NFL Power Rankings, Week 1: Cowboys A Top 10 Team?

I won't be long now until the Cowboys kick off the season against the "New York City Football National Football League Football Giants, Of New Jersey".

You can feel the excitement. You’ve done your homework. You've read every training camp report. You've built countless permutations of the 53-man roster and have started having dreams about the BTB roster builder. You’ve scoured the internet for players on the waiver wire and you've followed the roster cuts like it was the real NFL Draft. There's only one question left to answer: how good are the 2013 Cowboys?

Nobody really knows, but there's an elite among the football cognoscenti who can answer that question without so much as blinking an eye, and they can even put a number to it: The people regularly publishing NFL power rankings know exactly how good the Cowboys are. So let's take our first look of the season at a collection of power rankings and where they see the Cowboys.

Top 10 power rankings: 1. 49ers, 2. Seahawks, 3, Bengals, 4, Falcons, 5. Texans, 6. Ravens, 7, Packers, 8. Broncos, 9. Patriots, 10. Cowboys

— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) September 2, 2013

Baltimore Sun - 10th: "Not a lot of great options for the last spot in the top 10, but once again, the Cowboys enter the season as a great team on paper, so let's go with them here."

CBSSports - 14th: "It's time to start picking Tony Romo apart. After all, isn't that what most do when the Cowboys are mentioned, however misguided that might be?"

Covers.com - 14th: "Dez Bryant, Miles Austin and Jason Witten have a unique chemistry with Tony Romo, but Romo's interceptions nearly doubled last year from his stellar 2011 campaign."

Newsday - 15th: "Tony Romo has a bigger say in the offense, and the defense switches to a 4-3 with ageless Monte Kiffin at the controls. Might be good enough for a playoff run."

NY Daily News - 16th: "Among the teams with talent, they are the most dysfunctional. D should be better under Monte Kiffin."

SB Nation - 16th: "Dallas is taking the committee approach to calling plays this season, with Bill Callahan ostensibly in charge. Of course Tony Romo and Jason Garrett will have some say in the matter, and Jerry Jones still has a hotline from the owner's box to the sideline, for better or for worse, usually worse when it comes to the Cowboys."

Houston Chronicle - 17th: "Offensive coordinator Bill Callahan is calling the plays. Monte Kiffin, 72, is the new defensive coordinator. And all the pressure is still on QB Tony Romo."

ESPN - 18th: "The defense ranked last in QBR allowed on throws deeper than 10 yards downfield last season. Monte Kiffin's Tampa 2 will help cornerbacks Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne."

Shutdown Corner - 19th: "The Cowboys looked fairly sharp in August. DeMarco Murray has to be healthy and effective to make sure Tony Romo doesn't have to do too much."

That's a fairly large gap between number 10 and number 19. Where would you rank the Cowboys as they head into the 2013 season?