Oakland Raiders Remain 4th in ESPN's NFL Power Rankings

Week 16 edition of where the Oakland Raiders land on ESPN’s NFL Power Rankings.

We’ve been tracking each week how ESPN is ranking the Oakland Raiders in their NFL Power Rankings. They floated just outside of the top ten for the first half of the season, have been around the top five lately, and were ranked as high as 2nd after moving to 9-2 on the season.

ESPN somehow felt the need to drop the Raiders to 3rd after they beat Buffalo, which moved them to 10-3. And after a loss to the Chiefs, Oakland has dropped one more spot, down to 4th.

After a bounce back win over the Chargers — a win that clinched their first playoff berth since 2002 — and with the team who was ranked 3rd losing (the Chiefs), you would think it’d be an easy decision to slide the Raiders back up to 3rd.

Nope.

Oakland remained 4th this week, and after a Thursday night victory over the lowly Rams, ESPN felt the need to jump the Seahawks up from 7th all the way to 3rd, leapfrogging the Raiders in the process.

Uhh….alright. Who knew that beating the Rams carried so much weight these days.

Anyway, here is what ESPN had to say about Oakland’s ranking:

The Raiders are officially back in the playoffs for the first time since 2002 and now have a first-round bye in their sights. But that’s not all. If the Raiders can win out against the Colts and Broncos, they’d win 13 games for the first time since 1976.

The Raiders play the Colts next week, who are ranked 18th. Too bad the Rams aren’t on the schedule though, otherwise maybe we’d get some respect around here.