of my compatriots on this committee decided that the Buffalo Bills are still somehow worth of a top-10 spot. I ranked them 13th and I still feel that is a little too high.

The Bills got flat out trucked by a Tennessee Titans team that had only 2 days of practice. Then on Monday Night Football, this team continued its downward spiral into mediocrity.

We are talking about a Buffalo Bills team that somehow is reliant on John Brown as it’s jenga piece? Get real.

Josh Allen sucks. The defense is atrocious. The media crowned this team as “AFC Elite” too early, their coach Sean McDermott as “Coach of the Year” too early, and don’t even get me started on the MVP hype for Josh Allen.

Robert: We knew this was going to be somewhat of a down year for the Pats given that they had so many opt outs going into the year. However, they surprised us all by starting off the year red hot. They even went toe-to-toe with the Seahawks just a few weeks ago.

Since then, they forced the footballing world to witness Brian Hoyer start an NFL game. Jarrett Stidham replaced Hoyer after the veteran signal caller predictably fell on his face. The issue here is that Stidham didn’t look any better. They followed that up with a stinker against the Broncos this weekend despite the return of Cam Newton. I’m not sure what to make of this team.

Josh: Brian Flores continues to impress, as he overachieves with a bottom-tier roster. Despite a lack of overall talent, Flores and the Dolphins have found a way to win their third game this season already.

Under Flores, the teams plays aggressive but disciplined football, even shutting out the Jets 24-0. As they accumulate more young talent, the Dolphins have a bright future with Flores at the helm. With the Dolphins now on bye, Tua Tagovailoa will surprisingly make his first start in Week 8. It remains to be seen if the team will be better or worse with the rookie signal caller taking the helm.

Justin G: The Falcons didn’t move in our aggregate rankings, but they impressed me this weekend after Raheem Morris took over as interim offensive coordinator following the firing of head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff. Julio Jones returned, and Matt Ryan found him, Calvin Ridley and the rest of the team’s playmakers for a whopping 40-23 win over the Vikings (with no Dalvin Cook), Atlanta’s first victory of the season.

Can Morris turn around a 1-5 team that has struggled mightily to get stops on defense? Probably not. But if he can make their offense as exciting every week as it was Sunday, I’ll be rooting for the Falcons to be on television a bit more often.

Wes: Detroit’s start to the season has been a mixed bag of inconsistency, confusion and uncertainty. Rumors of a possible head coaching change, Matthew Stafford trade talk, and Kenny Golladay’s lingering contract extension loom over the team like a fog. 

With so much noise surrounding the 2-3 Lions, the next month will reveal if Detroit can possibly make a push for a playoff spot. If they can take advantage of a mostly soft schedule over the next four weeks, making the playoffs is a possibility. Three of their next four opponents have only one win going into Week 7, so if they can beat the Falcons, Vikings and Washington Football Team, they could surprise some people. Unfortunately, even if they do make it in as a Wild Card team, their all-time Wild Card playoff record is 0-9. 

Justin Melo: I mean, at least they won a game before the New York Jets did? There’s not much else to say here outside of offering the Giants a consolation prize for winning a game before their cross-town rivals did. The Giants beat a bad Washington team 20-19 on Sunday. I guess we can give the Giants some credit because that Washington team has a solid defense.

The Giants achieved the victory largely on the backs of a 74-yard rushing performance from their signal caller Daniel Jones and a defensive touchdown from “Mr. Irrelevant” Tae Crowder. Jones threw for a pathetic 112 yards, but at least he kept the chains moving with his legs. Their defense also held Washington’s running back duo of J.D. McKissic and Antonio Gibson to just 70 total rushing yards. The Giants will look to make it two in a row when they take on the Philadelphia Eagles in what’s sure to be another snoozer on Thursday Night Football.

Who is too high? Who is too low? Drop a comment down below!

Have your own power rankings? Click here to goto the forum and put yours up!

Author: Zach LyonsWith over 17 years experience of losing Fantasy Football games, Zach has been a Titans fan since moving to Nashville in 2002. A die-hard Alabama fan, but he doesn't let that cloud his judgement of the Elite Players they have put in the NFL. Players like Derrick Henry, Julio Jones, and AJ McCarron. You've heard him on Football & Other F Words giving his Unfiltered Opinions as facts and that won't change. He's always 100% right even if he has to revise earlier statements. Lawyered.