2023 NFL Power Rankings: Week 5
Things are starting to get clearer as we wrapped up the first month of the season. The 49ers have usurped the Eagles for the top spot. The Niners have yet to truly be challenged. The Eagles have. It’s not a knock and ultimately I still have more confidence in the Eagles than the Niners. But right now, the Niners look awesome.
They’ll be tested this week though by the Cowboys, a team that they have owned recently. The only other team in the NFC with realistic hopes for the Super Bowl is the Lions, who showed the world on Thursday Night that they can travel anywhere and beat anyone. That’s big for their confidence if they wind up traveling come playoff time. The AFC still hasn’t produced a clear cut top team as the Bills dominated the overhyped Dolphins this week. Both of these teams will be playing January football for sure. That division race will be very exciting. The Chiefs allowed Zach Wilson to revive his career temporarily. They have some problems, but they’re still the Chiefs. The Ravens looked dominant, and are getting healthier. I’m not fully in on them yet, but they’re in the running in this very average conference.
I had the Browns in the Super Bowl hopes tier until I heard that Deshaun Watson was medically cleared but chose to not play. That news itself is not what caused them to drop. It’s the face that it’s their head coach who came out and said it. Why would he make that information public? That makes Watson look like a wimp. The Jaguars and Chargers both evened their records with a win this week. Both of these teams seemingly could get into that Super Bowl tier, but neither has shown it consistently on the field yet this season. The Bengals fell into this tier after another pitiful performance. Quite frankly, the way they’re playing, they don’t even belong here. But I think they’ll figure it out eventually. It just may be too late. And a disastrous performance by the Steelers has them barely clinging to this tier. Again, I respec the organization too much to drop them just yet. But they need to bounce back, and quickly.
The Seahawks were absolutely dominant. They’re legit. The Rams won again, and on the road. And it looks like they’re getting Cooper Kupp back. Stafford got dinged up but he looks awesome. There’s very few QBs playing at his level right now. The Commanders took the Eagles to overtime, but ultimately lost. Why in the world did they not go for 2 to end the game in regulation? Dumb decision that may come back to haunt Ron Rivera. The Packers were embarrassed, but showed some fight in the 2nd half. That was nice to see. And the Buccaneers might actually be good. They’ll have a bye this week for Mike Evans to hopefully get healthy.
Zach Wilson and the Jets have to be feeling much better this week than they have the previous couple of weeks. It was just one game, and it was a loss, but Wilson showed flashes of not just competent QB play, but great QB play. If he does that consistently, they’ll find themselves back in the playoff race. The rest of this borderline tier is made up of two divisions. The Falcons and Saints were both expected to compete for the NFC South. But both of them have looked awful recently. I expected the Colts, Titans and Texans to all be competing for top 5 picks next year, but all of them have actually looked pretty competitive. Kudos to them.
Daniel Jones just got sacked again for the Giants. Wow. They’ve been awful. The Vikings got their first win this week, but it was over the lowly Panthers, and it wasn’t looking good for most of that game. Both of these teams stink. The Patriots were demolished. If they don’t play the Jets every week, they’re in for a long season. The Raiders are a mess, but Aidan O’Connell looked competent. The Cardinals came back to life as they finally played an uncompetitive game. And the Broncos and Bears played a game where neither really wanted to win. Chicago just wanted it a little bit more, as they somehow blew a 3 touchdown lead late. They’re a disaster.
