NFL Power Rankings, Week 7: Steelers, Buccaneers make emphatic leap

It seems like whenever a team holds onto a head coach too long, the team that finally gets freed from that coach has a breakout game. That happened last week with the Houston Texans who finally let go of Bill O’Brien and then got a win. The same thing happened this weekend as the Atlanta Falcons finally decided to move on from Dan Quinn.

For some reason, they brought him back this year despite practically everyone knowing it was no longer working, and after an 0-4 start, they elected to fire Quinn and promote Raheem Morris to interim head coach. It proved to be a good move as Morris had the Falcons playing out of their minds.

They started things out with an interception from Deion Jones on the first play from scrimmage for Minnesota. They promptly went up 7-0 and before long it was 23-0. In the end, Atlanta dropped 40 points and won 40-23 for their first win of the season.

Matt Ryan looked like the old Matt Ryan, tossing 371 yards and four touchdowns. They also got a vintage game from Julio Jones as he had 137 yards and two touchdowns on eight receptions. Now with a few winnable games coming up, it will be interesting to see if Morris can keep them winning.