Crowe - NFL Week #12 Power Rankings

Crowe - NFL Week #12 Power Rankings

As Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick have taught us football fans here in New England for decades now, you set up your season to be in a good position and be playing your best football after Thanksgiving. Well, folks, it’s now week 12 and we are past the Thanksgiving holiday.

We have many contenders sitting atop both the AFC and NFC. But we have to ask ourselves, are those teams really the ones that are playing their best football right now?

The Cardinals sit at 9-2 in the NFC but have been without two main key cogs in their offense: quarterback Kyler Murray (leg) and wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (hamstring). The Packers, Cowboys, Buccaneers, and Rams have all lost multiple games in the past month.

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Meanwhile, in the AFC, the Titans lost to the Texans, who had only one win at the time. The Bills have lost twice over the past four weeks while the Ravens keep having to go to the game’s final play to seal victories.

Arguably, the teams playing the best in the AFC are the Patriots and Chiefs. The Pats are winners of five in a row prior to hosting Tennessee Sunday while the Chiefs have four consecutive victories to move them from 3-4 to 7-4 and atop the AFC West. Plus, beware of the 49ers and Eagles in the NFC, both winners of two in a row and firmly in the NFC Wild Card hunt with five wins each

It’s a league that now turns on its head week-in and week-out. So, in turn, the same can be said for vaunted weekly power rankings.

 

10. TIE: Cincinnati Bengals (6-4, Last week: not ranked) and Buffalo Bills (7-4, Last week: ranked 5th)

After a much-needed bye week to regroup, the Bengals righted the ship in Las Vegas. Joe Mixon is leading the way as Cincy tries to regain its swag from earlier in the season. Mixon ran for 130 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Raiders and now ranks 4th in the league at 759 yards with 9 touchdowns. As for the Bills, they go 1-1 since our last rankings, getting pummeled by the Colts 41-15 and then beating a beleaguered and banged-up Saints team 31-6 on Thanksgiving Night. It’s a confidence booster behind Josh Allen’s 4 touchdown passes and a smothering defensive performance. Buffalo now has 11 days to prep for the Patriots on Monday night in week 13 to show us who they really are. Unfortunately, they’ll have to do it without All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White, who tore the ACL in his knee Thursday night and is out for the season.

 

9. Baltimore Raven (7-3, Last week: ranked 9th)

The Ravens won a game in Chicago they had no business winning. After a near-interception for Tyler Huntley, who was playing due to Lamar Jackson’s illness, Huntley rallied the Ravens on a nine-play, 61-yard drive in 79 seconds culminating in a go-ahead touchdown and a 16-13 victory. It’s those types of wins, just like the earlier last-second victories over the Lions and Vikings, that you need to have to be a team playing in late January.

 

8. Los Angeles Rams (7-3, Last week: ranked 7th)

No team needed a bye week more than the Rams. After losing two straight games in which quarterback Matthew Stafford looked Lions-like, we’ll have to see if LA gets back to a team that looked like the best team in the NFC instead of a team fighting to just make the playoffs.

 

7. Dallas Cowboys (7-4, Last week: ranked 3rd)

The roller coaster continues for the Cowboys' offense. Once the top offense in the league, Dallas has gone from struggling at home against Denver with only 16 points late in the fourth quarter, scoring 43 at home against Atlanta, and then mustering just 9 points in Kansas City this past Sunday. Then, on Thanksgiving, they score 27 in a 36-33 OT home loss to Las Vegas. They’ve now lost 3 of the last 4 and have brought the Eagles (5-6) back into the NFC East race.

 

6. New England Patriots (7-4, Last week: ranked 8th)

Who’s the hottest team in the NFL right now? Well, it’s the Patriots. Winners of five in a row, New England has limited teams to just 13 points the past three games (Panthers, Browns, Falcons). With a win this week at home over Tennessee, the Pats could make a case for the AFC Championship Game going back once again through Foxboro. New England boasts the league’s top-scoring defense, giving up just 177 points heading into week 12. The offense isn’t too shabby either, scoring 300 points, good for 6th best.

 

5. Tennessee Titans (8-3, Last week: ranked 2nd)

Who are the real Titans? Is it the team that rolled off consecutive wins over the Bills, Chiefs, and Rams or the team that lost to the Jets and the Titans? Obviously, the foot injury to Derrick Henry, the NFL’s leading rusher at the time of his injury, has hurt Tennessee. But how do you go almost three quarters without scoring a point against the Houston Texans, down 19-0 at one point, a team that had won just one game until last Sunday? It put an end to the Titans' seven-game winning streak. This week, Mike Vrabel leads his team back into Foxboro and the site of one of its greatest victories, sending Tom Brady out of the playoffs in 2019 and out of New England. They’ll play however without top wide receiver A.J. Brown, who has a chest injury.

 

4.  Kansas City Chiefs (7-4, Last week: ranked 10th)

Uh oh. The Chiefs have won four in a row. Uh oh. The Chiefs are back in first place in the AFC West. Uh oh. The Chiefs’ defense has given up just 30 points in its last three games including holding the Cowboys to just 9 points in a 19-9 win in week 11. Uh oh. The Chiefs have three of its next four games at home at friendly Arrowhead Stadium (Broncos, Raiders, Steelers). Uh oh. Watch out AFC.

 

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-3, Last week: ranked 6th)

All is right again in Tampa. The Bucs are back in the win column with its 30-10 easy win over the Giants Monday night, preventing Tom Brady’s 1st three-game losing streak since 2002. For now, Tampa Bay is ranked third in the NFC but travels to Indianapolis to face the Colts and the fourth-ranked rushing game with the league’s leading rusher Jonathan Taylor (1,122 yards).

 

2. Green Bay Packers (8-3, Last week: ranked 1st)

The Packers stubbed their toe, pun intended with Aaron Rodgers’ toe injury, by surrendering a late fourth-quarter lead twice in Minnesota, losing 34-31 on a last-second Greg Joseph 29-yard field goal. It’s one of those division losses on the road that you can forgive. The bigger issue for the Pack is how bad is that fractured pinkie toe for Rodgers? While Rodgers wasn’t giving too many specifics during his weekly spot on “The Pat McAfee Show,” he did say there was no he was going to sit out either. 

 

1. Arizona Cardinals (9-2, Last week: ranked 4th)

Give the Cardinals their due, despite not having quarterback Kyler Murray (leg), wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (hamstring) and J.J. Watt (out for season – shoulder surgery), they’ve still remained on top on the NFC. Sure, they’ve gotten help as those around them – Cowboys, Bucs, Packers and Rams – have all lost games during the same stretch. But winning two of three games with Colt McCoy is no small feat, my friends, especially when the two games are road victories.

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Games to watch out for in week 12:

Buccaneers at Colts – The #1 run defense vs. the #1 runner in the league.
Titans at Patriots – The league’s longest winning streak vs. the top seed in the AFC.
Steelers at Bengals – Two teams that really don’t like each other trying to get past each other in the AFC North.
Rams at Packers – Future home field advantage in the NFC Playoffs on the line here. 

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Last week:
10. Chiefs
9. Ravens
8. Patriots
7. Rams
6. Buccaneers
5. Bills
4. Cardinals
3. Cowboys
2. Titans
1. Packers