NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/12/2017

Overreaction Monday is a very real and normal thing in the NFL. An impressive level of freak-out always accompanies the end of the first game of any NFL season, with massive leaps in logic and changes in expectations replacing rational thought. "The Patriots have issues!" "The Jaguars are for real!" "Jared Goff is a star in the making!" Those are all headlines and takeaways that otherwise sane people would glean from Week 1's results.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/6/2017

Football will not save us. We plunge headlong into The Fall. The known horrors of winter are deep on the horizon but approaching with certainty. Although they are almost a trifle compared to the open corruption, paranoia, demagoguery and hypocrisy that continue to flood our systems. But football is not a balm. Football is not a distraction. It is not some pet to be played with. It is not a game. Professional football is a monolith.

NFL Power Rankings Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/28/2016

Well, this is it. A season that started with so much promise for 32 NFL teams just five months ago is in its waning moments. Some teams are gearing up for the playoffs. Others are soul-searching after things went awry. And the rest of the league is simply playing out the string, serving as stage props for the sick, unpredictable farce that is Week 17 in the NFL.

NFL Power Rankings Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/21/2016

The talent differential between NFL teams and players is razor thin. So when we get into Money Time in late December motivation levels and momentum can make all the difference between routs and upsets. Teams that have been steamrolling through the past six weeks - teams like the Steelers, Giants, Patriots and Packers - tend to continue to roll now that the stakes have been raised.

NFL Power Rankings Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/14/2016

Mob rule is rarely a good thing. It is especially damaging when NFL franchises - multibillion dollar entities - become too sensitive to the will of its fan base. When ownership and front offices start making decisions based more on kowtowing to the public rather than maintaining a long-term plan then things can go awry quickly.

NFL Power Rankings Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/7/2016

Last week's opening included a blind list of the best quarterbacks of the most recent generation. My baseline was guys with at least 130 starts. (I made an exception for Matt Stafford and his 105 starts just because his numbers were so intriguing. And because I like even-numbered lists.)

NFL Power Rankings Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 11/30/2016

In lieu of a snappy opening to this week's power rankings, I wanted to have you help me by taking part in a little experiment. Below are stats for 12 of the top quarterbacks in the NFL over the last 10 (or so) years. What I would like you to do - on a piece of paper, in a Word document, in your head - is to rank these quarterbacks based on the stats you see before you.

NFL Power Rankings Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/23/2016

Anyone that suggests that the NFL's extra point rule, changed prior to the 2015 season, is "great" or "smart" or "exciting" is a total and complete asshole. General media consensus the past two seasons is that moving the extra point back to the 15-yard-line rather than the 2-yard-line was a stroke of genius by NFL decision makers. But after watching a Sunday with 12 extra points either blocked or missed, can anyone actually say that this type of ineptitude is good for the game?

NFL Power Rankings Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/16/2016

Before we get into this week's NFL Power Rankings I want to point out that next week these will be posted early on Wednesday. Also, all of Doc's handicappers will have their football selections for next week posted at 6 p.m. on Wednesday to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday.

NFL Power Rankings Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/9/2016

I've worked in sports, first as a reporter and then as a handicapper, long enough to be jaded by its seedier behind-the-scene elements. I'm not big on people hyping the importance of sporting events, and I think that a lot of people take them way, way too seriously relative to real-life issues. But there is no denying that sports are a fantastic escape and distraction from those issues and that they play a very important role in our national consciousness and identity.

NFL Power Rankings Week 9
by Robert Ferringo - 11/2/2016

With four overtime games, one tie, and a second game that was nearly a tie it is safe to say that things are tightening up throughout the NFL. Early-season optimism has given way to mid-season crisis and desperation, and every team in the league is fighting to stay relevant and in the hunt heading into the second half of the season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 8
by Robert Ferringo - 10/26/2016

I know it seems like piling on right now, but NFL football is a mess. Last weekend was a cavalcade of all the problems that bobblehead media members have been pointing to as to why the league is suffering a serious ratings decline. The primetime games were boring and poorly played. (And this week's lineup - featuring the Jags-Titans and Vikings-Bears games - doesn't look any more appealing.) The Sunday games weren't much better, with a clown car of stupidity dominating the proceedings.

NFL Power Rankings Week 7
by Robert Ferringo - 10/19/2016

"Who have you played and who have you beaten?" A certain college basketball analyst is fond of using this phrase to help simplify the sometimes mystifying process of selecting at-large teams to the NCAA Tournament. It seems like a simple mantra. But the point of the question is to say that teams aren't always what their records - and public perceptions - purport them to be.

NFL Power Rankings Week 6
by Robert Ferringo - 10/12/2016

One of the reasons being cited for the decline in football viewership this year is fans' exasperation over how convoluted the NFL's games have become. No one seems to know what a catch is, no one seems to understand how the games are officiated (or why officiating is so inconsistent), and on the whole there are a lot of average fans out there that just don't seem to be able to follow what is going on in the game.

NFL Power Rankings Week 5
by Robert Ferringo - 10/5/2016

Quarterback is the most overrated position in sports. This isn't some trolling Hot Take. And I'm not trying to take anything away from what is the most difficult and important position in sports. (Although I'm sure starting pitchers and hockey goalies would make their case otherwise.) Quarterbacks are conductors in our weekly symphony of violence. And no other position requires the talent and focus, both physically and mentally, as NFL quarterback.

NFL Power Rankings Week 4
by Robert Ferringo - 9/28/2016

True knowledge is knowing that you know nothing. Socrates was one of the world's great minds and a massive fan of irony, ethics and a strong vertical passing game. And his insight into the comical worthlessness of human understanding has never been more apt heading into Week 4 of the NFL season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 3
by Robert Ferringo - 9/21/2016

Just two weeks into the season and you can smell the stench of panic coating teams throughout the NFL. Everyone knows the gruesome numbers about the probability of a team that starts the season 0-2 making the playoffs (it is somewhere just north of 10 percent). But it is even worse for teams that start 0-3, as only five clubs in the history of the NFL have been able to turn their seasons around after losing their first three games.

NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/14/2016

Lost in all of the talk about Jack Del Rio's decision to go for a two-point conversion, and thus the win for Oakland over New Orleans last Sunday, was the fact that so many NFL still coaches still don't know when the right time to go for two is. And that idiocy was on full display in Week 1 of the 2016 season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/8/2016

Summer is dead. Winter is coming. The war drums are sounding on the horizon and echo over the hills. This symphony of ritualized violence, brought to you by the National Football League and the global telecommunications apparatus, is about to commence. And We will all follow the tune. We will allow ourselves to ingest that mystic concoction of gambling and brutality that we've come to know so well. It dulls our collective senses to the ruse that is the NFL. The League, run by the most loathsome and vile collection of sociopaths this side of the "Suicide Squad", has allowed The Game to become diluted.

2015 NFL Power Rankings Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/30/2015

The two biggest NFL stories of the week were Bill Belichick's decision to kickoff at the start of overtime and the firing of Chip Kelly. Both of them were unique situations. But in a way the media firestorm surrounding both were born of the same fundamental underlying issue: it's all about results.