NFL Power Rankings after Week 12: A juggernaut arises...

As ever, the NFL season seems to race through its regular season. We are now nearly 2/3s of the way through the 2023 season and things are heating up in the playoff hunt. Let’s see where every team is ranked…

Frank Reich is gone as head coach, Bryce Young is struggling behind a terrible offensive line, and the owner seems to be losing his mind at the state of his franchise. The Panthers are a long way from being competitive.

The Pats sunk to new lows in week 12, with both Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe struggling to move the ball (and throwing picks) against a bad Giants team. It almost feels a matter of when, not if, there is a coaching change at this point.

When the Cardinals were playing good football as the plucky underdogs with Josh Dobbs at QB, we enjoyed watching them play hard week in and week out. Now it all seems to have regressed to the mean, which is to say, they’re very bad, just as we expected them to be.

I’m not sure many people had ‘Tommy Devito beats Bill Belichick’ in their pre-season predictions, but here we are after week 12 with our Italian-American king beating the greatest coach of all time before presumably going home for some of his Mom’s chicken cutlets. Honestly, this is about as fun as it's been for Giants fans this season, so enjoy it.

The Titans won against the Panthers on Sunday, which is better than losing, but they’re just sort of a nothing team at this point. Will Levis deserves a shot for a year or two, he looks better in some respects than perhaps we expected, but elsewhere this team needs a talent revamp.

I think it’s safe to say Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio won’t be employed in Washington after this season. Perhaps giving the keys to Eric Beinemy may be the best long-term strategy, but there are six weeks of the season to come first. Stay strong Washington fans.

We don’t need to repeat it, but the Jets have embarrassed themselves this year with their quarterback situation once Rodgers went down. Awful stuff.

The Bears looked up for the game and took home a win despite scoring zero (0) TDs, which sure is something in the NFL in 2023, it was a truly awful edition of MNF. The scoreline looked more like an Iowa college football game than anything, but here we are. There’s not loads to say on the Bears, they just need to prepare themselves for the offseason.

Please give Justin Herbert better coaching, please. Brandon Staley is unfortunately not up to the standard required in the NFL. It was a bold decision to appoint him given his lack of NFL experience, but now they have to move on and get someone new in the building.

Gardner Minshew vs Baker Mayfield is about as much fun as you can have watching an NFL between two not-very-good QBs. Both are reckless and aggressive and try to make plays at all times. Anyway, the Bucs are not good despite a lot of talented players, mostly on offense. Their D stinks for whatever reason and are another team that needs new coaching.

A brutal year for the Bengals after a rough start they looked on their way back to competing for a Super Bowl berth before Joe Burrow’s wrist injury. Now with Jake Browning, they’re going to struggle to get much going. Perhaps this is an opportunity to draft some higher-level players than they expected and save some money moving forward.

The league was very briefly on upset watch as the Raiders took an early 14-0 lead over the defending Super Bowl champions. Unfortunately, the Chiefs responded with a crushing display that showcased the Raiders' lack of talent across a lot of their roster.

The Rams demolished the Cardinals on Sunday, Matt Stafford threw four TDs and their running backs made a mockery of Arizona’s defense. What will they do next season? Are they committed to Stafford for another year or two, or do they try to reset and reload?

Signing Derek Carr to a big-money contract in the offseason never felt like a good idea for the Saints. Now, he was certainly not the biggest issue in their loss to the Falcons on Sunday, but he just never fills you with much confidence.

Maybe just giving the ball to Bijan Robinson (who you drafted eighth overall…) is actually a good thing, who knew? Apparently not Arthur Smith who took until week 12 to use Bijan as their feature back. Atlanta could well end up winning the NFC South, which says far more about that division than them as a team.

The Packers were impressive on Thanksgiving as they went into Detroit on Turkey Day and walked away winners. Jordan Love played well, showing perhaps he could be the guy moving forward.

Sorry Josh Dobbs fans, it seems it’s all come crashing down, Canton can tell the bust-maker to stop their work on Dobbs’ bronze head. This was a brutal loss on MNF, with Dobbs throwing four picks against a pretty bad Bears team.

The Seahawks never quite felt like a true challenger this year and their brutal beatdown at the hands of the 49ers sort of proved it. They just don’t have the players to compete against the best teams with any consistency.

A big day out for Jonathan Taylor, who the Colts should’ve been willing to give big money to a long time ago. Next year with Richardson hopefully healthy, it will be very, very hard to stop this offense.

The Bills lost and rose two places in our rankings, which maybe doesn’t make sense, but they’re a very good football team that finds weird ways to lose. Josh Allen was on a whole different level against the Eagles on Sunday, showcasing his MVP-caliber ability, this shouldn’t be ignored just because they lost.

Unfortunately, there is only so far a dominant defense can take you in the NFL in 2023, especially when your quarterback is a fifth-round rookie. The Browns are in danger of slipping out of playoff contention unless they get back to winning ways soon.

A tough loss for the Texans over their division rivals. It all but confirms they won’t be winning the AFC South and are now battling for a Wildcard spot. Once again, C.J. Stroud is the present and the future and they need to do everything they can to build around him.

We said a few weeks ago the Broncos could make a late playoff push, well, don’t look now, but they are only one game back now. Russell Wilson is playing good football and defensively, they are looking far closer to what we expected in the preseason.

Matt Canada is gone and suddenly the offense looks leaps and bounds better. Is this a false dawn? Maybe, but we’re starting to think the Steelers might just be quite good rather than a weird scrappy underdog. Winning games in the NFL is really hard, and the Steelers have done it seven times this year despite awful offensive production, if they can get that going…

We aren’t quite ready to call the Lions frauds, but they are certainly a team to keep a keen ‘fraud-watch’ eye on. They were handedly beaten by the Packers at home on Thanksgiving which suggests they maybe aren’t the Super Bowl contender some seem to think.

The Jags’ schedule certainly isn’t easy, but it’s not especially hard either, and could well see them take the number one seed and home-field advantage. Trevor Lawrence is playing good football recently of late as well making this a dangerous proposition for most opponents.

The Dolphins didn’t play their best game of the season against the Jets but still walked away comfortable winners. The loss of Jaelen Phillips is a tough one to take given his importance to their defense. We’re not quite ready to think of Miami as a genuine contender though.

There is no team better than grinding an opponent in the dirt once they get on top than Dallas. For a while, it seemed like they were in a close game, and then they just blew Washington out of the stadium. Remarkably, they sit two games back in the NFC East making home-field advantage unlikely.

It wasn’t their prettiest game by any stretch, but the Ravens were able to beat the Chargers for their ninth win of the season, putting them in first place in the AFC. If they get home-field advantage, no one will want to go into Baltimore come playoff time.

Things were looking shaky for the Chiefs for a while there, but they were able to turn things around and get the win against the Raiders. Patrick Mahomes looked very good and Travis Kelce had his best game for a few weeks. Whilst it feels like a slightly down year for KC, it wouldn’t be shocking to see them hoist the Lombardi again in a few months' time.

The Niners’ weird mid-season slip seems to be long in the past now, showing that perhaps injuries were perhaps the biggest issue during that time. Brock Purdy still has mistakes in him that could be costly come playoff time, but for now, he and the offense are playing very well.

Another week, another crazy win from a losing position for the Eagles. They had very little right to win the game against the Bills, but an impressive second-half showing from Jalen Hurts, and a clutch 59-yard FG from Jake Elliott, got them home eventually. Now it’s Niner’s week, with San Fran heading to Philadelphia for another marquee matchup, everyone should be watching.