With another crazy week of college football, which included four of the top 13 teams in the country losing, I decided to make my own top 25 rankings. I largely agree with the top ten of the CFP and AP lists, I just flipped around numbers six to eight a bit. After that, I trust what I see when I put on the games each Saturday (and when I study the tape throughout the week). Of course I also have to take an outlook for each program into consideration as well, because I just can’t put any two-loss team from the Power Five, which doesn’t even have a chance to play in the conference championship game, above one who still basically controls their own destiny and has a chance to leave a mark on me and the committee. Without further ado, here’s my list:
What we’ve learned over the first half of the 2017 NFL season:
With eight weeks and the trade deadline in the books, there’s plenty of perceptions and realizations around the league. I tried to sum up these developments in twelve observations, I believe to be true. Not everybody will agree with all of them, but I trust what I see with my eyes and I’ll try to make you by what you read here.
Rookie Stock Watch:
There have been some amazing rookie performances so far this season and it’s time to revisit the draft. Some of those young guys have exceeded expectations, while others have yet to play up to their potential or simply haven’t seen the field much as of now. You can never really tell how good your investment will be after just a couple of weeks, but I wanted to list my top 20 rookies at this point. Here they are:
NFL Quarterback Index:
With the landscape of quarterbacks in the NFL pretty unclear right now, I tried to do my best in ranking all 32 starters as of how I think of them right now, going into week six. I made up my own categories to list these guys among, but I didn’t define the difference between each of them. It’s more about which profile they fit and at which stage of their career I believe they are.
Power Rankings at the quarter-mark of the 2017 NFL season:
We live in a crazy world right now in which the Jets share the same record as the Patriots. Last week I published an article about how underdogs dominated week three of the season and that trend continued into last Sunday, most notably the Bills winning in Atlanta, the Rams defeating the Cowboys at Jerry World and the Panthers bringing down the reigning world champs at Gillette Stadium. With all that swirling around in the air, it’s hard to point out the teams that are for real, but I tried to rank all 32 of them as of how good (or bad) I think they are right now and going forward. After week six of last season, the Vikings were a team at 5-0 many thought could win the Super Bowl because of how dominant their defense looked and I had to as my number among my power rankings back then, but they went on to finish the year right at 8-8 and miss the playoffs. So you can never know how things will pan out in the NFL, especially with the way the start of the season has surprised us already.
How the underdogs dominated early week three:
While everybody talked about the peaceful protests shown by teams around the NFL, the theme that kind of went under the radar on Sunday was how many prohibitive favorites went down to underdogs in the early games. I want to take a look at how those five teams overcame the odds and came up with the Ws. Here we go:
Must-win games for teams around the NFL after week two:
After looking at the state of college football over the last two weeks, I want to shift the focus back to the NFL. With two weeks in, we have learned something about each team and while some of them have started better than expected, a few others have underachieved. In this segment, I’m taking a look at three teams with a 0-2 and 1-1 record each, which have crucial matchups coming up. I don’t want to overreact to a team’s record after two weeks of game action, but those squads are largely expected to compete for a playoff spot at the end of the year and could have their next contest determine how the rest of the season will go for them or maybe even be the deciding factor in terms of making it to the postseason or not. So this list does not include juggernauts like the Patriots, who lost their season-opener, or teams who will most likely finish with a top ten draft pick once again.
Top five players by position entering the 2017 college football season – Defense edition:
After looking at the five best players at each offensive position a week ago, I want to do the same for the other side of the ball. Once again, this list isn’t a prospect ranking for the pro level, but rather my scouting report for the college players at this point. I came up with those names as a combination of what the players would be able to do regardless of their school and how well I think they play in the scheme of their defense.
Top five players by position entering the 2017 college football season – Offense edition:
This is not a scouting report for the pro level, but rather just based on how I’d rank them heading into this college football season according to what I saw last year and in week one just now. I obviously haven’t quite watched as much tape on them as I did on the draft prospects a few months ago, but I’ve watched a lot of college football over the last several years and couldn’t help but already take a look at a couple of games of all those guys. This list will also be interesting to look at the end of the season and when really scouting the prospects, to compare it with what I come up then.
Check in next week again for the edition on defense.
Standouts from the 2017 NFL preseason:
The preseason always offers undrafted free agents a shot to earn a roster spot, other plays a way to move up on the depth chart and some just a chance to show the coaching staff what they’re capable of. In this segment, I want to point about twelve players, who I thought proved something in these games leading up to the regular season. All of them fit a different bill and the results will vary for each of them. Either way, all of those guys impressed me and helped themselves earn some more playing time.
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