NFL Power Rankings, Week 4: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 3

14. Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions suffered a really disappointing loss on their home field in Week 2 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and they knew it wasn’t going to be easy going into Arizona and finding a way to gut out a win.

And to say the Lions gut out a win against the Arizona Cardinals this week feels like the perfect way to put it. The Cardinals gave them all they could handle but the Lions made a lot of big plays at the right time defensively and got the offense some stops despite the passing game not being overly efficient against Arizona.

The running game was working for Detroit, however, and David Montgomery combined with Jahmyr Gibbs for 188 yards on 39 carries. The Lions need to continue leaning into that running game but Jared Goff and the offense need to do more than 20 points when the defense holds the other team to just 1-of-9 on third downs.

13. New Orleans Saints

After the way they started the first two games of the 2024 season, the New Orleans Saints’ lack of offense against the Philadelphia Eagles was nothing short of shocking.

The Saints put up a whopping 91 points in the first two weeks of the year, but they were barely able to get 12 points on the board against the Philadelphia Eagles in a loss. So are the Saints true contenders or are they pretenders in the NFC South?

I think a lot is to be determined this season yet, of course, but they have a lot of work to do after what we saw on Sunday, as impressive as the first two weeks were. And you can’t completely discount what the Saints were able to do in the first two weeks, but one of those games was against the Carolina Panthers and another was against the Dallas Cowboys, who gave up a lot of points again on Sunday against the Ravens.

The Saints simply could not move the ball through the air against the Eagles’ defense, and Derek Carr threw a really bad interception late in this one.