NFL Power rankings - Week 10 - Final Edition

Here's the early edition of our weekly power ranking roundup heading into week 10. Special preview guest this week: The Packers.

As usual, the final update should be up by Wednesday night.

1. Major Media Networks & Affiliates

SportingNews.com: 6th (+1). "Wade Phillips is smiling these days. His seat is not so hot, but his team definitely is."

Pete Prisco at CBSSports.com: 7th (+2)."Dallas is suddenly a hot team in first place. Where did all those problems go? The defense is really coming on. How do you contain Miles Austin?"

NationalFootballPost.com: 7th (+2). "Tony Romo looks like the best quarterback in the NFC East and he has a first-place team to show for it."

Michael Silver at Yahoo Sports: 8th (+2). "Is Miles Austin too good to be true?"

NFL.com's Brain Trust of Experts: 8th (+-0). Two Cowboys make it to Vic Carucci's top five:

• Top Five Defensive Players: "No. 4: Jay Ratliff, DT, Dallas. He led a sterling performance by the Cowboys' defensive line vs. the Eagles. Besides helping to stop a diving Donovan McNabb short on fourth-and-1, he was credited with five tackles, two sacks, and a pair of tackles for loss."
• Top Five Coaches: "No. 4: Wade Phillips, Dallas. Can we put to rest, once and for all, the silly talk that this guy doesn't know what he's doing and that the Cowboys must replace him as their coach" Amen.

[update] Fox Sports: 8th (+2). "First Half Blessing: Duh. No-brainer here, as WR Miles Austin has come out of nowhere to seemingly save the Cowboys' season and possibly Wade Phillips' job over the last four games. First Half Curse: Until Austin's emergence, the Curse of T.O. lingered with an offense that couldn't find itself. Looking forward, Tony Romo now only faces his own cursed Decembers of the past."

ESPN: 8th (+-0). "A maturer Cowboys team is atop the NFC East. (Clayton)"

[update] SI.com lets loose with a flurry of Cowboys related stuff this week:

[update] Don Banks' Power Rankings: 8th (+1). "There are a pretty fair group of 6-2 teams in the league right now, and I wanted to jack the Cowboys up into the middle of them after their gutsy win at Philly Sunday night. But there's plenty of time left for them to climb, and the Broncos did beat Dallas head-to-head in Week 4. If the Cowboys can get past Green Bay on the road in a rather tricky game this week, they're well-positioned to roll into December at 9-2 and then take their chances with the month that has bedeviled them for most of this decade." He also weighed in with these pearls of wisdom in his Mid-Season Report:

• "Best performance under the gun -- Tony Romo, QB, Dallas: They were all but writing Romo's obituary after a Week 4 loss at Denver dropped Dallas to 2-2, with seemingly every former Cowboys star shy of Duane Thomas coming out of the woodwork to critique the quarterback's inconsistent game. But one four-game winning streak later, the first-place Cowboys are being led to some pretty big things by their efficient (one interception in four games), big-play-making quarterback."
• "Breakout player of the year -- Miles Austin, WR, Dallas: Who needs T.O.? Not the Cowboys. Not when they've got M.A. In the four starts he has made since replacing Patrick Crayton in the Dallas lineup, Austin has exploded for six touchdowns, almost all of them of the long ball variety."
• Peter King in MMQB: 6th (+5)."I thought long and hard about putting Jay Ratliff on my Midseason All-Pro Team, and I'm even more of a Ratliff guy after watching last night. Two sacks, five tackles, constant disruption. That's a franchise defensive tackle, even if he doesn't have the pedigree." Peter King also has an extended piece on a potentially season-altering win for Dallas.
• Jim Trotter has this to say in his 2nd half predictions: "The Cowboys will be one-and-done in the playoffs. With all due respect to Cowboys fans, I just can't get excited about their sudden surge to the top of the NFC East. That little thing called "December" keeps popping into my head. QB Tony Romo has lost five of his last seven starts during the Christmas month, throwing nearly twice as many interceptions (11) as touchdowns (six) in those games; my crystal ball says his struggles will continue down the stretch this year." Well Jim, your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear.
  

2. Blogs & Other Media

[update] ColdHardFootballFacts.com: 6th (+3). "The Cowboys’ starting offensive line has 540 combined career starts, most in the league. But that hasn’t stopped them from being whistled for 19 flags in eight games, well above NFL average. But they do rank No. 6 in our Offensive Hog Index."

ProFootballWeekly: 7th (+2). "Austin proves it's not important how many passes you are thrown."

SBNation: 7th (+2). "Just when you thought it was safe to ignore the Cowboys, the Ewing Theory strikes with a vengeance. Absent the drama that is TO, the Cowboys have quietly begun clicking on both sides of the ball, climbing to the top of the NFC East standings."

Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk.com: 7th (+4). "No matter what Tony Romo does the rest of the regular season, the pressure will be crippling when he plays his next playoff game."

Weii.com: 8th (+1). "There is a lot of confidence in the Cowboys locker room. That is what a four-game winning streak will do for a team. In this stretch of wins, Dallas has managed to beat two solid teams in the Falcons and Eagles. If Tony Romo can continue to protect the football, this team can compete with the best in the NFC."

Walter Football: 8th (+5). "I'm not going to praise the Cowboys for their win over the Eagles. I'm not going to say anything about their 6-2 record. If you want to hear analysis like this, tune into ESPN. Winning in November has never been an issue for the Cowboys. They have to prove to me that they can avoid choking in December and January. Once they come up big late in the year, I'll give them credit."

Zac Wassink at AssociatedContent is missed this weeks deadline.

3. Statictics & Computer based rankings.

tom slick publishes his Rankings on SBNation's The Falcoholic: 4th (+-0). He currently weighs offensive and defensive points scored/allowed relative to all other teams to determine his rankings.

[update] FootballOutsiders: 5th (+4). Offense ranked No. 5, Defense No. 20, Special Teams No. 5. These guys adjust their rankings for opponent strength and have a long long and increasingly obvious history as notorious Eagles (No. 2) & Patriots (No. 1) lovers.

Great Blue North Draft Report: 6th (+1). This site calculates rankings by first round draft selection order based on own and opponent W/L record if the season were to end today.

[update] AdvancedNFLstats: 6th (+-0). Offense ranked No. 2, Defense ranked No. 24. This ranking model includes offensive and defensive passing and running efficiency, offensive turnover rates, defensive interception rates, and team penalty rates.

WhatIfSports: Cowboys 6th (-1). These guys simulate every possible matchup in the NFL 100 times, and use the winning percentages from those nearly 50,000 games to evaluate every team, with updated rosters and depth charts.

[update] Covers.com: 8th (+2). "Dallas is playing its best football of the season and the victory in Philadelphia can be huge for confidence. It has to be on upset alert in Green Bay this week."

Jeff Sagarin's NFL rankings: 10th (+3). These are rankings based on W/L record, points differential and schedule strength.

Here's how the NFC East - and our next opponent, the Packers - fared:

	This Week	Last Week	This Week	Last Week	This Week	Last Week	This Week	Last Week	This Week
tom slick	4	4	3	3	17	17	21	20	11
FootballOutsiders	5	9	2	2	14	13	22	22	9
Whatifsports	6	5	8	8	17	21	31	30	19
Advancednflstats	6	6	8	9	10	11	25	25	11
Great Blue North	6	7	10	5	13	10	27	24	18
SportingNews	6	7	9	9	15	15	26	24	19
NFP	7	9	10	8	16	14	28	28	18
CHFF	6	9	9	7	16	13	28	26	17
CBSsports	7	9	9	8	13	12	28	27	18
ProFootballWeekly	7	9	9	7	13	10	26	25	16
SBNation	7	9	8	7	15	13	27	26	16
ProFootballTalk	7	11	11	8	15	12	28	28	16
ESPN	8	8	11	9	15	15	26	25	16
NFL.com	8	8	11	7	15	13	28	26	18
Weii.com	8	9	10	8	16	12	27	27	20
SI.com	8	9	9	8	15	14	26	25	18
Yahoosports	8	10	10	9	15	13	26	26	18
Foxsports	8	10	9	9	17	13	27	27	18
Covers.com	8	10	12	15	16	17	26	30	17
Walter Football	8	13	14	8	15	12	26	26	19
Sagarin Ratings	10	13	16	17	17	20	30	30	18
Assoc. Content	- -	9	- -	5	- -	11	- -	30	- -
Average	7.0	8.8	9.4	8.0	15.0	13.6	26.6	26.3	16.7

For a summary of all NFL teams using some of the same rankings, go to NFLpowerranks.com