Power Corrupts!

It is that time of year again. Power Rankings time, at the halfway point! Without further ado, let’s get on with it. If you do not know what Power Rankings are, read the introductory edition of my quarterly Power Rankings. Heck, read it even if you simply haven’t read it, because this edition will most likely be inundated with inside jokes referring to the original installment.

TheSportsRant’s Quarterly NFL Power Rankings


32. Arizona: Five weeks ago, I laughed at the pundits for predicting Arizona’s time would come. Have I been vindicated or what.

31. Houston: Orlando Bloom is still better than David Carusoe. David Carusoe is Arizona.

30. Cleveland: The other day, I heard this from Dick Sutcliff, a guy who should stick to commentating tennis: “The Cleveland Browns are improving every week”. Uhh, by “improving”, he must have meant “getting worse”; there is no other explanation, except maybe that Dick Sutcliff needs to stick to commentating tennis.

29. Detroit: Roy Williams, their up and coming receiver (chances are, if you pick receivers for a hundred years in a row, you will eventually get it right at least once) has as big a mouth as all the other receivers in the league; he says the lions will run the table. Don’t laugh people, it isn’t like the Lions have a record over the past five years of... never mind; you can laugh all you want.

28. Oakland: It seems ridiculous having a team that has not even scored 100 points by the halfway mark ahead of four other teams, but they look better than four other teams. This does not bode well for those four other teams.

27. Miami: Joey Harrington beat the Bears; Daunte Culpepper beat the Titans; what a comparison. Anyway, Sean Salisbury, who is usually not this insane, declared that “all of Daunte’s problems were injury related”; somebody shoot me.

26. San Francisco: The only interesting facet of the game last week involved the fact that Joe Nedney continues to be a productive kicker for San Fran, after years of nothing but injuries with the Titans. Somebody shoot me.

25. Tennessee: Vince Young can’t throw to save his life, but thankfully he has been running to save his life. I have hope for this team down the road.

24. Green Bay: They stink, but they still have Brett Favre (pronounced: FARV). This sounds oddly familiar...

23. Tampa Bay: They have beaten the Eagles. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but I thought I would mention it.

22. Pittsburgh: As bad as they are—and they are bad—I’d still take them in a game against any of the other cellar-dwelling, powder puff, cup-cake, barely-NFL caliber football teams. Man, these Power Rankings still seem strangely repetitive; perhaps I was simply so right the first time around, I could have just copied the original rankings... probably.

21. Minnesota: Brad Johnson does not get paid to run, to throw deep balls, to gun-sling the ball into tight spots... he gets paid to *not* make mistakes, yet he has been making a lot of those lately.

20. Buffalo: They absolutely do not belong anywhere near here. See my previous note on the Rams.

19. St. Louis: Throw the Rams, schizophrenia, and a couple good lines into a barrel and you have an SNL sketch.

18. N.Y. Jets: There is really no reason for them to be this high, at all. No, I’m not plagiarizing myself.

17. Jacksonville: You laughed, but I told you they weren’t that great. Now that they have seemingly thrown their eggs in David Garrard’s basket, they are hopeless.

15. Kansas City: Here we go: Herman Edwards fans are crawling out of the woodwork. This team is lucky.

16. Washington: This is still a strange, strange team. They had a strange, strange ending to their last game—a victory, regardless.

14. Dallas: Uh... what can I say about this team... OH I KNOW!!! Terrell Owens... *insert here*!

13. Philadelphia: I warned everyone that their record was deceiving; it isn’t anymore. Too bad they are still # 13 thanks to the lack of good teams in this league.

12. Seattle: This team ranking twelfth is yet another testament to how few good teams play football.

11. New Orleans: This team still feels like Studio 60. They are good, but will they survive anyway?

10. Carolina: Last time, they were 2-2; now, they are 4-4. All hail Sports Illustrated.

9. Cincinnati: Carson Palmer came back quicker than Daunte Culpepper, and he is fine. Cincinnati isn’t fine, but that has more to do with their kerraaaaaapy defense than his magic arm.

8. New England: Did you know that anything Tom Brady touches turn to gold, that he has never committed a sin, won three Super Bowls by taking the entire opposing defense on 1 against 11, has never thrown a bad pass, has a plan to save the environment while simultaneously increasing energy resources, is on his way to curing all the world’s diseases, and—

Oh, dang; he just threw four interceptions. I guess that puts a thorn into the side of all the morons proclaiming him the greatest QB in the game.

007. Atlanta: If I coached the Falcons, they would be better than they are, but then, if I coached the majority of the teams in this league, they would be better than they are—and if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable. That has absolutely nothing to do with the Falcons, Power Rankings, or football in general, but it is so true I must mention it whenever possible.

6. Denver: Champ Bailey is a sick son of a gun. Unfortunately, that other cornerback they have isn’t, and Peyton proved that readily.

5. San Diego: They lost to Kansas City; that is simply inexcusable, and I hate having them in my top five. Yet I have them there, proving once again how few good teams there are in the NFL.

4. Baltimore: This team is good—nothing spectacular about them (they have an above average D and a below average running game), yet they are good. The fact that a merely “good” team can be #4 in the Power Rankings shows once again...

3. Chicago: They got run over by Ronnie Brown last week, helpless offense of Rex Grossman notwithstanding. And if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable.

3. N.Y. Giants: If they would stop creating hospital bed shortages in America, this team would be crazy-good. Unfortunately, their devastation on defense will likely leave them handicapped beyond deep-playoff-run repair.

1. Indianapolis: Can we all just admit that this is the best regular season team to ever play the game? And can we also admit that Peyton Manning is the best QB in the game, period?



Turn your life around and lose: Is there a worse role model for kids than A.I.? Before I get lambasted for that statement, let me clarify: Allen Iverson is a changed man. He passes the ball, is unselfish, doesn’t spout off stupid comments for the media, and is basically more mature than he used to be, in every facet imaginable. The problem here is: his team now stinks (yeah they started off well, but do not kid yourselves, they are not going anywhere particularly great, unless you consider the lottery “great”). Allen Iverson once contended for championships, when he was a childish, irreverent, conceited ball-hog. Now that he has cleaned up his act, the eighty-one-minus-fivers stink. Now of course, there is no correlation between the two, other than a coincidental simultaneity. Yet if a kid is silly enough to look to NBA players as role models—and most kids are—they are probably silly enough to equate “bad attitude, selfishness” with “winning” based on said evidence.

This is exacerbated by the league’s acute focus on its own superstars. The Heat managed to become champs by taking the regular season off, and letting Dwayne Wade carry the entire team in the playoffs, while the league aided and abetted this behavior the whole way with fouls that made me want to jump in boiling oil. What kind of a message is that? “Yeah kids, be lazy, don’t work hard, then let your superstar win it for you”. Uh, please.

The incredibly ironic thing here is that the NBA is super image-obsessed. The new rules on excessive complaining, the dress code, and the barring of high school players all illuminate the league’s attempt to polish its image. Sure, guys. Worry about what they are wearing while you call fouls in such a way that a disinterested team with one good player in his prime can defeat the team oriented Bulls, the team oriented Nets, the team oriented Pistons, and the team oriented Mavericks, even when at least one of those teams—and probably two—were superior.

The NBA has an image. It goes something like this: “We dress well, we don’t complain, we utterly obliterate the need for teamwork.” Good job, guys.

Tom took ‘em all on!: Prior to last week’s Colts/Patriots game, we were once again inundated by morons telling us how Brady is a superior QB because “he won the big games” against the Colts in the playoffs. Uh, hello? No he didn’t. The Patriots were simply better. Peyton was still twice the QB Brady is, his teams simply weren’t as good. The Patriots defense was far superior, and one of the two years, their running game with Corey Dillon was superior. Not to mention the Patriots had both playoff games at home.

Since then, the tide has turned, and the Colts are now the better team. Yet, ironically, the Patriots still have a better defense and they also have a superior running game. So the only thing making the Colts better is... Peyton Manning. Peyton nearly single-handedly takes a team that would otherwise be mediocre, and makes it the best team in the league. I say almost single-handedly because he does have a terrific offensive line.

Nevertheless, he is the reason the Colts are better than the Patriots now, and Tom Brady simply cannot keep up with Peyton Manning. You saw this the other night. Tom tried to be Peyton and he made a fool of himself, throwing four picks to a shoddy D.

One final note: People continually say Peyton “chokes” in the big games. The last time I checked, “choking” somewhat involves being expected to win. Peyton should never have been expected to beat the Patriots, and he wasn’t, even by most of the idiotic analysts and commentators who litter ESPN with the trash they call “writing”. So he didn’t “choke”, he simply lost to superior teams. The exception to this is last year, when they let a downright mediocre Pittsburgh team wipe them out. There were many reasons for this (terrible coaching, Nick Harper’s pathetic job of evading Roethlisberger, too long of a rest for the Colts), but fine, they lost to an underdog in the playoffs. Once. How many teams haven’t done that at least once?