The ESPN Power Rankings for Week 3 have Houston at number 5; a good reason why I think most sports writers are idiots.  The reason for such a high ranking is because Houston sits at 2-0.  However, they have only beaten lowly Miami and an Indianapolis team without Peyton Manning; not enough for me to move them into the top ten yet, let alone top 5.  It seems just a tad early to proclaim that Houston is an elite NFL team this year.  They were 6-10 last year.   Maybe Houston really is that good, but they’ve got to win more than 2 games to prove it.

SITW NFL Rankings after week 2.

Here are my projected playoff seeds after week 2.  (You can see my projected playoff teams prior to the start of the season here.)  New England and Green Bay are still the one seeds in the AFC and NFC, respectively.  I’ve swapped Pittsburgh and Baltimore since last week in the 2 and 6 seed spot, and I am now projecting Houston to make the playoffs as a three seed out of the AFC South. (In three weeks I have picked three different teams to win the AFC South so far.)  In the NFC, I’ve moved Atlanta up to the 2 seed after beating Philadelphia and Washington now gets the 3 seed as they are projected to win the NFC East, and I’ve dropped Philadelphia from the playoffs entirely.  I’m sticking with San Francisco out of the NFC West (at least for one more week).  Chicago has steadily dropped all three weeks in the playoff projections from 2 seed to 5 seed to 6 seed this week.  They have been passed over by the Detroit Lions who are projected to be the 5 seed in the NFC.  You heard it here first, Washington, San Francisco, and Detroit in the playoffs.

Cheers.