ON TODAY'S SCORECARD
NFL Power Rank
With just three weeks left in the regular season, the NFL playoff picture — and overall hierarchy — is taking shape. The question is where does your team rank?
Rising: No team had a bigger jump this week than the Ravens, who climbed four spots to No. 15 after blanking the Bengals to keep their playoff hopes alive. And though the Vikings may be eliminated, they still climbed three spots to No. 20 behind a vastly improved J.J. McCarthy.
Falling: The Packers suffered the biggest fall, dropping four spots to No. 9 after not only losing their game, but more importantly losing Micah Parsons for the season (ACL). The No. 17 Cowboys, No. 23 Dolphins and No. 24 Bengals all dropped three spots after losses.
Here are the Top 5 teams...
5: Chicago Bears (10-4)
Are the Bears the fifth-best team in the NFL? Probably not. But nobody behind them has shown enough to move into the top five. And Chicago, who built a nice record on close wins against bad teams, has played much better the past three weeks and had those wins banked. The injury to Micah Parsons hurts Chicago’s biggest threat in the division. If Chicago beats Green Bay on Saturday night, the Bears will justify this ranking.
4: New England Patriots (11-3)
The Patriots lost after leading 21-0 against the Bills, and that’s not great. Let’s not overreact though. New England is 10-1 in their past 11 games. The Patriots have a quarterback in Drake Maye who can still win MVP if they win the division. New England outgained Buffalo on Sunday, it just couldn’t close out the win. The loss wasn’t great, but every team behind the Patriots in the rankings has lost more than one game over their last 11. Don’t give in to recency bias.
3: Denver Broncos (12-2)
There are now three distinct tiers at the top. The top two teams in the NFC West are practically 1a and 1b. Next it’s the Broncos, and then a gap to everyone else. DVOA has Denver with an 81.5% chance to get the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Broncos have a strong home-field advantage in the altitude, a head coach who is likely going to the Hall of Fame and a defense that is comfortably in the top five. Underrate them at your own risk.
2: Seattle Seahawks (11-3)
Losing to the Colts would have been horrendous. But they avoided a disaster and won in the final minute, and it’s OK to chalk up the bad performance to looking ahead to the Rams and looking past a Colts team that everyone had left for dead. Here’s what it boils down to: If the Seahawks beat the Rams on Thursday, they’ll be No. 1 next week in these rankings and have the inside track at the NFC’s No. 1 seed with two games to go. That’s all that matters.
1: Los Angeles Rams (11-3)
The Rams’ win on Sunday was impressive. It would have been easy to look past a capable Lions team and start thinking about Thursday night’s game in Seattle. If the Rams win this evening, they’d be a near lock to win the division, get the No. 1 seed and they’d be an overwhelming favorite to win it all. Lose tonight and the Rams might end up as a wild-card team playing a cold weather game in Green Bay, Chicago or Philadelphia. The stakes are enormous. | 
