Here Come the Patriots, and the Week 13 GPR

 

After a hiatus of several weeks, the Grandstander Power Rankings are back after Week 13 of the NFL season, but before we get to those, a word on this week's Monday Night Football game between the Patriots and the Bills, a 14-10 win for New England.

Cold temperatures and winds in the neighborhood of 30-40 MPH caused Bill Belichick to dig deep into the playbooks of Jurassic Era football and come up with a game plan that would not expose his rookie quarterback Mac Jones to the vagaries of those conditions.  As a result, Coach Bill had the Pats use running plays on all but three plays.  Yep, only three passes thrown by Jones in the entire game.  It was amazing to watch, as was the Pats defense that that held the Bills to only ten points with the Buffalo TD coming after New England muffed a punt and gave them the ball inside the twenty yard line.  Not sure if the Patriots are a Super Bowl team for this year, but in a season where there does not appear to be a singularly great team, would you sell short the possibility of Coach Bill making it to the Big Game in February?

Within the last three days, we were able to witness two of the greatest football coaches ever work their magic in big games, Nick Saban of Alabama against Georgia on Saturday and Belichick last night.  Never bet against those two.

Okay, now for the GPR:

1. Cardinals (10-2)
2. Packers (9-3)
3. Buccaneers (9-3)
4. Patriots (9-4)

The Cardinals remain at the top simply because they have the best record in the league and seem to be back on a roll with the return of the injured QB Kyler Murray.  The Patriots are at number 4 simply because of a rookie quarterback.  If you wanted to argue the placement of each of these four teams in the 1-2-3-4 order, I wouldn't argue strongly against it.