Week 4 revisited

First and foremost, stay tuned after the introverted portion of this post for my weekly power rankings, to be included in this post from here on out in hopes of avoiding the absent-mindedness that kept me from posting any after week 3.

Last week, I speculated that my days as a better than .500 predictor of NFL games may soon be coming to an end if rather prominent trends (i.e. my percentage of correct picks decreasing on a weekly basis) didn't reverse themselves. Following a 9-5 week, bringing my record to 43-19 on the season, I'm officially on mediocrity watch. Let's take a look at what went wrong:

Lessons Learned from the Games I Missed

Cincinnati at Cleveland: While doing my projections, I couldn't see the difference between the two teams from Ohio. By the time they played this game, it was rather obvious. I don't think the Bengals are anywhere near as good as their 3-1 record, but they're playing much better defense than they have in years and, at least momentarily, they're getting enough out of Cedric Benson to keep defenses "honest," opening up opportunities for Carson Palmer in the passing game. Couple a Bengals team which looks like it's solidly mediocre with a Browns team that is somehow even worse than I thought they were, and falling further into disarray every week, and it wasn't hard to see this missed pick coming at all.

Jacksonville at Tennessee: As far as I was able to tell entering the season, I was actually less impressed with the Titans than almost anyone. I mean, I only had them at 8-8. But not even I had any idea how big the step backwards their defense was taking would be. It's one thing to give up 31 points to the Texans, who are a stacked at the skill positions better than perhaps any team in the NFL, but to allow the Jags and Jets to put up 60+ points in the two games which followed is simply pathetic. Kerry Collins and the Tennessee offense is actually performing better than most of us expected them to be, but with a defense that's giving San Diego, Cleveland, and Tampa a run for the worst in football, it doesn't matter in the slightest. The way this team is playing, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they're the ones in control of which team gets to trade into the #1 slot in the draft to take Sam Bradford.

San Francisco at St. Louis: This was a very similar situation to the Ohio bowl I outlined above. I didn't give either of these teams much credit, at all, entering the season, though I did think San Francisco was the better of the two. But as a general rule, when picking between two teams I would describe as "awful," I pick the one playing at home. Honestly, I don't even think SF is much better than I thought they were. Slightly better defense than anticipated, but a passing game which still isn't good enough to win from behind. However, given the problems Arizona has right now, I'd be pretty surprised if the 49ers don't win the NFC West, officially cementing their position as the tallest midgets. Who else thinks any division with an overall sub-.500 record should lead to automatic realignment? What fun are the playoffs when only 10 of the 12 teams which make it have any right to be there?

Dallas at Denver: You would think that I must've learned something positive about the Broncos, who have now won more games than I thought they would all year, now that they're sitting at 4-0. You would be wrong. This game taught me, as I had already suspected, that Dallas is going to have to overachieve to get to mediocrity. The Cowboys are, without a doubt, a bad football team. Their defense is absolutely pathetic against the pass, as is their passing game. They're not terrible at running the ball or stopping others from doing so, which is the only thing keeping them in games, but as comfortable as opposing quarterbacks look in the pocket and as awful as the Cowboys' secondary is at tackling, it literally doesn't matter. So what is supposed to impress me about the Broncos managing all of 17 points against them? Denver isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought they were, I'll grant that, but I can't really get excited about their defense allowing 26 points through four games when the first three of them came against the Bengals, Browns, and Raiders. It'll be fun to see how many times over the season's final 12 games the Broncos allow more points in one week than they did in the first four.

Green Bay at Minnesota: The Vikings are better, and the Packers worse, than I expected. Actually, to be specific, the Packers are worse than I expected and the Vikings are better than I had hoped. Green Bay's defense, which was supposed to be an aggressive, zone blitzing 3-4 unit in the mold of the Steelers and Patriots, hasn't been generating even a little bit of pressure. In fact, they have managed to turn their best pass rusher, Aaron Kampman, into perhaps the worst pass covering linebacker in football. It's like watching Chris Gocong if he had played as a rookie. Compounding matters, the Pack hasn't coped at all with the loss of starting left tackle Chad Clifton, robbing Aaron Rodgers and his stellar group of receivers of anything resembling the time necessary to get the ball down the field. The good news for the Packers, and for those of us who thought they'd be an elite team, is that these should be correctable issues. Meanwhile, the Vikings have looked like everything I, a proud Favre-hater, was praying they wouldn't be. They still have some trouble with quarterbacks who have time, but with the best defensive line in football with the best pass rusher at the end of it, not too many have. It still makes me wanna puke, though.

Power Rankings

1. Giants - If Eli's play is significantly hampered in the long term by his injury, the G-Men won't stay atop the rankings for too long, but at the moment, they're the best team. New Orleans and the Colts are flashier and the Vikings will get more headlines as long as they have Favre, but it's as simple as this: of the four teams, the Giants and Vikings run the ball better, which will always give them a leg up against the pass-happy Saints and Colts. Perhaps more importantly, the Giants still have a stable full of pass rushers along the defensive line which continue to give opposing quarterbacks fits on third down. How do you beat a team which brings as much pressure rushing three or four as most teams do on an all-out blitz? Much as I hate to say it, I just don't think you do.

2. Saints - At first glance, it would appear the Saints' quick passing game is the answer to my last question. Teams which put pressure on Drew Bress, or at least the teams that try to, find themselves burned by quick passes and, inevitably, end up taking their chances in zone coverage. The problem I find myself running into when it comes to beating the Giants that way is that, generally, the Giants don't have to rush more than 4 to create the sort of pressure most teams blitzes do. Quick passing will back a heavy blitz off every time, but when the pressure is all coming from in front of a typical zone coverage, there won't be anywhere to go with the football. Luckily for New Orleans, there's exactly one team in the NFL capable of generating that kind of a pass rush entirely from along the defensive line.

3. Colts - What's to say? Peyton Manning is the best pure thrower of the football I've ever seen, and with every passing week, the people you hear repeating that sentiment come from a little further back in time. If they manage to play any kind of defense at all, or even go against a team with a slight deficiency at offensive tackle, they blow teams out. There just isn't a reliable way to beat them other than having the ball last in a shootout.

4. Vikings - It's going to take some nailbiters for this team to beat teams with either a well-balanced offense or a dominant passing game, a result of their inability to defend the pass by means other than pressuring the quarterback, but for the most part, it shouldn't matter. Favre's still got the laser rocket arm, Adrian Peterson is still the best running back in the league, and their defense still makes it very hard to run the ball with any consistency. They have one of the few defensive fronts I've ever seen which looks like it can wear out an offensive line over the course of a game. But against an offense which makes them respect play action and/or finds a way to block Jared Allen, the Vikes should allow a pretty decent number of points. And of course, in my heart, I still believe and will always believe that by the time it's all said and done, Brett will do something stupid with the ball and it will cost them dearly, because he always does.

5. Patriots - Maybe I'm just scarred by the Super Bowl lo those many years ago, but I still find myself sold on the Pats. They won't dominate defensively, but with every game, the margin for error for their defense gets wider, as Brady and the offense inch ever closer to the dominance we all know they're capable of. In fact, if I had to put my money on it, I would say this is the week they officially put the NFL on notice, as well as expose the Broncos' fraudulent defense.

6. Eagles - Not that it comes as even a mild surprise, but it appears Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook will return, healthy as can be, to the field this Sunday against Tampa. As long as they're at full strength, the Birds will be in the mix at the end of the year. If not, at least we've seen that all hope won't be lost if they have to rely on Kevin Kolb or Shady McCoy to make the offense go. Shit, for the first time in the Andy Reid era, there's gonna be a smidgen of merit, if only a smidgen, when the peanut gallery inevitably calls for Donovan's benching the first time one of his receivers drops a ball on Sunday.

7. Steelers - See how much better things work out when you stop pretending to be something you're not? Put the ball in Ben's hand at the end of the game, you win. Try to salt the ball away being a power running team you haven't been in years, you not only open the door for the other team's offense, you all but guarantee a winded defense trying to stop them. I can't put too much stock in Rashard Mendenhall's big night, given the Chargers are literally the worst tackling defense I've ever seen, but it didn't hurt him one bit that San Diego was forced to play the pass first. As long as they keep passing to set up the run, as opposed to the other way around, they should be able to produce enough on the ground to make it worthwhile. If they insist on being a run first, run second team, they'll keep playing .500 football, with or without Troy Polamalu. They're just not built to be a smashmouth offensive team right now.

8. Ravens - That's a little more like the Ravens I expected this year. A defense which still looks like the defense of the past few years, but a little bit slower and a lot less ingenious without Rex Ryan scheming it, and a good, but not great, offense. Did anyone really believe in those 30+ point performances against Kansas City, Cleveland, and San Diego? Amazingly, the answer is a resounding yes.

9. Jets - Speaking of Sexy Rexy the genius, did anyone else notice how out of sync he managed to keep the Saints' offense last week? If not for Mark Sanchez' worst game thus far this season and a defense which had been on the field all game, the Jets would've kept the Saints' offense out of the end zone for the entire game. When Ryan blitzed, he managed to catch Brees off guard, and when he dropped into a zone, there simply weren't open areas for the Saints' receivers to sit in. But as long as Sanchez is on the learning curve, gang green is going to have to win tight games. If the offense doesn't do a better job of sustaining drives, expect more games where the Jets' defense finally breaks at the end.

10. Broncos - They're 4-0, so it seemed to me like it would be unfair not to inlude them in the top 10, but this isn't, realistically, one of the best teams in the NFL. There are few guarantees in life, and similarly in football, but one of them is that the Broncos will allow significantly more than 6.5 points per game for the last three quarters of the season. You can take that one to the bank. And as nice as it is that Kyle Orton hasn't turned the ball over yet, he also hasn't seen even a mediocre defense since week 1, when he needed a miracle in the game's final minute to find the end zone against the Bengals. And honestly, I'm not sure that's even better than a mediocre defense. But until they start losing like I think they inevitably will, they get a spot on the list.