10/04/06
Power of the Press

Editor’s note: To truly appreciate the following article, one most take note of the bolded portions of text. These portions should be read as if they were being dictated by that announcer guy from the movies, whilst in his most grave, serious, all-important tone of voice. In the meantime, read all non-bold parts completely normal, to exacerbate the effect; this will provide a more enjoyable reading experience. You may now proceed.

There are few stories/articles which automatically grab the attention of all viewers/readers—and hold onto that attention like a parsimonious old billionaire geezer holds onto money—with the force which “Power Rankings” can. For those three people left in the world who do not know what “Power Rankings” are, here is a quick synopsis:
Power Rankings determine the order of everything in the universe. Even random fluctuations of molecular cohesion in the Alpha Centauri system look up Power Rankings to figure out what they should do. Of course, if you want a more accurate explanation of Power Rankings, go look them up, or read the next paragraph.
Power Rankings hold such sway over their audience because they are short (absolutely every little blurb must not exceed one sentence... well, not exactly), sweet (well, not exactly), completely pointless (does anyone really care who Pete Prisco thinks is the best team in the league? Not exactly), but most important of all, they tell you exactly how good your team is, and it usually determines whether or not your team will do well in the postseason! (This explains why the Chicago White Sox dominated the ESPN MLB Power Rankings the entire first half of the year).
Now besides an overwhelming flood of parenthetical phrases, the last paragraph should have convinced you that I, the author, believe Power Rankings to be inutile (love that word), impractical, unhelpful and lacking in trustworthy information. Maybe so, but I am every bit as snowed by them as the rest of the world, and I read them. All of them. I wake up on Tuesday and immediately search for them—on three different sites, no less—to discover what the major networks believe about the relative Power of each team. As silly as this is, I will now join them. Here then, are my NFL Power Rankings, which will occur every four games, i.e. quarterly.
The only things of which I have to make sure are: every team’s blurb must be no longer than Tony Kornheiser’s hair—or in other words, two sentences at most; the numbers, which are far more important than anything else, must be prominent and important-looking. I have also decided to rank my teams from worst to first, instead of 1-32, since the suspense and anticipation of discovering which team is best at the final possible second is well worth the trouble of counting backwards from 32. And for you troublemakers insinuating that one can deduce the first place team by looking at the first 31 teams listed and noting who isn’t there... Go put your name on a steroids affidavit.







TheSportsRant’s Quarterly NFL Power Rankings


32. Oakland: For a brief moment, it looked as if they might win a game. Oh well.

31. Tennessee: Floyd Reese (the GM) needs to be fired. So do all of the players.

30. Miami: They have proven three things this year: Daunte Culpepper is awful; they can beat Tennessee and they can’t beat anybody else.

29. Detroit: If Matt Millen does not get fired soon, he needs to be assassinated by a loyal fan wiling to sacrifice the rest of his life’s personal freedom for his team, the Lions. This team stinks, and it has for a long time.

28. Cleveland: Coming back from 18 down against the Raiders was okay, but what were they doing being 18 down against the Raiders?

27. Arizona: Once again, the big name offensive stars had all of the pundits crying to the heavens that this would be Arizona’s year. Get over it people; Arizona doesn’t GET a year.

26. Houston: Having the Texans this high seems sacrilegious, but it is akin to admitting that Orlando Bloom is a better actor than David Caruso. Sure, it sounds awful to put “Orlando Bloom” and “better than” in the same sentence, but it is true.

25. San Francisco: No, they aren’t deserving of this spot. Still, at least they play hard.

24. Green Bay: They stink, but they still have Brett Favre (pronounced: FARV). That counts for something.

23. Tampa Bay: No, they don’t have any wins, and yes, they suffer from a severe one-side-syndrome, and yes they have no QB, but you know you’d still take them against any of the other cellar-dwelling, powder puff, cup-cake, barely-NFL caliber football teams.

22. Kansas City: Herm Edwards coaches like... someone who coaches really badly.

21. St. Louis: Yeah, yeah, they are 3-1, and they could potentially be very good; I know. In response to your unspoken question about their low ranking, I say that all Power Rankings have at least a few terrible choices, and mine must be no different.

20. Minnesota: Everyone got Minnesota-loopy—until they lost to Buffalo. Speaking of which.

19. Buffalo: I don’t think they are very good, but see my note on the Rams.

18. Pittsburgh: I heard an interesting rumor involving Pittsburgh the other day: since they shamefully stole Super Bowl Extra Large from the Seahawks, perhaps the football Gods are acting as if the real result—the intended result—really happened, and are punishing Pittsburgh as the “Super Bowl losing team that doesn’t make the play-offs the next year”, while Seattle, who should have been that team, is playing just fine. I don’t know if this is true (it wasn’t a rumor, after all), but I was predicting Pittsburgh’s season like this for a while; they just aren’t that good.

17. Jacksonville: Byron and the offense finally score some points, and the defense takes the day off? What the heck?

16. Denver: They don’t look that good, drubbing of New England and all.

15. Washington: This is a strange, strange team. I predict a season very much like they are currently having: 8-8.

14. N.Y. Giants: They have the talent to be number 1. They have the coach to be number 32.

13. N.Y. Jets: There is really no reason for them to be this high, except that they are literally two possessions away from being 4-0.

12. Dallas: I don’t think Dallas is particularly good, but beating any NFL team 45-14 earns you a higher spot.

11. Philadelphia: I think they are much like the rest of the NFC East teams: overrated. Philly just has an easier schedule.

10. New Orleans: NO gives you that same feeling that the series premier of Studio 60 gave you: they were too busy introducing plot lines and characters to actually do anything interesting or funny, but you can’t really give up on the show because you haven’t seen anything yet. If the team turns out like the show, this could be a heck of a year.

9. New England: How could I have them ranked below Cincy? Cuz they ain’t as good as Cincy (What? 38-13? Are you serious?).

8. Cincinnati: But then, who knows how good this team is. Sometimes they look unbeatable, other times they look like... well, what they used to look like.

007. Carolina: Yeah I know: they are 2-2. But they are 2-0 with Steve Smith; in addition, see my note on the Rams.

6. Atlanta: In the playoffs, Atlanta will stink. In the regular season, they are very, very good.

5. Seattle: They can beat the snot out of bad teams, and get the snot beaten out of them by the Bears. Have you noticed just how many teams in this blasted league aren’t the Bears?

4. San Diego: They lost to Baltimore, but they are like 1/8 of the league in that respect. They are still very strong.

3. Indianapolis: Here is what I say about the Colts. This team is ridiculous, I mean, every year they look unbeatable in the regular season, but you just know they will choke when it comes playoff time, because even though Peyton Manning pulls so many game winning drives out of his pants that you’d think they would have giant holes in them, and their defense looks so dang good when they are leading by 100 and all they have to do is sit there and respond to the pass, and their running game doesn’t seem to matter because they have Peyton Manning, and I would love to rank them higher, you just know that when they play a really good team in a really important game, they will lose because they always do, like when that Harper guy ran right into Ben Roethlisberger instead of evading him in last year’s playoffs, and I’m not exactly condemning a defensive player for doing what he is usually trained to do but come on, you have the BALL in your hands—you know, that one that bounces all weird—and you don’t realize you should stay as far away from the other team as possible, so basically even though I am violating the spirit of Power Rankings with this ridiculously long sentence, there is now way to sum up the Colts in less than one sentence so it had to be done, and I maintain the letter of the law regardless, but I suppose you actually could sum up the colts with two words: Peyton Manning.

2. Baltimore: Who cares if Steve McNair can’t play until the last drive of the game. With that defense they don’t need him to play until the last drive of the game.

1. Chicago: Does this need an explanation at all?


Big Predictions: I don’t know how I could possibly have gotten my predictions on Frank Thomas better. He hit home runs, the A’s won, they would have lost without his homers. Why pitch to the man? They don’t have anyone backing him up. The only way I can be even more correct is if his batting average dips in the next few games. It will. Oh yes. It will.

Johan?: The Greatest Author of All Time recently wondered why Johan Santana is not yet referred to as “Johan”. Pedro Martinez became Pedro, Michael Jordan is Michael, Tiger Woods is Tiger, etc. When will Johan be on a one name basis? I say never. Why? Because he isn’t that kind of great. He is great, no doubt about it. Probably the most fantastic pitcher of our day. But in the first year we have ever had a lack of twenty game winners, that is not saying much. This talk for Santana as MVP was and is ludicrous. He had a very good year, and he usually does. But he wins 19-21 games, with lots of strikeouts, and ERAs around 2.5-3. I love the guy, he is great, but those numbers aren’t MVP type, or first name type. When Pedro was Pedro, you expected him to throw a perfect game every time out. Michael was expected to win single handedly—and he did. Tiger dominates his field like no one else has (or so I am told—I only follow real sports). Johan Santana pitches very, very well. But he isn’t like no one before him.

Torre: For a moment I will simply give you all the adjectives that describe Joe Torre’s managerial failures (see the bullpen fiasco he created in game 1 against the Tigers). Ostentatious, overbearing, meddling, awful, destructive, wasteful, dangerous—what? You say you could just look in a thesaurus? Oh. Anyway, maybe we should call this Torre syndrome. Indeed, that is what “we” will do. Torre syndrome involves over-managing (or over coaching) to such an extent that it isn’t even superficial posturing, it is actually harmful to the team.