2020 NFL Power Rankings: Week 2
Well, folks, it actually happened: we sat down and watched an entire week of professional football. Let’s get ready for another 16 games this week and jump into Week 2 Power Rankings.
As a reminder, numberFire's nERD rating is our efficiency metric based on in-game data and measures a teams’ performance relative to points above or below average. This view of team performance determines our rankings.
Risers and Fallers
The Philadelphia Eagles' visit to Landover, MD ended in a disaster when they lost to the Washington Football Team and fell 11 spots. Carson Wentz had a great start to his afternoon with touchdown passes to his two tight ends, Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert catapulting the Eagles to a 17 point lead. But then the wheels fell off. Wentz ended the game with a Total Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) of -19.07, last in the league by a wide margin.
Washington’s comeback against the Eagles puts them in a three-way tie with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers for the best Week 1 ranking improvement, with each team improving seven spots). As a quick note on rankings; not all increases or decreases are created equal. All three teams jumped the same number of spots in our rankings. Washington and Pittsburgh did so with increases of 3.31 and 2.11 in our nERD rating, respectively, while the Charger’s jump came with an increase of only 0.83 points.
Washington’s nERD increase of 3.31 is tops in the league after the first week. The Cleveland Browns nERD rating decreased the most, falling by 3.66 points after getting walloped by the Baltimore Ravens. The Browns are hoping for a quick turnaround when they take on the Cincinnati Bengals this Thursday night. Currently, Cleveland sits as a 5.5 point favorite in that match-up on FanDuel Sportsbook.
Here are our Week 2 NFL Power Rankings:
Teams Ranked 32nd to 23rd
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoff Odds |
Rank Change |
Off. NEP Rank |
Def. NEP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Cincinnati Bengals | -6.15 | 0-1 | 6.8% | 0 | 30 | 6 |
| 31 | Miami Dolphins | -6.02 | 0-1 | 7.3% | -3 | 28 | 22 |
| 30 | New York Jets | -5.75 | 0-1 | 7.5% | -3 | 29 | 26 |
| 29 | Carolina Panthers | -5.38 | 0-1 | 6.6% | 1 | 8 | 27 |
| 28 | New Your Giants | -4.47 | 0-1 | 11.1% | -2 | 26 | 19 |
| 27 | Jacksonville Jaguars | -4.36 | 1-0 | 24.1% | 2 | 9 | 16 |
| 26 | Cleveland Browns | -4.21 | 0-1 | 16.5% | -5 | 31 | 28 |
| 25 | Detroit Lions | -3.17 | 0-1 | 16.3% | 0 | 16 | 23 |
| 24 | Washington Football Team |
-2.63 | 1-0 | 33.7% | 7 | 20 | 1 |
| 23 | Atlanta Falcons | -2.19 | 0-1 | 31.2% | -6 | 21 | 30 |
Joe Burrow's debut has its highs -- with an impressive two-minute drill to set up a potential game-tying field goal -- and its lows, when Burrow threw a shovel pass right to the Chargers’ Melvin Ingram. While the Bengals’ loss to the Chargers kept them at the bottom of the rankings, their performance did increase the team’s nERD rating by 0.08 points.
Back to Washington’s win -- Chase Young seems to be for real, as does Washington’s defense. Washington earned the top rank in Overall Defensive NEP and Defensive Passing NEP after notching eight sacks and two interceptions during the first week of action.
Teams Ranked 22nd to 13th
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoff Odds |
Rank Change |
Off. NEP Rank |
Def. NEP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | Houston Texans | -1.92 | 0-1 | 27.1% | -2 | 13 | 29 |
| 21 | Denver Broncos | -1.75 | 0-1 | 20.3% | -2 | 23 | 18 |
| 20 | Arizona Cardinals | -1.49 | 1-0 | 38.4% | 4 | 18 | 14 |
| 19 | Las Vegas Raiders | -1.35 | 1-0 | 34.4% | 4 | 6 | 25 |
| 18 | Philadelphia Eagles | -0.41 | 0-1 | 43.8% | -11 | 32 | 13 |
| 17 | Indianapolis Colts | 0.05 | 0-1 | 42.1% | -1 | 17 | 24 |
| 16 | Chicago Bears | 0.07 | 1-0 | 52.4% | 2 | 10 | 17 |
| 15 | Los Angeles Chargers | 0.15 | 1-0 | 50.3% | 7 | 27 | 3 |
| 14 | Minnesota Vikings | 0.55 | 0-1 | 37.2% | -3 | 1 | 31 |
| 13 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1.33 | 0-1 | 45.9% | -3 | 25 | 11 |
In a statement win over the San Francisco 49ers, the Arizona Cardinals jumped up four spots to 20th and entered the mid-tier of our rankings. Head coach Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray are already capitalizing on the off-season trade for DeAndre Hopkins, targeting him 16 times (second to Davante Adams’ 17 targets) producing 10.70 Receiving NEP on those targets. The Murray to Hopkins connection had a Catch Rate of 87.5%, which topped the league for those with at least 10 targets.
The Chicago Bears rose two spots in the week’s rankings after scoring 21 fourth-quarter points in a comeback win over the Detroit Lions. Mitchell Trubisky played fairly well, finishing 16th in Passing NEP per drop back (0.22). Still, all may not be well in Chicago: Bear’s wide receiver Allen Robinson seems to be unhappy with how the team is handling his contract negotiations.
Teams Ranked 12th to 1st
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoffs Odds |
Rank Change |
Off. NEP Rank |
Def. NEP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Dallas Cowboys | 1.84 | 0-1 | 55.9% | -7 | 24 | 21 |
| 11 | Green Bay Packers | 2.28 | 1-0 | 66.2% | -3 | 2 | 32 |
| 10 | Los Angeles Rams | 2.36 | 1-0 | 60.1% | 4 | 12 | 9 |
| 9 | Buffalo Bills | 2.66 | 1-0 | 66.9% | 6 | 14 | 7 |
| 8 | Tennessee Titans | 2.75 | 1-0 | 61.4% | 4 | 15 | 10 |
| 7 | Seattle Seahawks | 3.45 | 1-0 | 68.6% | 2 | 3 | 12 |
| 6 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 3.57 | 1-0 | 75.2% | 7 | 7 | 4 |
| 5 | San Francisco 49ers | 3.91 | 0-1 | 55.5% | -2 | 19 | 15 |
| 4 | New Orleans Saints | 3.95 | 1-0 | 80.8% | 0 | 22 | 8 |
| 3 | New England Patriots | 4.38 | 1-0 | 75.6% | 3 | 11 | 5 |
| 2 | Kansas City Chiefs | 6.09 | 1-0 | 86.1% | 0 | 4 | 20 |
| 1 | Baltimore Ravens | 8.85 | 1-0 | 94.8% | 0 | 5 | 2 |
Aaron Rodgers turned back the clock and channeled his MVP-caliber play. He threw darts all over the field and finished with a Passing NEP of 21.34, second only to the Seattle Seahawks' best chef, Russell Wilson (21.50). The Packers actually fell three spots in our rankings to 11th, despite Sunday’s win over the Vikings. Their nERD rating did increase by 0.48 points, but the Tennessee Titans, Buffalo Bills, and Los Angeles Rams all had larger increases. So Packers fans, don’t get too worked up just yet -- and as Aaron says “R-E-L-A-X.”
Pittsburgh’s massive leap of seven spots to become sixth in our rankings was driven by the best rush defense in Week 1 where they produced an Adjusted Defensive Rushing NEP per play of -0.30. The Steelers stuffed Saquon Barkley, allowing only six rushing yards on 15 carries. Barkley wasn’t given much of a chance to get going either -- he averaged -0.5 yards before contact.
The New Orleans Saints stay pat at fourth in out rankings after notching a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Drew Brees’ play should be an area of concern, however. He had a passing success rate of only 35.5% and 2.1 completed air yards per attempt. Michael Thomas is expected to miss several weeks with the dreaded high-ankle sprain, so it may be tough sledding for the Saint’s passing game in the near future.
The Ravens came into Week 1 as our top-ranked team and held onto that spot in Week 2 after a dominating Week 1 performance against the Browns. The Ravens increased their nERD rating by 2.95 points, the second-largest improvement in the league.
Cleveland’s defense actually did a respectable job containing Baltimore’s running game. It was Lamar Jackson’s incredibly efficient passing that blew the lid off of that game. He produced a league-high 0.67 Passing NEP per drop back, which was more than enough to keep the Ravens on top heading into Week 2.
