Rob's NFL Yard: Week 15 Power Rankings

Hi NFLers

Welcome to my weekly NFL Power Rankings, a look at how I rank the 32 NFL teams after the Monday Night Football fallout. The figures to the right of the logo denote each team’s current record while the number to the left in brackets is where I had them placed last week.
With Green Bay standing alone, unbeaten, as they have all season, we have six teams vying for second spot with 10-3 records. New Orleans retain second place and I’ve been unequivocal in keeping them there for the past few weeks; only after this week do I finally feel vindicated.
I now want them to face the 49ers in the Superdome in the divisional round of the playoffs…it would be a no contest and the Saints possess the only offense in the NFC capable of troubling the Packers at Lambeau Field before Super Bowl XLVI.
However, the one duel that has me transfixed above all others? Step forward the Giants from New York and those Cowboys from Dallas. Their respective 7-6 records suggest exactly what they are: two inconsistent teams who should ultimately threaten nobody in the bigger picture that becomes clearer the closer we get to Sunday, February 5 in Indianapolis, but…
…this is an intriguing contest, nay battle, in arguably the proudest division in the NFL, the NFC East. When I was but twelve years of age, when this sport first fascinated me (an emotion that will never leave me), few games gripped me more than Cowboys/Redskins, Eagles/Giants, Cowboys/Eagles, Giants/Redskins, Eagles/Redskins, Cowboys/Giants.
I should probably offer up an apology here to the Arizona Cardinals, but the 2002 division realignment (when the Houston Texans became the NFL’s 32nd team) couldn’t have happened a minute sooner as it took the Cards out of a division they never truly belonged in. The NFC East was too big for them and even they knew it. So, back to 2011 and the scrap between the NYG and the Cowboys.
That they play on the final Sunday of the regular season on January 1 in what I hope is for the division title makes this rivalry just that little bit more interesting (as though it needed any encouragement) and takes your correspondent back to the heady days of the 1980s and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Tom Landry and Bill Parcells will always remain the faces of these franchises to yours truly and I can only hope that just one person reading this may wish to look up what happened in Super Bowl XXV or at the immaculate dress sense of Landry, forever resplendant in his fedora.
The images from that Super Bowl and/or Landry on the sideline looking like the coolest Joe in the neighbourhood are what lit my fire and I almost dare you not to feel that same desire for this sport when contemplating what may be between these famous old rivals. Yes, it’s unlikely that either team will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, but that isn’t always what the NFL is about. It hooks and holds as games unfold and what this league has above other sports is the opportunity to witness comebacks and unlikely victories on a weekly basis. And don’t get me started on the Draft! A New Hope (if I may be allowed to borrow the title of Mr. Lucas’s original masterpiece) for 32 teams and a new beginning for every franchise because, as we know, on Any Given Sunday…

Big love for: Giants and Cowboys (obviously! Dallas, you really shouldn’t be here, but nostalgia isn’t to be underestimated!)

No love for: This is a first…no team falls that far as to leave me disillusioned, which leaves me with a delicious opportunity. It’s no secret that I’m a diehard Seahawk so I hope I’m allowed to say that, just this once, I have the least love in the league for the Arizona Cardinals, St. Louis Rams and (in particular) San Francisco 49ers (they could be 0-13 right now and I’d still reserve nothing for them). That said, I have a grudging respect for the job Jim Harbaugh has done in San Fran this season and he does deserve to be Coach of the Year in my (sporting) opinion. However, I wish Drew Brees all the luck in the world in the playoffs!

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