So about the power rankings...

[DTown SBrown]

I have seen us ranked anywhere from 3 to 10 in different power rankings, coming off a bye.

I dont care where we rank usually, as I would rather be an under the radar team (like the Falcons currently are) than the juggernaut going into any game (i think with the youth on the team it keeps them hungry).

My concern and problem comes with the fact that in several, the JETs (who we SHUT DOWN in NY) the Eagles (who we beat) and the and the Colts (who we destroyed although in the preseason, with OUR backups against their starters, who are playing NO BETTER football than us, with almost identical problems as us, against IMO worse teams than us) are ALL ranked HIGHER than us.

Taking these things into account, and some may very well be HOMERISM, but:

- win against the JETs with a complete shutout, and leaving points on the board
- win against Favre and the Vikings with that hanging over our heads
- Win against the Eagles while stopping Vick(both seemingly the NFLs 'new' darling of the year) on a last ditch effort try to win the game.
- Complete and Utter demolition of the Cowboys, resulting in the firing of their HC
- losing all of our games by 3 with less than a minute or in OT.

All this taken into account:

-the Giants, who got demolished last night are ahead of us (by the team we destroyed less than 10 days ago)

-The Jets, who nobody can count week to week, are ranked higher than us

- The Eagles, who are surging (LIKE US) are ranked higher than us

- The Steelers, who are SINKING, are ranked higher than us

- The Ravens are ranked higher, also seem to be sinking

- The Falcons are ranked #1 in SEVERAL polls,with losses to PHI and PIT, and with AMAZING wins against the likes of:
-ARIZ 3-6
-SAN FRAN 3-6
-CLEVE 3-6
-CINN 2-7
-TB 6-3
-BAL6-3
-NEW ORL 6-3

with the exception of the TB game, (who is vastly overrated this season imo) these wins were very much like our losses. Last second with a little skill and a ton of luck.



now I am not saying that we are playing all caliber teams, but I just dont get the HUGE divide between us and ATL in this example. ONLY difference is they have a better Running game. Our D is head and shoulders better. Why the hating from all the rankers?

PS. I may be the only one currently, but I am excited to see what happens over the next 7 weeks. We get the chance to shine against 2 FACTORS:

we get the likes of:
MIN and Brett Favre in MIN(put the nail in BC and BF coffins)
the Falcons in ATL
the PATS in NE
the GIANTS at home (revenge for 2007)
CHI at home (to put the nail in their coffin)

It is a TOUGH stretch to end the year, but who will be more fearsome and ready than us should we close this year out?

And to cap it off... we may be the first team to get 3 HC fired in one season, as I see it, if Childress gets demo'd next week, hes gone, and Lovie can kiss his *** gone if he doesnt make the playoffs in the last week.

I dont think we can count ourselves out of ANY game left this year. lots of road games, but this is where true teams show their strength.

 

[Jess]

I can't argue with the rest, but the current Eagles are a hell of a lot better than the Eagles we played.

 

[ivo610]

I really don't get the whole power ranking thing, someones opinion on what team is the best. Means nothing.

But good news, I promise you if we win out against the teams ahead of us like pats, falcons, Vikings, and giants we will be ranked #1 no question.

Our faults include several close losses and a couple shaky games such as Detroit, NYJ, and Philly. Our biggest win was a game we didn't score a single touchdown. I can't say that the packers are a top 3 team because I haven't seen it yet. We still need to claim our spot at atop the division, because if the playoff started today we woulnt be in it as anything more than a wild card.

 

[SpartaChris]

Who gives a rats *** about power rankings. They're completely and utterly worthless opinions that serve absolutely no meaningful purpose and only exists because the ***-hat media sites insist upon creating them in order to drive up hits. Really, not something anyone should ever get worked out about.

One thing that really cracks me up is when people get into a tizzy over power rankings. On some message boards I've seen people get into quite heated discussions because their team is ranked two spots too low (In their opinion) while someone else's is ranked two spots too high (Also in their opinion.) Really, the whole thing is stupid.

 

[AmishMafia]

In the grand scheme of things, nothing we discuss on these boards has much significance. But, we are here to discuss the Packers and the NFL.

Packers played the Jets a few weeks ago. Jets are a fantastic team with lots of talent and playing with a lot of confidence. We played aggressive mistake free football and won the game 9-0.

The Lions played the Skins at the same time. They beat a hapless Skins team that has little talent and is not playing with any confidence or gumption. They won the game 37-25.

Both records that week were 1-0. Were the Lions as good as a team as the Packers? They had a bigger margin of victory so perhaps you could interpret statistics as the Lions are a better team.

What is wrong with looking past the stats and figuring out which team is actually better and more likely to win from here on out? Teams change throughout the season - The Eagles are a much better team, the Cowboys have gotten worse. What is wrong with discussing that?

 

[Raptorman]

Power rankings are only mean something if your team is in the top ten, and then it's only someones opnion. And really, in todays NFL, the top ten teams are all probably about the same.

 

[SpartaChris]

In the grand scheme of things, nothing we discuss on these boards has much significance. But, we are here to discuss the Packers and the NFL.

Packers played the Jets a few weeks ago. Jets are a fantastic team with lots of talent and playing with a lot of confidence. We played aggressive mistake free football and won the game 9-0.

The Lions played the Skins at the same time. They beat a hapless Skins team that has little talent and is not playing with any confidence or gumption. They won the game 37-25.

Both records that week were 1-0. Were the Lions as good as a team as the Packers? They had a bigger margin of victory so perhaps you could interpret statistics as the Lions are a better team.

What is wrong with looking past the stats and figuring out which team is actually better and more likely to win from here on out? Teams change throughout the season - The Eagles are a much better team, the Cowboys have gotten worse. What is wrong with discussing that?

Nothing wrong with discussing it, that's what fans do, though I think win/loss record is a much better indicator of which teams are actually better and more likely to win from here on out.

And while I understand most of the conversations we have on here are pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things, what turns me off about power rankings specifically is how seriously some people take them. As if the ranking of your team by someone you've never met or talked to is the be-all, end-all of your team's worth. Really, it's all based on opinion and it cracks me up to see heated discussions over the perceived slights based on the ranking of one's team.

That said, if you're going to discuss power rankings, I think the best way to do it would be to take a weekly average of all the top published rankings (Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports, ESPN, SI, etc) and then average that together over the whole season.

For example, lets say the Packers are ranked 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 7, and 6 over the first 7 weeks of the season by one outlet. Average it out together and you get an average ranking of 6.43 over the first 7 weeks. Lets say you get an average ranking of 5.4 from another media outlet and 8.1 from yet another. This gives you an overall average ranking of 6.64 from 3 media outlets, which is a more accurate ranking since you're using more data. BTW, these are made up numbers as I honestly haven't looked at any power rankings this season.

 

[4StarCustoms]

I wasn't too hurt or surprised by the rankings. In the games we lost and even in some that we won - we played BAD! I saw a lot of undisciplined football early on which is why I think we're ranked where we are ranked. The last few weeks have shown that we are legit though and if we continue our disciplined play - we will rise.

Had our offense been clicking like our defense we'd already be ranked higher.

 

[3irty1]

This season doesn't have any eye opening teams that stand out as a clear #1. A lot of people had the Giants, but now that they got embarrassed by the Cowboys, its anyone's game again. People won't get over the fact that we are an injured team, and we shouldn't either. It affects our play, but we just need to keep playing at a high level, and get our Offense and Defense to both have great games like in Dallas.

 

[PackersRS]

I can't argue with the rest, but the current Eagles are a hell of a lot better than the Eagles we played.

One could make a very compelling case that we are also a hell of a lot better than we were week 1...

About Power Rankings, I won't lie, I love checking them out. All of them.

But the only rankings I care about are the divisional and conference standings.

 

[Murgen]

Best power ranking comes in January with who wins the SB. Heh. At least then you really do know who is 1-2.

 

[Raptorman]

Best power ranking comes in January with who wins the SB. Heh. At least then you really do know who is 1-2.

Not really. I don't believe the best team in the NFL always wins the Super Bowl.

 

[PackerFan87]

Meh, then you better hope we beat the Falcons, Patriots and Giants so we go top 2?

 

[Murgen]

Yep, our schedule is not that easy going into the stretch.

 

[SpartaChris]

Actually, our remaining schedule is a little easier than the Bears and only moderately harder than the Vikings, from a statistical view anyway.

ESPN did a strength of schedule thing last week where they averaged out the teams power rankings for the year and then compared those rankings to each team's remaining opponents. They also factored in the number of games vs. top 10 and bottom 12 teams and average number of points scored, etc. The results for our division were the Bears with the 7th toughest remaining schedule, us with the 12th, the Vikings at 17 and the Lions with the 27th toughest remaining schedule in the league.

Power rankings: NFL schedule strength - NFC West Blog - ESPN

Of course all of this is meaningless as it doesn't account for away games vs. home games and things like that.

 

[VolvoD]

Not really. I don't believe the best team in the NFL always wins the Super Bowl.

thats the mantra of a Vikings fan.:viksux:

 

[AmishMafia]

And while I understand most of the conversations we have on here are pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things, what turns me off about power rankings specifically is how seriously some people take them. As if the ranking of your team by someone you've never met or talked to is the be-all, end-all of your team's worth. Really, it's all based on opinion and it cracks me up to see heated discussions over the perceived slights based on the ranking of one's team.

Well, I can agree with that.

One of the things that I find very humorous, is when a poster, writer, or TV analyst will spend months discussing various college prospects, analyzing video, researching stats, watching the combine coverage, listening/reading any little tidbit or opinion on who is going where; and then as soon as the draft is over they say 'You can't really tell how any team did, you have to wait 5 years to judge a draft'. Spent all that time and effort in research and then they admit that they have no idea?

 

[ivo610]

Not really. I don't believe the best team in the NFL always wins the Super Bowl.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-3DDFGvnII]YouTube - NFL Top 10 Foul-Ups: Gary Anderson's Miss[/ame]
haha:viksux:

 

[Wood Chipper]

power rankings are about as accurate as espn.com predicting how much someone will score next week fantasy-wise. pretty much every defense is predicted to score 5 points each week and 75 percent of players usually get less than what they say they will

 

[DTown SBrown]

I always love that video

 

[ivo610]

Peter King has the Pack @ 1 this week

 

[DevilDon]

I get why people get excited about that stuff, they're fans. Fans is short for fanatic.
I just figure it this way, if I'm enjoying a season I'm getting my money's worth and I am enjoying the heck and relishing moments from this season.
I like to pour over game day threads from opponents after the game and "watch" the game with them. I was surprised to see a Viqueen fan say "and this against one of the poorest run defenses" about the Packers.
Stats reflect the whole season, we all know the Pack rules against the run.
Power rankings are based on stats I believe and perspective. We Packer fans know how good this team is, we watch a heck of alot more of this team than any "expert"
I think the Cowboys "quit" but I don't believe the Vikings did until it was well over. That was total domination. This is a very good football team.

 

[Powarun]

Ivo- I saw that at work today and it made me happy that the Packers are getting reconaziation outside of the game, but I still want the announcers to talk about the Packers instead of the other god dang teams.

 

[PackersRS]

I get why people get excited about that stuff, they're fans. Fans is short for fanatic.
I just figure it this way, if I'm enjoying a season I'm getting my money's worth and I am enjoying the heck and relishing moments from this season.
I like to pour over game day threads from opponents after the game and "watch" the game with them. I was surprised to see a Viqueen fan say "and this against one of the poorest run defenses" about the Packers.
Stats reflect the whole season, we all know the Pack rules against the run.
Power rankings are based on stats I believe and perspective. We Packer fans know how good this team is, we watch a heck of alot more of this team than any "expert"
I think the Cowboys "quit" but I don't believe the Vikings did until it was well over. That was total domination. This is a very good football team.

I saw that "poorest run defense" also. Goes to show you how ignorant most vikings fans are. They look at the rankings at NFL.COM and instantly conclude that. They don't even bother to look that we have allowed just 4 rushing tds in 10 games, or that we only have allowed 100 yard runners 3 times, that we have allowed 20+ runs only 5 times, and 40+ runs only once.

Not only that, but most yardage have actually come from qbs, the 40+ rush was Shaun Hill, and 3 of those 20+ rushes were from Vick and Cutler...

Where was I? Oh yes, usually, vikings fans are ignorants.

 

[DevilDon]

Yes, which ties in neatly with my post about Vick and the Iggles being someone to worry about going forward. QBs have an advantage only if you don't expect them to run. Packers run D is first class, they'd be okay facing Vick. Michael Vick is a trick play, he's no Adrian Peterson. Dom will game plan for him if the time comes.