1. Indianapolis (2): An incredible two-week run with road victories vs. Denver and New England.
2. Chicago (1): Lovie Smith needs to right the ship right now.
3. Denver (4): Welcome back, Jake.
4. New York Giants (5): Can take control of NFC with victory vs. Bears today.
5. Baltimore (6): Offense has clicked since Jim Fassel was fired.
6. San Diego (7): Star linebacker Shawne Merriman is missed.
7. New England (3): Second bad Sunday night this season for Tom Brady.
8. New Orleans (9): Receiver Marques Colston is unreal.
9. Seattle (10): Boy, Seattle is wet.
10. Jacksonville (11): Maybe quarterback David Garrard is the guy.
11. Kansas City (13): Why sit quarterback Damon Huard?
12. Atlanta (8): This team doesn’t know who it is.
13. Cincinnati (12): Really, Chad, shut up.
14. Dallas (14): Crazy last-second loss to Washington stings.
15. Carolina (15): Maybe this team will come out of the bye with an identity. Maybe.
16. Philadelphia (17): Eagles must get going right now.
17. Minnesota (16): I smell a fraud.
18. New York Jets (19): If Jets are going to stick around, they must beat the Pats.
19. St. Louis (18): Rams can avenge close loss to Seattle today.
20. Buffalo (23): Bills showed they can beat a bad team. Big deal.
21. Tampa Bay (20): This team is toast.
22. Tennessee (21): Vince Young is going to have more tough times.
23. Cleveland (22): Browns didn’t have quite enough for the Chargers.
24. Washington (27): Win vs. Dallas was a season highlight.
25. San Francisco (28): The 49ers ranked higher than the Steelers. What, is it 1992?
26. Pittsburgh (24): Big Ben is a big mess.
27. Miami (31): Wow, just wow.
28. Detroit (30): There is a pulse after all.
29. Houston (25): Not quite good enough.
30. Green Bay (26): Fails to show any consistency.
31. Oakland (29): Raiders creeping back toward home
32. Arizona (32): Denny Green still must go.
ON THE MOVE
New England
Let’s not get too excited. The Patriots are on the move only because it was a mild week in the rankings, but they did drop four spots. The significance here is that the Patriots lost another home game against a fellow AFC contender. They lost in September to the Broncos on a Sunday night, then lost to the Colts last week. These are teams the Patriots are going to have to beat in January. But can they?
