NFL power rankings entering Week 6 of the 2024 season (previous rank in parentheses):
3. Baltimore Ravens (3): What do you know? They actually overcame a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit Sunday in Cincinnati. But in all seriousness, if any club is going to emerge as a dominant force in 2024, it could well be this one – the first in 18 seasons to rush for 1,000 yards through Week 5. Still, amazing as the Lamar Jackson-Derrick Henry duo is shaping up, the league’s 31st-ranked pass defense needs to shape up.
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6. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6): After dealing with the wrath of Hurricane Helene, the Bucs are about to flee early to New Orleans as a storm that’s apparently far more fierce (Hurricane Milton) takes aim at Tampa. Let’s hope a good football team and its fans get a good outcome this week, despite current prognostications.
7. Washington Commanders (9): Lotta firsts here. First place. First team with 13 rushing TDs through five weeks since Gerald Ford was president. First rookie (Jayden Daniels) to start his career with 1,000 passing yards and 250 rushing yards five games in. Pretty soon, their supporters will be musing about the possibility of their first Super Bowl trip post-Joe Gibbs.
14. Dallas Cowboys (22): Maybe they’ve found something with RB Rico Dowdle. Maybe a defense fielding so many backups found a rallying cry. Maybe we’ll know more in a week after they try to win their first home game of 2024 against a Detroit squad that lost at AT&T Stadium under dubious circumstances late last season.
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21. New York Jets (19): Momentous few days, starting with a poor performance in Sunday’s loss to the Vikings in London leading up to HC Robert Saleh’s firing Tuesday morning. Beyond the seismic leadership change – unless you believe QB Aaron Rodgers was the leader all along – the added speculation around potentially acquiring WR Davante Adams is all fine and good, sensible even. But there’s zero reason a team with RBs Breece Hall and Braelon Allen should rank last in the league in rushing (80.4 ypg).
25. New Orleans Saints (16): A three-game slide marked by plummeting offensive production seemed quite likely Monday night to be exacerbated by QB Derek Carr’s injury, one that apparently left him unable to effectively throw the ball. Now a league-worst 1-6 in prime-time games over the past three seasons, the Saints also suddenly don’t seem like a prime-time option for Adams, either, particularly if Carr can’t play.
29. Miami Dolphins (30): For all the focus on their quarterback issue, they’ve scored a league-low 60 points (after scoring 70 in one game last season) – which, admittedly, gets back to their quarterback issue, one that may be temporarily stabilizing with Tyler Huntley.
32. Cleveland Browns (31): For all the focus on their quarterback issue … well, theirs has been sacked a league-most 26 times. But Deshaun Watson almost surely isn’t going to get sacked by upper management any time soon as he’d still incur a nearly $173 million cap hit – if cut next spring.
(This story has been updated to include new information.)
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Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.