NFL power rankings: Patriots, Chiefs firmly entrenched as top teams
By Matt Conner
The New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs are firmly entrenched atop nearly every single list of NFL power rankings you can find.
If you’re looking around for any sort of drama or new talking points with regards to the best teams in the National Football League, you’ll need to find something else to do and wait another week. With Week 4 in the books and another round of games checked off the NFL’s slate of programming, the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs remain entrenched atop any list of NFL power rankings.
This week, we surveyed numerous examples of such rankings from both regional and national publications. It didn’t matter. The end result was the same: 1.) Patriots, 2.) Chiefs. In makes sense, really. There’s no way around the fact that the Pats and Chiefs are two of the NFL’s only unbeaten teams left, with only the San Francisco 49ers, who had a bye somehow in Week 4 (how is that allowed), as the other team standing with zero losses.
The fact of the matter is no one believes Jimmy Garoppolo and the Niners are ready to compete with either of the beasts in the AFC. Even without a loss, no one would even project them to be a favorite in the NFC at this point given the talent on the New Orleans Saints, L.A. Rams and other teams.
That leaves the, yawn, Patriots and Chiefs at the top of those power rankings—oh, those too! Still for the sake of seeing what folks had to say, we can at least survey the predictable results.
The Saints and Cowboys are up next at B/R.
Chicago Tribune – Chiefs (2)
Brad Biggs writes, “[Mahomes] was held without a touchdown pass for only the fourth time in his career, but he still led a 78-yard scoring drive in the closing moments of a wild game that featured five lead changes in the second half.”
The Chiefs are given a 99.1 percent chance of making the playoffs at this point. That sounds good!
Matt Verderame writes, “The Chiefs lost three fumbles in one quarter, all in their own territory, on the road. They still won.”
Darryl Slater of NJ.com: “The Chiefs roll, and maybe the Lions are pretty decent after all.”
Peter Botte writes, “KC showed it can win a tight game against a good team without any touchdown passes from Patrick Mahomes…”
Pete Prisco writes, “So now they know they can win when Patrick Mahomes doesn’t throw a touchdown pass. The defense needs to be better and the interior of the offensive line is an issue.”
Nate Davis writes, “Of next five games, one is on road (Denver) and one is against team above .500 (Packers). This is the time to put AFC West out of reach.”
Mark Maske writes, “Patrick Mahomes was not at his breathtaking best against the Lions. But it says plenty that he still was quite good and that he and the Chiefs found a way to win.”
Frank Schwab writes, “The Chiefs are the most entertaining team in the league, and might be as long as Patrick Mahomes is their quarterback.”
Around the AFC West: Week 4. dark. Next