Falcons Strangely Improve Position in ESPN's NFL Power Rankings

The Atlanta Falcons moved up in ESPN's NFL Power Rankings after beating the Las Vegas Raiders 15-9 on Monday night.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins / Atlanta Falcons Media Relations

The Atlanta Falcons won in Week 15. But a lot of fans and pundits considered the result more like a loss since the Falcons only defeated the 2-12 Las Vegas Raiders by six points, 15-9.

But not ESPN. The Falcons moved up two spots from No. 19 to 17 in ESPN's NFL Power Rankings heading into Week 16.

It's tricky business ranking teams in NFL power rankings. What's most important? Head to head results? Total record? More recent games? The eye test?

Apparently, the latter isn't particularly important to ESPN. Otherwise, it's hard to justify the Falcons moving up two spots after Monday night. Atlanta was particularly bad offensively again in Week 15, gaining 261 yards and scoring 15 points against one of the worst NFL teams.

To move up to No. 17, the Falcons passed the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins. Both of those teams lost during Week 15 and fell on ESPN's power rankings.

ESPN pointed to the Atlanta pass rush as the team's biggest area of improvement.

"The Falcons are still last in the league in sacks (23), but they have drastically improved in that department over the past few weeks," wrote ESPN's Marc Raimondi. "Atlanta had 10 sacks and the second-worst quarterback pressure percentage (26.3%) through its first 11 games.

Over Weeks 13-15, the team had 13 sacks combined and a 38.1% quarterback pressure rate in Week 13-14, which ranked eighth. Edge rusher Arnold Ebiketie was fifth in the league in quarterback pressure percentage (24%) in that span."

The problem for the Falcons now is quarterback Kirk Cousins appears to be getting worse. While he ended his passing touchdown drought, he threw for only 112 yards, going 11 of 17 with a score and interception versus the Raiders.

The Falcons will not make the playoffs if Cousins doesn't improve quickly.

Curiously, while the struggling Falcons moved up two spots, the surging Tampa Bay Buccaneers only improved their positioning by one spot in ESPN's latest rankings. The Buccaneers scored 40 points in Week 15 against the Los Angeles Chargers, who have been the NFL's top-ranked scoring defense for much of this season.

ESPN may be trying to avoid recency bias moving the Buccaneers up too high. But head-to-head doesn't appear to be a very big factor in ESPN's power rankings either. The Chargers were two spots ahead of the Buccaneers on the World Wide Leader's Week 16 power rankings.

The Buccaneers defeated the Chargers 40-17 on Sunday.