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NFL Power Rankings, Week 10 Preview: Steelers And Ravens On Top, Giants And Falcons Lead NFC

Most media NFL power rankings for Week 10 won't come out until tomorrow morning, but based on Sunday's action we have a pretty good idea what we might see. Tonight's game is between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. A Steelers loss might knock them down a peg or two, but I really think they're a very solid No. 1 right now, considering they've dominated one of the league's hardest schedules.

Now that New England has multiple losses like everybody else, let's talk. We can now assess them the same as every other team, and admit they really haven't convincingly put any teams away besides the Miami Dolphins in Week 4 and the Bengals in Week 1 -- and both of those games featured multiple non-offensive touchdowns for the Pats. If we can (justifiably!) complain about the lack of consistency by the Falcons and Saints, we have to do the same for the Pats. They haven't done top-five work to this point. Yes, they're still tied for the league's best record. But as Raheem Morris learned yesterday, there's a lot more to it than that. Like not getting shelled by the Browns.

The season's early AFC superiority meme is pretty much gone by now, after the Saints beat the Steelers, Packers (and almost Lions) beat the Jets, and Eagles beat the Colts. It would be simple to say it's swinging in the other direction, but at least it takes the conference thing off the table as a topic that seems worth everyone's opinion. Since it's meaningless in the NFL.

As far as the top 10 goes, here's something like what I think we might be seeing tomorrow once everybody starts putting out final power rankings for Week 10. To me, after the Giants it's a huge jumble that would probably include the Colts at No. 11, with pretty much the entire top ten interchangeable:

  1. Pittsburgh Steelers
  2. Baltimore Ravens
  3. New York Giants
  4. Tennessee Titans
  5. Atlanta Falcons
  6. Philadelphia Eagles
  7. New England Patriots
  8. New Orleans Saints
  9. Green Bay Packers
  10. New York Jets

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.