We've officially entered the second half of the NFL season, and things are starting to clear up a little bit.
Twenty-two NFL teams still have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs, but nine true contenders are beginning to separate themselves from the pack.
Chaos still lies between spot #10 and #24, as teams at the edge of the wild card race continue to struggle with inconsistency.
Click here to see the rankings >
Once again, here's how we came up with them.
We took our rankings from last week and moved teams up and down based on the following criteria:
- A win: up 2 spots
- A loss: down 1 spot
- A loss by 10+ points: down 2 spots
- A win against a top-5 team from the week before: up 2 spots
- A win against a top-12 team from the week before (aka, a playoff team): up 1 spot
- Covering the point spread: up 1 spot
- A winning record: up 1 spot
- A losing record: down 1 spot
- No team with a winning record can be outside the top 16
- No team with a .500 record can be outside the top 20
- NOTE: We issued an executive order where the three biggest underachieving teams — the Eagles, Jets, and Cowboys — could not be ranked above a .500 team. Subjective, but fair.
1. Atlanta Falcons (#1 last week): Beat the Cowboys
Record: 8-0
Biggest thing we learned this week: The defense is starting to come on strong. They've played two-straight strong games against the Cowboys and the Eagles.
2. Chicago Bears (#2 last week): Beat the Titans
Record: 7-1
Biggest thing we learned this week: The easy part of the Bears' schedule is over. We'll see how good they are when they play the Texans and 49ers in consecutive weeks.
3. Houston Texans (#3 last week): Beat the Bills
Record: 7-1
Biggest thing we learned this week: They can win ugly. We're used to the Texans blowing teams out, but they showed that they can win with redzone D and big plays even when they are out of sync early in games.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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