Welcome back to the Fancy Boys Club Power Rankings! Let’s hope I don’t lose interest and I keep it up the entire season. We are less than two weeks until the NFL season and teams have survived the preseason without much in terms of major injuries, with the notable exception of the Baltimore Ravens mascot.
The 2022 season will start after one of the most unprecedented offseasons in league history. For those who weren’t keeping track, Aaron Rodgers did his yearly asshat routine before coming back to the Packers. The team showed their appreciation by trading Davante Adams to the Raiders. Abstinence advocate Russell Wilson was traded to a Broncos team that suddenly looks more dangerous with an NFL quarterback behind center. Massage enthusiast and noted sexual predator Deshaun Watson escaped Houston by being traded to one of the most morally bankrupt teams in a league full of them, then got suspended for 2/3 of the season. Tom Brady retired, definitely tried going to Miami until the hole they were digging themselves into got too deep, then returned to Tampa. The Chiefs sent Tyreke Hill to the Dolphins, and he proceeded to say a bunch of dumb things to the media. A year after trading multiple draft picks for Carson Wentz, every “well, actually” football fan’s favorite quarterback this side of Kirk Cousins, the Colts jettisoned him to Washington and traded for whatever is left of Matt Ryan. And the Eagles traded for AJ Brown so they can watch Jalen Hurts throw the ball way over his head on every ten yard out pattern.
For the first week of the Power Rankings, I’ve got teams ranked based on their FanDuel Super Bowl Odds. I’m going to categorize the teams as “Contenders,” “Squint Your Eyes And They Might Have a Chance,” and then goofy shit for everything else. Currently, FanDuel is running an offer where you bet 50 dollars on an NFL team to win the Super Bowl, they will give you five dollars in free bets for every win the team gets, up to ten wins. I’m not being paid to tell you that, considering my reading audience is my wife and tired eyed google users searching “fancy boy rankings.” That said, it is a good deal, and if you are feeling like doing it, 1-12, and 16-18 would all be okay bets to roll with. Now let’s let into the rankings!
Contenders
1: Buffalo Bills +600
No contending team were able to keep their noses cleaner than the Bills over the last couple offseasons. They have quietly put together a very good defense to match with their MVP candidate QB Josh Allen and high end wide receiving corps. Their rushing attack is always going to be a question mark as long as they struggle to upgrade from Devin Singletary. Otherwise, this team looks set to make a deep playoff run. There are major question marks at quarterback for every other team in the division. Miami is the only team that, on a perfect day, can hang with them in the AFC East.
2: Tampa Bay Buccaneers +750
Please note that these are the gambling odds, and not where i’d necessarily put anyone. This is probably one of the biggest discrepencies between gambling odds and where i’d start the season with this team. I’d have them at maybe 10th? There is barely an offensive line to speak of. No position group in the NFL has been slaughtered as badly in the preseason as the people enlisted to protect a 45 year old Tom Brady from getting murdered by a blitz.
I know that, every year, I post on here that i’m convinced this will be the year the wheels completely fall off for Brady. But i’m super-serious about it this time, guys!
3: Kansas City Chiefs +1000
I understand that there are payroll implications with trying to keep Tyreke Hill, which led to him being traded, but at some point you have to try to figure out how to sacrifice in other areas for the sake of keeping a Super Bowl contending offense together. With the Hill, Brown, and Adams trades, teams are making a huge gamble that wide receivers are more expendable and easily replaceable than they might actually be. The NFL is two bad wide receiving draft classes from this notion falling apart. They have been spoiled by a couple very solid years of guys that have been able to come in and immediately contribute. If a couple upcoming draft classes regress to the mean in terms of player quality, there are going to be a lot of teams regretting their decisions.
4: Los Angeles Rams +1100
The biggest case against the Rams making the Super Bowl again is that they play in a very difficult division and the attrition rate is high. Only Seattle deserves to get Old Yeller’d in the NFC West this year. The defense comes back with the same star power, and the team replaced Odell Beckham with Allen Robinson, giving Robinson his first opportunity to play with an NFL quarterback in an NFL system. It must be very exciting for him. Matt Stafford has an arm injury that he is dealing with, but he basically plays in an iron lung after week 7 every season, so an arm injury isn’t going to stop him.
5: Green Bay Packers +1200
Not as big of a wild card as people are saying going into the season. The Packers have one of the five best defenses in the NFC and a two headed running attack in Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon. Aaron Rodgers is a galaxy brained idiot who would be running a failing head shop if he wasn’t an NFL quarterback. Luckily for him, he was born with a cannon arm and decision making skills, thus keeping him from having to live his live as Jordan Rodgers.
Regardless of what Hard Knocks enthusiasts and Kirk Cousins truthers would make you believe, the Packers have the clearest path in the NFL towards winning their division.
6: Los Angeles Chargers +1400
Remember in the intro when I mentioned the 50 dollar Super Bowl bet? This is the team i’m laying my money on. My thought process is that if the Chargers can survive the absolute gauntlet that is the AFC West, then they only have to survive the Bills to get to the big game. Joey Bosa and Derwin James are joined by Khalil Mack on defense. The offense is still anchored by Justin Herbert, Austin Ekeler, Mike Williams, and Keenan Allen, who is entering his 10th season, and not his 24th season as I had previously thought.
7: San Francisco 49ers +1600
I’m fading the 49ers due to one massive issue: I do not buy the Trey Lance hype. He doesn’t need to be the best quarterback. If he can be the 20th best quarterback in the NFL, then this is a surefire playoff team. I can’t say with any certainty that Lance is a top 25 quarterback. Every piece is there with the exception of an experienced qb to lead this team. This isn’t a division that allows a team to stumble for half the season while trying to find a groove in the league.
8: Denver Broncos +1700
The Broncos were ass last year because they decided to take a ride on the “Teddy Bridgewater as our starting quarterback” train that worked for six games in New Orleans a few years ago, and when that failed, their backup plan was Drew Lock, who literally nobody was sad to see stuffed into a trebuchet and shot towards Seattle. If the catapult was as accurate as Lock, he would have landed in Manitoba.
Replacing them is Russell Wilson, who will be playing behind an actual offensive line for the first time in half a decade. He has two good running backs in Javonte Williams and Melvin Gordon, and one of the better wide receiving corps in the NFL with Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, and KJ Hamler. They also have a tight end that is getting fantasy hype whose name i’m not going to bother trying to spell.
Good health and surviving the AFC West are what will be keeping Denver from contending this year. That and a defense that is a far cry from it’s Peyton Manning era Super Bowl glory.
9: Baltimore Ravens +2000
I’m a little bit baffled that the Ravens are coming in with lower odds than the defending AFC champions that play in their division. Lamar Jackson is playing in a contract year which is either going to end with him running much less in an attempt to stay in one piece before hitting free agency, or he runs much more and gets the absolute crap kicked out of him in an attempt to prove his worth.
Either way, Jackson will be throwing to Rashod Bateman and a motley collection of some of the least inspiring wide receivers in the league. They will likely be leaning on a running back corps that is seemingly all trying to return from injury and their tight ends who will be bracket covered because no other team is afraid of their receivers or running backs.
10: Dallas Cowboys +2000
I mean…one of these years, everything is just going to fall in place for this team, right? They still play in a division with the Commanders and Giants, which will give them four wins. They need to win six of their other 13 games to make the playoffs. They have the Lions, Bears, Vikings, Texans, and Jaguars on their schedule. The path seems pretty clear for this team to win the NFC East and possibly even get a first round bye. So watch them go 7-10.
11: Cincinnati Bengals +2200
There are still some issues with the Bengals’ offensive line and there probably always will be because it’s still Cincinnati, and the threat of Joe Burrow’s knees blowing up is the penance the city pays for their diarrhea chili that they traipse around and claim is high quality food.
The Bengals were lucky in that they didn’t have the same massive losses that many Super Bowl teams experience in free agency. That’s the nice thing about having a star quarterback on a rookie contract. They can afford to spend in other places. The Ravens are overrated. The Steelers are in a quarterback transition, and the Browns have six wins written all over them. The division still runs through Cincy.
Squint Your Eyes And They Might Have a Chance
12: Indianapolis Colts +2200
If Indianapolis had a competent quarterback and not a goober from a state Canada should be forced to annex, they would have made the playoffs last year. Instead, they watched up Carson Wentz throw terrible interception after terrible interception while wasting an MVP level season out of running back Jonathon Taylor.
Now, the charred husk of Matt Ryan is in from Atlanta to see if he can avoid tripping and falling flat on his face. Ryan will be the fourth consecutive castoff from a different team to try to not ruin another stellar defense, joining such luminaries as Wentz, Philip Rivers, and Jacoby Brissett.
If Ryan gets good protection and Taylor can recreate his 2021 then this team is set because any team that can get to 9 wins is going to win the AFC South, which is the AL Central of football.
13: Philadelphia Eagles +2500
Everything I said about the 49ers goes for the Eagles, except they play in a worse division and have a quarterback with a (slightly) better track record.
14: Arizona Cardinals +3000
This team’s vibe seems off, especially with all of the contract drama with Kyler Murray. If they were really concerned about Murray studying game film enough, then the public shaming measures were probably not the most enduring way to make your qb happy. They let Kenyan Dranke go because no team has ever failed offensively by having James Conner as their only running back. DeAndre Hopkins is gonna miss the first six games on a steroid suspension. They traded for Hollywood Brown and his three dropped passes per game.
If Arizona were playing nearly any other division in the NFL they would be in consideration to win their division. They might finish in third in the NFC West.
Teams That Deserve to Go Winless, Then Fall Into A Sarlaac Pit
15: Cleveland Browns +3000
Deshaun Watson is going to show up just in time to turn this 4-7 team into a 7-10 team by season’s end.
Teams That Could Make Some Noise
16: Tennessee Titans +3500
This team is not getting a ton of respect but it plays in such a dumpy division that they are one Matt Ryan injury from having it wrapped up by Thanksgiving. Derrick Henry is back and is still a wrecking ball of humanity. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill said he wasn’t particularly a fan of mentoring a young QB, so rookie Malik Willis decided to try to take it upon himself to take the job in the preseason. Tannehill will start the season helming the team, but if he stumbles, the rallying cry for Willis is going to get loud.
17: Minnesota Vikings +4000
So there has been a land swell among fantasy football “know it alls” in support of Kirk Cousins as a good quarterback. That’s because he puts up empty stats that can loosely be considered valuable in fantasy football. In actual football games though, Kirk Cousins will never win jack shit. He can only get aroused two ways: by hitting constant checkdown passes and not getting a Covid vaccination.
Kevin O’Connell is over from the Rams to coach the team and remind people constantly that he is NOT the fat kid from Stand By Me.
The defense is probably going to be bad, and possibly aggressively so. This team is worse at drafting cornerbacks than the Browns are at drafting quarterbacks. This team has every opportunity in the world to jump in and contend in the NFC North, but is also the team most likely to have a Polio outbreak.
18: Miami Dolphins +4000
This team might be decent, but I can’t stop staring at their running backs depth chart and thinking that it looks like the football version of that giant bin at Wal Mart with all th DVD’s they can’t sell.
Oh look, it’s Chase Edmonds. Oh look, National Treasure 2 is on sale for 3.99.
Is that Raheem Mostert? Hey! I found Fast Five in here.
Am I really looking at Myles Gaskin? Wait, they made a sequel to Armageddon?
19: Las Vegas Raiders +4000
It says a lot about how bad the Raiders defense is projected to be that they aren’t projected to make the playoffs, even with the absolute studs they have on offense. It is going to take years for this team to completely recover from the absolute dog shit job Jon Gruden did drafting for this team. Their draft picks were so completely wasted that they would have been better off (literally in the case of Henry Ruggs) simply just not drafting anyone.
Because of the amount of money they have in dead cap this year (35 million), they are running very tight and will be unable to add to this team. But they will be able to fix the team next year. NOPE, IT’S WORSE NEXT YEAR! Nearly 65% of their cap next year will be wrapped up in Derek Carr, Davante Adams, hunter Renfroe, Kolton Miller, Chandler Jones, and Maxx Crosby. In essence, they will have 85 million dollars to spend on the other 46 members of their team. That’s less than two million on average per player.
This team is in purgatory but at least their offense will be fun.
Sunk By Your Quarterback Situation
20: New England Patriots +4000
I take a certain amount more satisfaction when some fan bases are down. St. Louis is one. Boston sports is another. They have the worst fans ever and because of success from their teams, their fans have become insufferable and completely out of touch with reality. This includes last year when they were all losing their minds for Mac Jones, only for him to turn back into the quarterback we all thought he would be, which is Kyle Orton, but without all the things that made Kyle Orton fun.
Anyway, this team will probably end up with 8 or 9 wins, Bill Belechik will probably fire Matt Patricia or something to show some sort of re-established dominance, followed by sports media losing their minds talking about Bill demanding excellence and things will turn around. Then he will put his son in charge of the offense, the team will win six games, and then Mac Jones and his noodle arm will finally be blamed. Nepotism is quite a thing.
21: New Orleans Saints +4000
40 to 1 odds is really interesting because the Saints play in the same division as the Falcons and Panthers, which should get them 40% of the wins they need to get to the playoffs. If Jameis Winston can minimize his mistakes and Sean Payton can keep it all held together, this team has a chance to surprise people. Oh just kidding, Winston will never minimize his mistakes and we now know that Payton retired so he could bail for the Dolphins with Tom Brady.
They are now coached by Dennis Allen, and I can confirm that I had to look that up and even then, I didn’t think it was the same Dennis Allen that coached the Raiders a decade ago. The way the NFL works, if you get a coaching job and you are white, you will always get another job no matter how untalented you are. It truly speaks to how bad Allen was as a coach that he waited nearly ten years before getting his next coaching job. Adam Gase got multiple head coaching opportunities in between the time it took for Allen to get another gig.
22: Pittsburgh Steelers +7000
Bah Gawd, that’s Mitch Trubisky’s music! I’m sure this team will probably be good and somehow make the playoffs. The Steelers are considered a “public” team, which is another term for a team with a huge fan base that draws gambling action whether the team will be good or not. That really speaks to how little action they are getting to be coming off at 70 to 1. Especially since…
23: Washington Commanders +7000
…this dumpy ass nothing of a team is also coming off at 70 to 1! There is nothing particularly good about this team, and they are owned by such a slimy dirtball that when they threatened to move further away from DC, the city told him to goddamn go! They are being quarterbacked by the aforementioned Carson Wentz, who is going to play for ten teams and get 11 coaches fired in the process. He is Jeff George with previous undeserved MVP hype.
I Genuinely Don’t Want To Write About Your Terrrible Team
24: New York Giants +8500
Saquon Barkley is going to be over drafted in your fantasy football league this year. Don’t worry about the person who does. I can assure you they will not be any good. This team is so pathetic, they might need to give large sodas to their season ticket holders to make up for it.
25: Carolina Panthers +10000
Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, PJ Walker. It doesn’t matter who is quarterbacking. Christian McCaffrey is going to step on a land mine around week 3 and this team will be screwed all over again.
26: Detroit Lions +10000
Every year, there are people that get overhyped because they are on Hard Knocks and people get a hard on over them because of the tasteful camera edits of HBO. There is not a single damn person getting any hype based on this team’s showing. Dan Campbell is basically a giant Labrador Retriever.
Preseason Records Are Meaningless
27: Chicago Bears +12000
There is a version of reality in which the Bears upset the 49ers week 1, and are able to roll off to a 5-1 start going into a game against the Patriots. Then they have a stretch in the middle of the season where they get to play the Lions, Falcons and Jets. Then they end the season with the Lions and Vikings. That’s 10 wins and they have potentially winnable games against New England, Miami, and Philadelphia.
In this version of reality, the Bears are ruined by their lack of depth and comically bad receiving corps. Their offensive line is in…flux. Their best player on defense ended his hold on simply for the sake of collecting a paycheck until he can become a free agent. Justin Fields is going to spend the year running for his life. This team will botch what could have been a very salvageable season by not simply giving Odell Beckham 10 million dollars and paying Roquan Smith what he deserves.
Hopeless
28: Jacksonville Jaguars +12000
They spent the GDP of some countries in free agency just to go from three wins to five wins. Just let London have them at this point.
29: New York Jets +15000
150 to 1 odds seems remarkably low for a team has completely and utterly worthless on it’s team crest. Joe Flacco will be starting the season at quarterback for the team. It’s his 15th season in the league. He is not aging anything like Tom Brady, but is aging very much like Vinny Testeverde.
30: Seattle Seahawks +15000
Quite possibly the only quarterback situation in the NFL worse than the Jets…or maybe the Giants. You know what, if you play along the northeastern seaboard or in the pacific northwest, then your quarterback situation is screwed.
31: Atlanta Falcons +25000
It really speaks to how terrible Marcus Mariota and the Falcons are that the Jets, who have absolutely no redeeming qualities, are 100 to 1 odds more favorites to win the Super Bowl than this team who somehow fell further down the NFL ladder by getting rid of Matt Ryan.
Hopeless AND Coached By Lovie Smith
32: Houston Texans +30000
Okay so hear me out. 50 dollars at these odds pays 15,000!!! Ohhhh who am I kidding. Nobody is still reading at this point, anyway.
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