NFL Power Rankings Week 9 - Out Of The Darkness

by 3k on Nov 3, 2011 8:00 AM CDT in 2011 NFL regular season

Winning maintains the grinning. The St. Louis Rams got their Winless Club card revoked in beating the Saints, and the conventional wisdom rewarded them in the NFL power rankings.

Jumping nearly three points this week, the Rams began the long climb out of the basement. I say long, because whether it takes another few games or more than this season offers, it's not going to be anytime this month.

For reference, here's last week's ranking summary.

Average ranking (# of rankings)	28.11 (9)
Average change from last week	+2.67
Highest ranking (source)	26th (Pro Football Talk)
Lowest ranking (source)	29th (multiple sources)
Biggest positive change (source)	+5 (Pro Football Talk)
Biggest negative change (source)	+1 (multiple sources)

SB Nation: 27th (30th last week)

Rams beat Saints. Perfect example of how much we know about the NFL (which is very little).

The rest of the major power rankings after the jump.

ESPN: 29th (30th)

Six division games in the final nine weeks will help the Rams as the season progresses.

NFL.com: 29th (32nd)

Where the hell did that come from? We need to see a few strong performances to move this team more than three spots. Speaking of a strong performance: So the baseball Cardinals get lucky against the Rangers in the World Series and all of a sudden A.J. Feeley has a better arm than Chris Carpenter? Steven Jackson was awesome Sunday with 191 yards and two touchdowns, and it was nice to see. What a career. Since 2006, Jackson has 8,922 yards from scrimmage, tops in the league over that span.

CBS Sports: 29th (30th)

Give Steve Spagnuolo credit for getting this team ready to play against the Saints. The play of that defense has to be inspiring for next season.

Pro Football Talk: 26th (31st)

The team’s passion and enthusiasm in Week Eight makes us wonder where it was the rest of the season..

Pro Football Weekly: 29th (30th)

Perfect time for Steven Jackson to step up, get Rams in win column.

Fox Sports: 28th (31st)

When RB Steven Jackson is at 100 percent, he is the difference maker for this team, but he wasn't the only reason they beat the Saints on Sunday. DE Chris Long finally played like the first-rounder the Rams have been waiting for, and he led the charge to apply consistent pressure on Saints QB Drew Brees and force him into terrible throws down the field.

National Football Post: 29th (32nd)

Chris Long and Steven Jackson tore up the Saints in the Rams’ upset win.

Sports Illustrated: 27th (31st)

I'm not predicting the Rams climb all the way out of the hole they dug for themselves, but at least you saw a glimpse of their potential in that 31-21 upset of the Saints last Sunday. And don't forget that St. Louis has yet to play a division game, so there's that. Five of the Rams' coming six games are against the Cardinals (two), the Seahawks (two) and the 49ers (one).

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Comments

I almost choked on

my coffee reading what SB Nation’s comment was

Rams on the Rise. We can't go down from here.

by Brawnwitch on Nov 3, 2011 8:14 AM CDT reply actions

Funny

thing is some of what these guys are saying is what alot of us have been saying. Guys like Long have to play up to their status/ability. The first 6 games it was more a matter of player execution than coaching in my opinion. Sure Spags does get some blame but when players execute the plan and win their individual battles the majority of the time the team wins. In the Saints game players finally executed the game plan. Long played like the guy who led the league in QB hurries last year and Quinn showed a glimpse of why he was a top pick. Now this has to transfer over to every game. Spags did nothing different this week than any other week. The players finally played to their potential.

by RWRAMS28 on Nov 3, 2011 8:44 AM CDT reply actions

not true that Spags did "nothing" different

That timeout right after the two-minute warning is an aggressive call that he’s rarely made.

Turf Show Times editor, Mocking the Draft writer, and I gots that Twitter too, yo.
"my keyboard won't corporate, neighter will my smell check." - Knoxfan

by 3k on Nov 3, 2011 9:41 AM CDT up reply actions

Spags did something completely different versus the Saints ...

… he finally got his team ready to play an NFL game.

Feed the BEAST!!

by Midasknight on Nov 3, 2011 10:31 AM CDT up reply actions

Really

Does your boss have to get you ready to go to work. These guys are grown men who get paid to work. The coaches install a game plan. Their job is to execute the plan. I don’t think during the week Spags magically did soemthing different that made the guys say “Hey now we are ready to play and NFL game”. When you have guys equaling their season sack output in one game Spags did nothing different. It was Long who did something different. It was the offense who did something different that allowed the D to play more comfortably and vice versa.

by RWRAMS28 on Nov 3, 2011 11:48 AM CDT up reply actions