Week 10 NFL power rankings: Race for playoff positioning is on, but not for Detroit Lions

Dave Birkett

| Detroit Free Press

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Football players are tough.

We’ve seen it locally here for years, where Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford takes a beating that would fell most humans only to bounce back and play the next play.

Stafford is dealing with a thumb injury on his throwing hand this week, after he appeared on the practice report for a neck injury last week. That’s on top of the broken bones in his back he suffered each of the last two seasons, and an assortment of hand, finger, knee and shoulder injuries before that.

Stafford should be fine to play this week. At least no one inside the Lions organization has raised any concerns about his status for Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers.

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But the same can’t be said for New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

Brees reportedly suffered two fractured ribs and a collapsed lung in Sunday’s win over the San Francisco 49ers, when he already was playing with three fractured ribs from last week’s win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Fortunately, or not, the rib fractures are on both sides of Brees’ body, which I’m sure makes the very basic act of breathing a delight.

I bring up Brees’ injuries because, as we head towards the home stretch of the season, those factors even more than head-to-head results start to become tie-breakers in my power rankings.

I had the Saints at No. 3 in last week’s poll, a hair ahead of the Green Bay Packers as the best team in the NFC. Yes, I know the Packers beat the Saints in Week 3, but New Orleans had won five straight games (now six) and looked pretty impressive in doing so.

This week, I moved Green Bay up to the No. 3 spot, and dropped New Orleans to No. 4.

The Packers and Saints are easily the two best teams in the NFC right now, but I have more confidence in Green Bay’s immediate and long-term prospects because of the teams’ quarterback situations. Aaron Rodgers is healthy, Brees is not, and while the Saints have a pretty good backup in Jameis Winston and a favorable schedule the next four weeks, the Packers are a better bet to run the table and get the No. 1 seed with Rodgers taking the shots.

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Ultimately, four teams have separated themselves from the rest of the NFL, with the AFC’s two best teams — the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers — a smidge ahead of the NFC’s two best (the Packers and Saints). This year, only one team per conference gets a bye, though, which could make for an eventful final few years.

After that fearsome foursome, there’s nearly a dozen three-loss teams in playoff contention, and very few others (the surging Vikings?) with a shot to crash the party. Some of those three-loss teams will miss out on the postseason, which is why games like Thursday’s Cardinals-Seahawks clash and Sunday’s Titans-Ravens are must-see TV this week.