Entering Week 2, the national media was very high on the Seattle Seahawks, even despite them losing starting quarterback Sam Darnold to a glute injury. Now, after handily defeating the Arizona Cardinals, one would expect the national media to remain high on Seattle. Or will the victories of other Super Bowl contending teams (like the Buffalo Bills or Los Angeles Rams) potentially knock the Seahawks off a peg? Let’s take a look at five national media sites (NFL.com, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report (BR),
Pro Football Talk (PFT), and ESPN) to see where they rank Seattle.
Starting with ESPN, the only site (of these five) who don’t have Seattle ranked at number one. ESPN ranks Seattle the second best team in the NFL, the same ranking as last week. In their ranking ESPN credits Drew Lock as “one of the NFL’s best backup QBs.” ESPN further notes that since stepping in for an injured Darnold, Lock has “completed almost 73% of his passes, with four touchdowns, zero turnovers, and only two sacks.” Additionally, Lock’s total QBR of 86.4 currently ranks fourth best in the league. The only team ranked above the Seahawks for ESPN? The Buffalo Bills.
CBS Sports and PFT both also credit Lock’s performance as they keep the Seahawks ranked as the number one team in the NFL. CBS Sports notes that a good team is one that can “go on the road and win with a backup quarterback.” Just as Seattle did last week in Arizona. PFT meanwhile summed up the Seahawks performance with a simple “No Darnold? No problem.”
NFL.com, who also kept Seattle ranked as first, noted that Lock’s impressive performance should allow Seahawk fans to worry less about the absence of Darnold. B/R, who also have Seattle ranked as the number one team in the NFL, also noted that Lock’s performance should allow the team to not feel rushed to get Darnold back to the field.
As you have probably noticed, the power rankings – and the reasoning behind their rankings are all pretty cut and paste from all of the polled national media sites. That can be the case when your team is not only the Super Bowl defending champion, but also one of the favorites to win the next Super Bowl. In these moments, power rankings can become very static. As is the case this week. All five of the above national media sites kept the Seahawks at the same ranking as last week. Entering week two, the average power ranking between the five polled sites was 1.2. Entering Week 3, the same 1.2 average remains.
However, this is still the NFL. And despite being an overwhelming top ranked team by the national media, the Seahawks are only one loss (or even one poor performance) away from slipping down these rankings once again. Their next test comes against the Washington Commanders – quarterbacked by Marcus Mariota.
