NFL Power Rankings, Week 8: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 7
14. Cincinnati Bengals
Yes, we’ve got the 3-4 Cincinnati Bengals up this high. You can say what you want but I think we all knew that the cream would eventually rise to the top here. The Bengals didn’t just got and beat the Detroit Lions or anything, but getting to 3-4 after a win against the Cleveland Browns was huge for this Cincinnati team.
Now, we do have to pump the brakes a little bit. The Bengals have beaten the Browns, the Giants, and the Panthers this season. They have lost to all of their really quality opponents (Commanders, Chiefs, Ravens) and they lost a clunker to the New England Patriots back in Week 1.
But as the year progresses, I’m really expecting this Bengals team to continue to get back on track and stay on track. The Bengals only needed 223 total yards of offense to beat the Browns in Week 7.
They’ve got matchups up next against the Eagles, Raiders, and Ravens. We’ll see if the Bengals can keep on climbing.
13. San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers aren’t going to continue to get the benefit of the doubt as the season progresses. Obviously, we’re basically putting an asterisk by the start of this season because of the absence of Christian McCaffrey as well as other players who have missed time this season.
Oh, and now Brandon Aiyuk is hurt again.
The 49ers just don’t look like they are the same class of team this year as compared to what we’ve gotten used to. Even with a poor record, we’ve had the 49ers (at least when I write these things up) ranked pretty high in our NFL power rankings. And a loss to the Chiefs is not deplorable, even with the 49ers playing at home, but the 49ers couldn’t take advantage of mistakes made by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. They answered back the mistakes of the Chiefs with mistakes of their own.
The 49ers are just like the 2024 NFL version of the basketball players from the original Space Jam movie. It’s like someone’s stolen their football “superpowers”. They don’t look like one of the top teams in the NFC but I’m still somewhat optimistic they’ll stay in the mix.