NFL Power Rankings, Week 6: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 5

22. Los Angeles Chargers

The Los Angeles Chargers didn’t lose in Week 5, which is promising. They also didn’t play.

How many times are we going to use that joke this season? Stay tuned…

The Chargers dropped two straight games before their bye week, and usually early bye weeks are not preferred but it actually felt like the Chargers kind of needed one. Whether we’re talking about the health of some of their key players or just stopping some of the bleeding from their last two games, the bye came at a decent time for Jim Harbaugh and his crew.

We’ll see how they come out of the bye week facing off against a red-hot Denver Broncos team on the road as the Broncos jumped to 3-2 and have one of the best defenses in the league. With all of the changes they made in the offseason, we’ve seen the Chargers look exactly like a team with a brand-new head coach. There have been moments where this team has looked totally galvanized under Harbaugh and there have been moments where they look like they are a handful of pieces away from being relevant. 

21. Arizona Cardinals

I was putting these NFL Power Rankings together during the afternoon slate of games, and as I’m watching these games unfold, I am being forced to move the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers around. The Cardinals checked in at no. 28 on last week’s power rankings, which was pretty low for a team that I’ve been high on throughout the course of the offseason and early into this season.

We have seen Jonathan Gannon’s teams come through with some nice performances against teams that were clearly better than them on paper, and this one was no different. This game was the biggest spread of the week (49ers favored by 7.5 points at home) and the Cardinals came in and knocked them off.

It’s the beauty of the NFL. Any team, any Sunday, any week, no matter what. It’s not like the Cardinals are terrible, but the 49ers are just a shockingly different team than I think anyone expected. Even when you factor in the injuries. Let’s see if the Cardinals can build on this one.