NFL Power Rankings, Week 12: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 11

14. Atlanta Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons just didn’t have it against the Denver Broncos on Sunday. The Broncos suffered a close loss last week against the Kansas City Chiefs, and it just felt like from Denver’s opening drive that they weren’t going to be denied.

The Falcons have a little room for error right now in the NFC South, but the New Orleans Saints are going to start making things interesting if the Falcons don’t get it together quickly. Atlanta is heading into a bye week and they’ll have a lot of time to stew on getting kind of whooped by the Denver Broncos before they take on the Chargers (in Atlanta) and Vikings (in Minnesota) in consecutive games.

By the time December 8 is said and done, we’ll see if the Falcons are still firmly in that NFC South driver’s seat.

13. Washington Commanders

I’ve been sort of anticipating a little bit of a backslide for the Washington Commanders here this season, which is no slight to what they’ve accomplished thus far nor is it an indictment over what they could become. 

The Commanders have a chance to make the playoffs this season after finishing with the 2nd-worst record in the entire league last year. That’s huge for Dan Quinn and his staff. But good feels for this organization aren’t going to get this team to the playoffs. They’ve got to execute.

Jayden Daniels hasn’t been quite as sensational as we saw pre-injury this season, and while you admire him for gutting it out on the field, he’s got to make sure he leads his team to wins in the next two weeks. The commanders have the Cowboys and Titans in consecutive games. The NFL scheduling powers that be basically have gifted that team its 8th and 9th wins of the season if they take care of business.