| In Frank Schwab’s latest NFL Power Rankings (see above), the Philadelphia Eagles moved into the No. 1 spot coming off a bye. The Chiefs, No. 3 a week ago, moved up to No. 2, also coming off of a bye.
Now, you can argue with the rankings — that’s kind of the fun of it — but what you can’t argue with is the reasoning, which Frank words perfectly: “All NFL teams are playing 17 one-game seasons and everything constantly changes.”
As in, the surging Ravens getting roadblocked by the Browns. Or the Bengals’ revival being halted by the Texans and their gift from above, C.J. Stroud. Or the Bills getting the realitiest of reality checks from the all-of-the-sudden decent Broncos.
These are just a few of the narratives coming out of Week 10. Call them reactionary, but the minuscule margin for error in this league lends them some credence.
Those single losses have put the Bengals' and Bills' playoff hopes in jeopardy, and put the Ravens behind the Chiefs in the race for the AFC’s No. 1 seed.
But it’s even more micro than that. They all lost on last-second field goals. Flip the script on those single plays and … the Ravens have a game in hand on the Chiefs, the Bengals are the scariest team in the league, and the noise around the Bills missing their window is at a 4, not a 9.
This NFL season is so twisted that there's a direct line, using only three degrees of Kevin Bacon, for the miserable 2-8 Patriots to make a claim they should be ranked ahead of the Eagles: Patriots beat Jets, Jets beat Eagles, therefore the Patriots would beat the Eagles.
For me, there are two main takeaways from this:
1. Teams evolve during the season. The Broncos and Texans were seen as two of the worst teams in the league not even a month ago. Between them, they’ve now beaten the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals — last season’s Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds in the AFC — in back-to-back-to-back weeks.
Which leads to …
2. Winning is attainable. When you see a player like C.J. Stroud lift a franchise and flip the entire script in less than three months, it shows what’s possible in the NFL. Namely, you can get good fast. There may not be a lot of Strouds out there, and there may be a few lean years spent looking for one, but there is no excuse for any NFL team to remain a bottom feeder for long.
This is probably the Bears fan in me ranting, but the point is still the point, which is this: smart organizations produce consistent winners.
And will you look at that? Ten weeks into the season and the two teams that met in the Super Bowl are No. 1 and 2 again.
Everything constantly changes in the NFL, but ... you know what's coming ... eventually the cream does rise to the top*.
(*Just because it's cliche, doesn't mean it's not true.)
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