Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky
Consecutive wins over the Patriots and the Steelers have the Colts on the rise in this edition of our NFL power rankings which came out this afternoon. Indianapolis is up to 10th from 15th.
I just played with some numbers out of the rankings and came up with these for the AFC South:
- Tennessee's nine wins have come over teams with an average rank of 20.1.
- Indianapolis' five wins have come over teams with an average rank of 13.2, while its average loss has come at the hands of teams that averaged 14.5.
- Jacksonville's four wins have come over teams with an average rank of 21.5, while its average loss has come at the hands of teams that averaged 15.2.
- Houston's three wins have come over teams with an average rank of 25.6, while its average loss has come at the hands of teams that averaged 11.2.
Here is the weekly breakdown of the AFC South:
AFC South Power Rankings
| | Rank | Team | Kuharsky
Last Week | Kuharsky
This Week | Panel High | Panel Low | | 1 | Tennessee | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10
| Indianapolis | 14
| 11 | 3
| 16
| 22
| Jacksonville | 21
| 21
| 19
| 24
| | 25 | Houston | 25 | 25
| 22 | 27 |
|
|
My rationale on the teams where I was the highest or lowest vote touches on two teams this week:
Miami is 15th and I have the Dolphins 18th. I bumped them up two slots off the win over miserable Seattle, but like the direction they are going. They could easily win this week against Oakland and next week against New England and they'll be climbing the charts if they do.
Dallas is 16th and I have the Cowboys 20th. I felt Miami and Minnesota deserved to move ahead of Dallas based on their wins last weekend.
As always, here's a link to an excellent breakdown of the voting by NFC West maven Mike Sando.
Kuharsky joined ESPN.com in 2008 after 12 years covering the Oilers/Titans and the NFL for The (Nashville) Tennessean. The New Jersey native and Columbia graduate lives in Nashville with his wife.
