NFL Power Rankings Week 9: Cowboys Take A Dive

After Sunday's game, this is an awkward week for posting power rankings, but here we go anyway.

The Cowboys predictably drop a couple of spots to an average of around 18, effectively switching places with the Eagles who move up four spots to 14th. The Giants continue to scratch at the door to the top 10 but don't quite make it, and the Redskins find themselves firmly stuck in the twenties.

After the break, we look at 20 different power rankings. In previous summaries of this kind I found the deviation between the various rankings a little annoying, so I've grouped them a little differently this week, see if you like it.

Week 8 (previous rankings in parenthesis)

Fox Sports: 18th (18th). Brian Billick likes the Cowboys' soft schedule: "Jerry Jones seemed oddly calm after a loss to Philly, but the Cowboys may draw confidence from the fact that they have only one winning team on the schedule in the month of November, the Bills, and they get them at home in Jerry's World."

Walter Football: 19th (12th). No comments this week, as the site only provides comments for the top ten and bottom ten teams.

Drafttek.com: 19th (15th). The Draft Gurus are not the words types when it's not draft season and don't provide any comments. They move the Cowboys up two spots.

Covers.com: 19th (15th). "The only good news for the Boys is that the schedule is beyond easy the rest of the way. They need all the help they can get."

CBSsports.com: 20th (14th). "What was that in Philadelphia? The defense was horrible. This team is way too inconsistent."

National Football Post: 20th (15th). "An embarrassing loss for Romo, Rob Ryan, Jerry Jones, etc. out in Philly."

NFL.com's Brain Trust of Experts: 20th (16th). Pat Kirwan ranks the Cowboys 17th, all other panelists rank the Cowboys between 19th and 21st.

ProFootballTalk.com: 20th (18th). "The Rob Ryan head-coaching express continues to be a slow train to nowhere."

WEEI.com: 21st (15th). "Cowboys fans can blame Tony Romo all they want, but the protection he’s getting from the offensive line has been abysmal. The offense has plenty of weapons, but when the line gets pushed around like it did on Sunday, it’s almost impossible to win."

Pro Football Weekly: 21st (26th). "Rarely can anyone fluster Rob Ryan the way the Eagles did."

SB Nation: 21st (16th). "Yikes...that was a beat down at the hands of Philly"

ESPN: 21st (18th). "Rob Ryan and his defense got embarrassed by the Eagles. Luckily, they get a bounce-back game against Seattle on Sunday."

Sporting News: 21st (19th). "You had to feel bad for Ware as he was racking up four sacks in his team's otherwise forgettable Sunday night performance against the Eagles."

Advanced NFL Stats: 6th (4th). The Cowboys slip only two spots, despite the meltdown against the Eagles. The offense drops to eighth (-2) the defense drops to eleventh (-3).

WhatIFsports: 8th (3rd). These guys simulate every possible match-up 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.

Beatgraphs: 11th (19th). Beatgraphs is based on head-to-head matchups and calculates a series of Team A beat Team B beat Team C scenarios to arrive at a ranking where if Team A has beaten Team B, Team A will be ranked above B. It may sound odd that the Cowboys are moving up after a loss, but at the very least, this site provides an interesting and alternative take on power rankings. Definitely worth checking out - if only for the mind-bending rankings graph they produce.

Sagarin NFL rankings: 15th (8th). These are rankings based on W/L record, points differential and schedule strength. Cowboys move up a spot as the Ravens tumble into the 9th spot after their heinous Monday Night loss to the Jaguars

Football Outsiders: 16th (9th). FO have the Cowboys with the 15th-ranked offense (-4), the eighth-ranked defense (-5) and the 26th ranked special teams (+2).

Teamrankings.com: 18th (12th). This site measures the relative strength of all teams using team performance, home/away status, margin of victory and other factors.

Aikman Ratings: 21st (11th). The Aikman Efficiency Ratings use seven statistics in five categories to calculate team strengths: yards per rush and yards per pass; third-down conversions; total first downs; adjusted points (total scoring minus points from returns and safeties); red-zone performance; and turnovers.

Below is how the NFC East fared in this week's power rankings, with next week's opponent, the Seahawks, added for good measure:

	Week9	Week 8	Week 9	Week8	Week 9	Week8	Week 9	Week8	Week 9
Foxsports	18	18	15	17	11	12	24	21	29
Walter Football	19	12	6	15	11	10	27	25	28
Drafttek	19	15	16	19	11	12	23	20	26
Covers.com	19	15	16	17	5	10	25	23	30
CBS Sports	20	14	18	21	4	5	22	18	27
NFP	20	15	8	14	5	6	24	22	27
NFL.com	20	16	15	19	9	8	25	22	27
PFT	20	18	19	21	6	6	24	22	29
WEEI.com	21	15	14	18	10	10	22	23	29
ProFootballWeekly	21	16	17	21	7	7	23	20	27
SBNation	21	16	18	21	10	10	22	19	30
ESPN	21	18	16	22	9	11	22	20	27
Sporting News	21	19	14	17	7	7	26	24	28
Avg. Opinion-based	20.0	15.9	14.8	19.0	8.1	9.2	23.8	21.4	28.0
AdvancedNFLStats.com	6	4	3	9	9	8	17	14	29
Whatifsports.com	8	3	14	17	12	13	26	22	28
Beatgraphs	11	19	15	17	22	7	19	24	21
Sagarin Ratings	15	8	11	18	20	20	23	23	26
Football Outsiders	16	9	13	16	7	10	25	21	26
Team Rankings	18	12	11	20	20	19	25	28	23
Aikman Ratings	21	11	14	22	8	8	23	20	24
Avg. Stat-based	13.6	9.4	11.6	17.0	14.0	12.1	22.6	21.7	25.3
Total Average	17.8	13.7	13.7	18.3	10.2	10.3	23.4	21.5	27.1

The missing rankings will be updated as they become available