NFL Power Rankings, Week 8: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 7

26. New Orleans Saints

It wasn’t all that long ago that the New Orleans Saints were up near the top of these NFL Power Rankings because this team scored a whopping 91 points in the first two weeks of the season. Remember that? Remember when Klint Kubiak was on his way to becoming the next wunderkind head coach candidate?

Remember when things were going well for the New Orleans Saints?

Too bad, for their sake, that the season didn’t end after two weeks. The Saints have lost five straight games and they have looked absolutely horrible on top of getting injured just about everywhere on this roster. It was the Saints’ replacements against the Denver Broncos on Thursday night, and the results was entirely too predictable. The Saints were smacked around on their home field in Sean Payton’s return to New Orleans.

It’s not overly fair to say this team is bad, but they have been losing games with or without their starters in the lineup.

25. New York Giants

The New York Giants had a chance to make Saquon Barkley feel like he made the wrong choice this offseason, but they did anything but. In fact, the Giants really helped validate Barkley’s decision to leave for the division-rival Eagles in the 2024 offseason as Barkley ran all over them and the Giants dropped to 2-5 on the season.

The Giants were absolutely smacked around on their home field by the Eagles, and to be fair, the Eagles were coming off of a bye week and had a lot of time to prepare. They just simply got out-classed and the Giants are once again left in a spot that is super confusing in terms of their projection the rest of this season and beyond.

I just don’t think that the Giants have enough of a difference-maker in Daniel Jones to really keep this team competitive. I don’t think we’ll see them be big sellers at the NFL trade deadline, either, but the Giants should hover around this spot in the NFL Power Rankings every week barring a surprising and dramatic turnaround.