Hashmarks Pre-Preseason Power Rankings

ESPN.com just released their NFL power rankings. Here's Sando's post, which lists each individual voter's picks. Overall I'd say the voters were pretty fair to the Seahawks. Sure, one knucklehead put them at 17, but even that's reasonable if you think Seattle's only good skill player on offense is Hasselbeck.

As Sando pointed out in a separate post (if you don't already, subscribe to the Hashmarks blog) the NFC West has the lowest average team ranking of the eight NFL divisions. I'm split as to whether I want the NFC west to be good (Seahawks get credit for tough wins) or bad (Seahawks cruise to the playoffs). I know I'm counting my chickens before they hatch here, but really, the Seahawks have had major questions (and major injuries) the past two years and each time they've found a way to win their division.

Anyway, the top NFC teams (average ranking in parens) are:

• Cowboys (4.4)
• Giants (5.4)
• Packers (9.1)
• Seahawks (9.3)
• Vikings (11.7)
• Saints (12.1)
• Eagles (12.3)

Interesting to note that while the absolute rankings of these teams spread out fairly evenly between 4 and 13, the average rankings suggest there are three tiers. I guess I'll put up the fourth tier as well:

• Buccaneers (15.3)
• Redskins (16.0)

Four from the East, two each from the North and South, and Seattle is the long representative in the West. (To be fair, the Cardinals were the next team, but had an average of 18.3 - well below the fourth tier).

I'll touch on each of these teams in future posts, as well as some others I'm keeping an eye on, but for now I'll talk a bit about the Giants.

The Giants peaked at exactly the right time last year. The won three road playoff games (funny how that was supposed to be unheard of, yet two to the last three Super Bowl winners have done just that) before giving me the second-best Super Bowl outcome behind a Seahawk victory - a Patriot defeat. The question is whether the peak will ultimately become a spike or a plateau.

I would be shocked if the Giants were a top NFC team this year.

• The four 2008 post-season games aren't a large enough sample for me to consider Eli Manning a Pro-Bowl level QB, especially given his career as a whole.
• Doubling-down on looking past the 2008 sample-set, in the last three regular seasons the Giants have won 11, 8, and 10 games. Winning 9 or 10 sounds right, not 12 or 13 (which is what it will take to be a top NFC team).
• The Giants lost a number of starters, either to retirement (Strahan) or free agency (Wilson and Mitchell are the first that come to mind).
• Newcomers in 2007 (Brandon Jacobs, Ahmad Bradshaw, Kevin Boss) will be fully-vetted by opposing scouts in 2008.
  

To finish up, I certainly don't think the Giants will be bad, but I don't expect them to compete with Dallas for the NFC East title (assuming Dallas stays at the top). The Giants are probably second- or third-tier NFC team.