NFL Power Rankings is a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to another edition of NFL Power Rankings. Colin the podcast presented by Energizer. I'm Dan Hansas that he came from Colleen Wolf. Hey, Connie, Hello, welcome, and Eleanor is here or there you go? Had yeah longer with us. Thanks shout out to Eleanor and all the grace she brought to us. Um all right, it is the Visional Round weekend. I don't I'm sure she did.
It is Supercard Supercard weekend. Super wild Card weekend is in the rear view. And I must say, Colleen before we take a look at the big board for the first time here, and we have now knocked it down from thirty two un to fourteen. Feel tighter, feel lighter. I feel like we're getting closer to the finish line, and I feel good about my rankings. Let's take a look at the UH top eight, because what you'll notice here, Connie is that, yes, I got the Niners locked at
number one. Feeling great about that. Was a little bit nervous at halftime against Seattle, but then much closer than I thought it was going to straight points, said Dan, you got it right, top Boat keeping them at number one. UM the Bills and Bengals. I just gave him a little hey, wake up, guys bumped down one spot, especially
the Bills. I almost put Cincinnati head of Buffalo. Didn Kansas City gets that, Hey, we on a bye week and look at our our biggest rivals in the a f C struggling against backup quarterbacks, bumps after the after the bye. So then you got the Eagles staying at five, the Cowboys staying at six, Giants up four to seven, and the Jaguars after that incredible rally, hold at eight. And what I'm saying is you're not seeing a ton
of movement therather than the Giants. And that's because I'm feel good about where I had the rankings going in, and I didn't see much in the slate of games that really made me change how I feel. Let's start with the Let's start with the Cowboys, because that would be the one where people most people would be like, hey, why aren't they getting a bigger bump into the top five?
And I just wasn't ready to do that. Connie. As well as they played against Tampa, they did play arguably the worst team in the playoffs, certainly the only team with a losing record in the playoffs. But at the same time, yes, my eyes are open about the Cowboys potentially making noise in the divisional playoffs. I was going to ask you if you second guest moving them or keeping them where they were after watching that game, like it, was there any point in the game where you're like, Oh,
here's the thing, here's the thing. And I'll look at him from a conference stand From standpoint, obviously, the Niners are staying at one. They deserve it. I already am kind of digging your Eagles by virtue of just they're kind of off the grid right now. They got a
banged up quarterback, and that's part of my reasoning. I have them down to five the last couple of weeks, and I'm sure they might and I think the reason I parked him at five for that reason because I just felt it wouldn't be right too now all of a sudden, say, the Cowboys are a team that I like better than the Eagles. I certainly think the Cowboys are a team that if they have the Eagles this weekend, I'd be thinking, oh, that's that's a coin flip. And
guess what, that's why they're five and six. But but the Chiefs moved up even though they were on a by two. It's just not consistent. It is consistent, though, I'll tell you why. I believe outside of the Niners, I think there's a little gap right now. Okay, and then I think the A f C teams are better
than the Eagles and Cowboys. So even though I wasn't thrilled with how the Bills and Bengals operated on Wild Card weekend, it wasn't enough for me then say, oh, I think the Cowboys are better than the Bills and Bengals, or the Eagles are better. I just gave him a little boom. And the Chief's a team that I respect. In this time of year, they get a bit little benefit. That's fair. It feels like at are flawed in one way or another. Now the Niners, they really mean, what
is the Niners law? Tell me that I don't know, because what they're doing with Brock Party is really amazing, and they've won eleven straight games. They seem so well rounded. If I mean, I guess, like, honestly, I don't know.
I have no idea. This would be the only thing I think someone that was doubting the Niners can say at this point that what if Brock Purty is playing not the Seattle Seahawks but a big time opponent, does he have the same level of production or even close when when the rubber meets the road and that's what happens in divisional round football. Because he's the only guy I think is not proven at this point, I think
the coaching staffs proven. I think many of the players on the roster is certainly the stars have shown that they could step up this time of year. You could still put a little bit of a question arc over Party, but at the same time, like be careful of that because the guy is playing out of his mind. Well that's what I thought after watching that first half against the Seahawks and he was missing some throws to open receivers. It was just a one point game at the half.
And that was my question last week when we did this show, was what, like Brock Party coming into the playoffs, how will he play in the spotlight? And the second half? No problem? And Kyle Shanahan does such a good job of putting him in a position to succeed using Christian McCaffrey, using Deebo Samuel to play run action and everything else that you know you see with these young quarterbacks who were inexperienced or kind of it helps to camouflage any
type of potential problems in an offense. Just keeps it moving and keeps that confidence up, and Kyle Shanahan does
it better than anyone. Yep, I agree with you. I think that as good as Party has been, I've been more impressed by the scheme and the talent, and then a ton of respect to the Mr. Relevant his ability to do his job basically, and you hear that in the quotes in and around the team, like these guys are not talking about Brock Party is a godlike figure who's playing the quarterback position at level they've never seen.
I think it's more like we respect that this kid is doing exactly what we need from him, and uh, it might not be flashy, but it is super effective. And for the record, when Jimmy, Jimmy, g what did he do to himself? How do he heard himself? It feels like so long ago now it was l No,
what was the injury he suffered? Like all of the was a foot injury he got he got tackled and he had a foot injury, and I dropped the Niners after that happened from two down to seven, and after Party stepped in right away and and started playing at a high level and the offense got better. They've been at two to one, one one one now since in the six weeks with Party feeling good about where they are. Yeah,
that's right, chan Han said it. Jimmy G broke a few things, but remember when they were talking what it seemed like the Niner season was over, like maybe Jimmy G can come back, and maybe in the play Jimmy G is not coming back. Even if he could come back. This is Party's offense now. I don't think there's any doubt. I have some friends that are Niners fans, and I'm getting the same energy from them about Brock Party that
I got from Eagles fans. Falls on their run. There's a lot of shirts that say some similar types of mottos that we're going around right right, So you can mandated perhaps and he has been farm related. You figured it out, you google it, so we don't have to say anything else. So yeah, Chiefs at two Bills at three. I just want to let's talk the Bills a little
bit here. Were you as alarmed as I was, not just this game, but even going back the first post of mar Hamlin game against the Patriots, where there were a lot of leagues and the special teams brilliance covered it up, and then in the first round of the playoffs just kind of sloppy. Yeah, the problem there. Their issues with taking care of the ball just continue and
you can't do that in the playoffs. Like they had twenty seven giveaways in the regular season, only the Colts and the Texans had more than the Bills, And we just continue to see this theme. Two first half interceptions and then Josh Allen gave up the scoop and score on the strip sack. So I mean, better teams are going to make them pay for these turnovers, and a
better team like the Bengals might do that. And I don't know if they are necessarily better because we never got to see that game fully play out this year. We only saw nine minutes of it before the Damar Hamlin incident. But this is the game that we've kind of all been waiting to see. And when that game started, it looked like the Bengals were going to win it. Yeah, and the Bills they've taken care of business this season.
There now what, they're fourteen and three with the playoff win, and yet there have been stages in the year where you kind of expecting them to be more dominant. Maybe they're not a dominant team. Maybe it's time for like people like me and perhaps us to say, Okay, despite them having this great season and being two wins away from the super Bowl, it's not like we should be
looking at them as some infallible entity. And Josh Allen is a perfect example of that that he's just this tremendous, gifted quarterback that could beat you in so many ways, but he's always going to offer up gifts to the other team, and their success and failure will be dictated by that other teams of ability to take advantage of those mistakes, like the Dolphins converted Allen's three turnovers into
eighteen points. And the reason the only reason the Bills didn't go home it is because the Dolphins stink like that. That version of the Dolphins was not a true playoff team, so you were able to get the necessary stops on defense to move on. It won't play against the Bengals. Won't play. And I'll say this, and you can check out the Around the NFL podcast which Connie is on on Thursday. We'll haven't thank you in depth, thank yourself
in depth preview on this matchup. But one of the things that jumps out to me but builds Bengals three four in the Power rankings, is the Bengals offensive line shambles. Man. If von Miller was still around, I would feel way better about the Bills taking control of the game at the line of scrimmage. We'll see how it goes from that standpoint. Well, the Bengals, their offensive line is just self destructing at the absolute worst possible time. This is
what we saw with the Bengals all last season. They spent the off season trying to prevent this from happening, and then they get to the playoffs and now they're going to be down probably three starters. We don't really know yet about Alex Cappa, who heard his ankle in Week eighteen, but like all Collins done for the year. On Christmas Eve the a C L Jonah Williams, he was knocked out of the game. This located kneecap week to week. That doesn't sound great, sounds painful. Yeah, and
tape it up and get him out there. Like Burrow was sacked a ton in that game, four times, it felt like more. He was constantly under pressure and he couldn't get the receiver's couldn't get separation. There was just not enough time for them to get down the field. So I don't think Joe Burrow threw a pass longer than twenty yards. That's a problem. That's a major problem. The offensive line is something that could ruin their season. It didn't last year. The year before, not only to
ruin their season, Joe Burrow blew out his knees. So you always have to on a on a on a hit, You always have to be concerned about how that can affect their entire operation. And yeah, I think it's I mean, I'm very, very fortunate. We're all fortunate because who needed another week of Lamar Jackson storylines around the Ravens that the Ravens didn't get through that game and get to Divisional round play. But at the same time, other than Ravens fans, they would have loved it. Yeah, they would
have absolutely loved it. I don't know if Lamar Jackson what even wanted it, but Ravens exactly. Nobody knows. But at the same time, let's just be fair and credit to John Harbaugh and the Ravens, even in their state with their quarterback situation is unsettled. It is they played better than Cincinnati on Sunday night. They had the Bengals number if not for Sam Hubbard's brilliance, uh going damn seventeen and a half miles per hour on his yard
fumble return. Big time stuff there. So I like the Bengals. I like the Bills obviously, like the Niners. I want you to tell me, Connie, do I have the top five? Right? Well, so I'm gonna put you on. I'm gonna put you on the spot here in real time, Connie's top five here, I'm gonna give you a pen. I would put Niners up top at one, all right, So I got that right, I feel like that's the most important one. I yeah. So the Chiefs, it's kind of like these next three Chiefs, Bills,
Bengals are tough. I taking a walk and then my shoes. I don't know why I'm doing this. This is your job. I'm just here to judge. But you know, I do like an exercise, so, um, I would probably put this is so hard, this is great. I think that I might put the Bengals a touch above the Bills. All right, now put them in the two? Uh do you respect me? Now there's a colleague. Well let's not go that far. Um, But maybe the Eagles need to be higher. You want
the Eagles at three? Maybe we put the Eagles at one, Eagle at one. I mean, Jalen Hurts come one. Like we could be here in another six hours before Colin gets to her fifth team here. Okay, I think I would go Niners, Chiefs, then Bengals, Bills, Eagles, and I have Niners, Chiefs, Bills, Bengals, yea, Eagles. So I would just switch Bengals and Bills. But it's like so close we put that back. Anybody else in the top you want to talk about you? You know, we should talk
about the gi Men. They had the biggest jump and the power rankings up four spots, the number seven, and we didn't want to believe in them. And you know what, that's not a shame amount of situation. Sometimes a team changes, and sometimes a team kind of coalesces and becomes something greater at the perfect time. And to the credit of Ryan Dable and the Giants, they were winning when they were in a very good team and that's what got them to the postseason and got them to the end
of the season in playoff positioning. And then Connie in the last couple of weeks of the regular season and obviously against the Vikings and wild card weekend, that is an actual now good team. You know, it almost sounds like a power move, a power move. Power move was presented by Energizer. That's right. Did you see what Giants Twitter put out of Daniel Jones wearing all of the chains and said, dimes on it like a Kirk Cousins deal. I mean, it's great. I love petty Twitter. Well, the yeah,
if you followed that at all. The Vikings had something very petty after barely winning on Christmas Eve, bragging that they beat the two New York teams and Buffalo and I was like, all right, guys, well let's check back into the playoffs and see how the Vikings are two New York teams and Buffaloe. Everybody knows, everybody, do I need to the two Northern New Jersey teams and the team from Western New York, although the Northern New Jersey teams go by the New York City moniker. It's tough.
I'm not gonna lie. I don't. I don't love it, but I do love that Brian Dayball is succeeding in this way in his first season as a head coach in the NFL. It's been lovely to see. Now it's probably time for them to go home. This week, you get the Eagles, because this is this is where Connie's
coming from. Tell me if I'm wrong. You're hoping, obviously that your Eagles get healthy here and beat the Giants, But now you're worried about the Cowboys to the other team that you hate, potentially shocking the world and beating San Francisco. And then all of a sudden, you got the Cowboys on fire in the NFC title game. And I don't think you want anything to you just don't. You don't want the NFC East around get that. But if the Eagles could be the ones to kill them off,
then I'm totally here for this is you. This is very Connie centric. You're talking Eagles. The Giants deserve the focus here. You know why. You know why, because Daniel Jones has made the leap. Daniel Jones has no longer got to be hidden in the offense. Daniel Jones is now the face of the offense. Was sae Quon Barkley as the robin to his batman, which nobody saw coming. And you you pair that with the Giants. Where are
the Giants special? Okay, they are special? Running back when Danny Dimes is playing at this level, that's pretty special. And then that defensive line, Dexter Lawrence who absolutely absolutely ruined Minnesota season, Cavon Thibodeaux, who has really made strides as a rookie. He's becoming a player. Leonard Williams is a former All Pro. These are guys that could give your boy Jalen Hurts a lot of trouble, especially if Jalen Hurts is hurt. Yeah, I know. So that's why
I'm sweating this a lot. That the East is talented right now. He is playing as good as he's played all season. And same with Dak Prescott right now. And so Daniel Jones, he played last week without turning the ball over. And then they have guys like Isaiah Hodgson's Yeah, no name, Isaiah Hodgens. You got it, you got it, got there, you got there. They have this no name
group of wide receivers. In fact, the most famous guy of their wide receiver group is Kenny Golladay, and he's like basically a multimillionaire blocker at this point, um for the But these guys make plays week after week week, and uh, I don't know. Can I tell you something? What a little spoiler alert you are? I think I can't wait to tell you you're wrong. I can't wait to see how you can talk next week on the
Power rankings if I'm wrong. But here's the thing. Grew up right on the border of northern New Jersey over on the other side of New York, and I learned a thing or two like following the Yeah and the Colton following. As Giants playoff runs, they take on a certain feel the games, how they win the games. And I knew they were gonna win that Viking game, just the vibe of the game. And that's gonna be a
dog fight against the Eagles. Yeah, that's okay. I mean, Eli Manning in the building alone is going to give Philly the strength it needs to do that. It's fully expecting to get just verbally battered. All right, take a break and we'll check in. You know what the teams were. It didn't work out so well in Super wild Card weekend. We will be right back the NFL Power Ranking colon. The podcast Welcome Back to Power Ranking was presented by Energizer.
Let's talk about the losers teams nine through fourteen. You know, they made it to the postseason, so that's great. They are winners in that regard, but their run ends. Now you're going to give them participation trophy is like seven year old soccer players. Maybe maybe they should. I mean, honestly, a lot of these teams put up a great fight.
The Chargers that they completely imploded on themselves, which I didn't think it was gonna happen again, but it did so down two spots to nine, their offensive coordinator got got Yeah, that's a lot. So I'm sorry Chargers fans, it's rough out there. The Vikings that they stay the same at ten after they're lost. The Ravens they go up three spots. Don't worry about the up three spots because we went from yeah, just disregard this is the
rest of the rest. Okay, so Ravens eleven, Bucks twelve, Seahawks thirteen, and then Dolphins the last team, the false start team. I like to call that fam are at fourteen the delay of game time out team. Why don't we start with the Chargers because there's no reason we shouldn't be talking about them. And all due respect to the Jacks, who we didn't we didn't hit on the top of the show, but the Jaguars deserve a ton of credit for what they did, the comeback that they mounted.
I mean, their last there, their last five drives starting late in the second quarter, was four touchdowns and the winning field goal. So they didn't have a huge window to amount that amazing comeback, and yet they did everything they had to do. And on the Chargers side, yeah, Charger is gonna charger and you hate it and I hate it as a Jets fan, you certain teams are snake bit and it seems and you would think that the players changed, the coaches changed, the management change, that
the fan base will get a new fan experience. But the Bolts are just one of those teams where they just can't seem to shake the bad vibes. I know, I know. I mean, look, the Jags, Trevor Lawrence was a broken man to begin this game, and then he picked up the pieces and it was almost like two minutes to go before the half. He was trying to get ahead of that halftime pep talk from Peterson. It's like,
all right, we're gonna turn around right now. It was very important after the half and completely snapped out of it. But my god, the way that the Chargers collapsed, I honestly I could not believe this because watching this game, it felt like it was completely in the bag for the Chargers. I started making brownies at this point I'm watching, but I'm now I'm starting to, like my mind starting to wander as I'm watching, because it felt like this game was just so in hand. And then the brownies.
Why didn't you bring them? And I have basically almost finished all of them at this point. Kind of brownies? They're special chocolate chips? Could I give them to my children? Okay, that's why they're special? What kind of special brownies you were talking about? Every special cookies, special brownies. Anything I make, I just call it special. But Doug petersons, I just have to look. I like Doug Peterson. He's just like round of applause for Doug Peterson ran him out of
town in Philly. But you know, I didn't want him to go. I'm a big fan of Doug Peterson, so him and Advisor and I think a justic hair, do you know? I I would love to have Doug's hair. And it's great when it was like the wind think we're all appreciative of the Doug Peterson situation just because everyone was bummed about the Urban Meyer fiasco, not just because of like how kind of it was almost disrespectful how he treated a job in the responsibility that comes
with that job. But it was just like a waste of everyone's talents and considerable talents and in the case of Trevor Lawrence, a generational talent, and to steer it back to the Chargers. It's like, man, there is a lot of debate about Justin Herbert and how great he is and who's better than him, and who's he better than? But I did need I kind of needed if Justin Herbert is gonna be spoken of as like his generation's Dan Marino, I kind of needed him to go win
that game. And uh, they didn't lose the game. I know Joe Lombardi, their offensive Cordy, and I got fired. They didn't lose the game because they got too conservative and just started handing the ball off a ton like Herbert had a lot of opportunities to kind of put that game away, and he couldn't do what The play calling needs to be better, the whole scheme and offense and and Los Angeles needs to be better. But he takes a big part of the l in that game.
They couldn't run the ball even when they had a huge lead. Like the play calling in general was very suspect. Quarterback coach Shane Day also was let go. Who else do we want to talk? Let's talk about the Vikings. I mean, I got it. I got the Vikings right, I gotta say I talked about it all year. I wasn't the only one that wasn't buying in on the on the Vikings, but I caught a lot of fire on Twitter when at the end of the regular season I had non playoff teams like the Lions, for example,
ahead of them, and I just never bought it. And that's why heading into wild card weekend, I had the Vikings and Giants right next to each other because you knew that was gonna come right down to the end, because you knew those teams despite one team being thirteen and four and the other nine six and one, we're basically at the same level. And it turned out the
other team with the worst record was better. I feel like we did watch the better team did advance, and Vikings fans at the once again put up with like just not just losing, but like like cruel irony type losses. You go Levin and oh in the regular season and one score games and then immediately once the playoffs start, lose a one score game. That's very on brand for the Viking. Speaking of snake bitten franchise, it is it
is the Vikings. They have. They have a lot of work to do in the off season, but as on one side of the on defense exactly like they need to do a tremendous amount of fixing. I mean, like they I know that they switched schemes this year. There was a lot of different changes, but I think overall on the whole, having a new head coach in there with Kevin O'Connell as his first season in Minnesota as the head coach, like this was a good year for them.
They won the division. Obviously it was a down year for the Packers, but they had the Lions in there. Now they have to deal with the Lions going forward as well, so I think it's positive. It will be moving in the right direction. But once they get the defense fixed, then this will be a formidable team. You have justin Jefferson. He's an unbelievable talent, and like, honestly, that's all you need. I think it's helpful sometimes when you have off seasons like this where you know very
specifically what needs to improve. I know Cincinnati had that type of situation after Burrows rookie year and they really went after we need another playmaker and we need to address the offensive line, and those things got a lot better quickly. I think you're gonna see Minnesota be very aggressive. There are salary cap restraints, of course, but very aggressive in free agency to address the defense at multiple levels.
And I think their draft you'll see it's one of those always these teams like well, they had eight picks and seven of the eight were defensive players. I think you're gonna see that type of vikings offseason, and it will be very logical. Some of these other teams, Connie, as we kind of wrap things up here, it's harder to say what their offseason looks like. The Ravens. Obviously, we don't know what's going on with Lamar Jackson. They have this this former mvv P quarterback in his mid twenties.
That should be a no brainer. And yet when Melissa Stark on Sunday Night Football comes on the air before kickoff, well that's different. When she was talking to Johnny Harbaugh after the end of the first quarter, abolished the end
of first quarter interview a TV to get rid of it. No, But when Stark was on as a Big Stark Show, when Stark was on before kickoff and she said that Lamar Jackson ruled himself out ahead of the playoffs and that's a power move presented by you know, energizer and then chose not to travel with the team to the PO And I'm like, whoa, that is a major, major red flag in terms of where he stands with the team.
I was thinking the same thing because it's not like he was just recently hurt and this would be a problem for him to fly. I don't know the workings of everything, but you would think that he would be there with the team. Remember last week when we talked about the teams that we thought could make a big jump on this show come August when we come back, and I said the Jets they had to get a quarterback first, which they were going to get. Where do
you think the Jets would be in? You know, there are a lot of off brand power rankings, Like if you added Lamar to that Jet offense and defense, like a lot of people we would have, the Jets potentially is a top ten team. That's what Lamar would bring to a new team. And the Ravens if they do move him, and I don't think they would unless they he makes it clear to them that there's no way I want to be with you anymore. Um, He's gonna make another team a lot better and it will be
a ton of buzz around wherever he lands for that team. Also, think about how everything changed for that organization when Lamar got there, like specifically for John Harball, Like there were so many uncertainties, especially at the quarterback position, and John Harball basically built the offense around him and then built himself extra years in the position. So I just feel like there should be some loyalty to the family. Alight, I like that. You know, did you finish the movie yet,
finish god Father yet? In fact, before we say goodbye, finish glass Onion, though I want to. I want to check that out. So the Ravens in decision at quarterback, the Bucks in decision at quarterback, the Seahawks unclear where they are at quarterback, although it looks like Gino wants back and they want you know. And the Dolphins, they said the two is coming back next year, but we don't know what to his future is questions question marks at quarterback will put you lower in the rankings? Exercise
in professional football facts, That makes sense. All right, We'll be back next week with the Conference Championship edition of Power Rankings. They're just gonna get shorter and shorter the list, which is less work for us, which is a good thing for you. We love it. Until next week, He's the call. NFL Power Rankings as a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.