2020 NFL Week 15: Kayfabe and then the Power Rankings

Largely a repeat from last night, but...

AFC:

1. Kansas City 13-1
   
2. Buffalo 11-3, win over
3. Pittsburgh 11-3 (AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU LOSE TO THE BUNGLES???)
   
4. Tennessee 10-4, division record tiebreaker over Indianapolis
5. Cleveland 10-4 with the win over Indianapolis
   
6. Indianapolis 10-4 (3-2 in the AFC South vs. TEN 4-1 after a season split, lost to CLE)
7. Miami 9-5, over Baltimore because Baltimore has one more AFC loss with the same number of wins)

It's in fact shorter to list the teams still in it.  There are only two others.  Baltimore at 9-5, Vegas about to be eliminated at 7-7.

So you might, week and a half or so to go, be literally eight teams for seven spots in the AFC.

Wild Cards:  MIA@BUF  IND@PIT  CLE@TEN

 NFC:

1. Green Bay 11-3 and the win over
2. New Orleans 10-4, who has the conference tiebreaker over
3. Seattle 10-4 (NO 8-2 vs. the NFC, SEA 7-3)
   
4. Washington 6-8 -- and now no team in the NFC Least can do better than 8-8.
5. LA Rams 9-5 (AGAIN, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU LOSE TO THE DAMN JETS?????) -- with a win over
6. Tampa Bay 9-5
7. Arizona 8-6

ELIMINATED:  Atlanta already was, add Carolina and San Francisco.

Wild Cards:  ARI@NO, TB@SEA, LAR@WAS

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And now the Power Rankings, my view on the rigging of the NFL:

AFC is getting down to a complete one-trick pony.

1) Kansas City

And is there a meaningful #2 right now?  You have four options at #2 and none of them are THAT appealing -- Buffalo for Any Given Sunday?  Tennessee and Henry running all over the field.  Gotta think Cleveland is rapidly becoming the favorite to win the AFC North, but from there...  Indianapolis???

I think the one real bugaboo on KC is the Black quarterback in an NFL reality in which White America is turning it's back on Black sports.  But this is rapidly becoming the Patrick Mahomes show, to almost the complete exclusion of everything else!

I can't come up with a realistic second option in the AFC.  This whole season might rest on the health of Patrick Mahomes...

NFC:

1) New Orleans

Gonna move them back to the current top, even with the loss, because they at least gave KC enough of a game (unlike Tampa) to approximate a Super Bowl preview.  So that and a make-up for the last two seasons -- Super Bowl XXXII style, is why I am moving NO back to the top, but Drew Brees has got to show something in the next 2-4 weeks.

2) Seattle

More because of WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, RAMS???  The problem with Seattle is that, after the QB and the 12th Man, whatcha got?  And I'm not sure, unlike Packer Nation, whether there's enough in the 12th Man to push the ratings meter.

3) Tampa Bay

Keep an eye on these guys, though -- and dear God, Antonio Brown is back in the end zone.

4) Green Bay

The NFL (and the Packers themselves) have to make a believer out of me in the rig-work that the NFL is going to pull the trigger on the Packers for the Super Bowl.  Until then...

Thing is, they have the White QB, they have the conservative home-base, they have a national fan reach which can pump the number for the Super Bowl, which the NFL will badly need.