ESPN's Three Year Power Rankings Are Out For The NFL

To further salivate the baying Football Nation America as training camps open, ESPN published their annual list of the teams in the order of the belief of the teams' positions in league hierarchy the next three years.

Stop me if any of this top part surprises you:

1. PHI
2. KC
3. CIN
4. BAL/BUF

The first real surprise is Baltimore at tied-4th.  There's no secret the league would like to push Baltimore and it's athletic quarterback, but his health is the key, especially given the league's penchants -- not only for the passing game, but the person at the helm being a marketable name.

Which makes Seattle at 6 and Pittsburgh at 7 awfully surprising.  Both are experiencing some degree of rebuild.

This ranking appears to indicate the door is closing on the likes of the 49ers (T-8th) and Cowboys (10th).

None of the other end of this should surprise anyone.  Here's your bottom nine (MIN at 23 is quite a surprise, but indicates they are lacking at least one key piece (see above):

24.  ATL

25.  NO

26.  IND

27.  WSH

28.  LAR -- makes you wonder how much they mortgaged to get the one NFL Showtime title.

T-29.  HOU

T-29.  LV -- you can investigate the league's future and the Raiders franchise any millennium now...

31.  TB

32.  ARI

In fact, the list forecasts the NFC Suck is going to Suck for a while.  Top team on the list from that division is Carolina, and they're only #20.