Their strength of victory is .396. They are in no way better than the Hawks by any measure other than wins. But if you just rank teams by wins in the power rankings - what is the point of them in the first place?

Hawks are a top 5 team this year - without a doubt. We have one of the hardest schedules and the second best strength of victory other than the Eagles.

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Driver of the PC/JS Super Bowl wagon since 2010

Sherman looks like a ballet master in grand jeté –
a trash-talking, dreadlocked Baryshnikov suspended
impossibly above the turf – pro football's paean to
wanton human destruction slips into the sublime.

Just to add - the Luck comment is a joke. He is the third best rookie QB this year. Behind both RGIII and Wilson.

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Driver of the PC/JS Super Bowl wagon since 2010

Sherman looks like a ballet master in grand jeté –
a trash-talking, dreadlocked Baryshnikov suspended
impossibly above the turf – pro football's paean to
wanton human destruction slips into the sublime.

I don't necessarily think it is was intentional (because you've right, it cost Polian and Coach Wassisname their jobs) but as Mike Salk pointed out, there was CLEARLY no plan B to Payton manning. Seriously, Charlie Whitehurst or Seneca Wallace would have been a MASSIVE upgrade over the people they rolled out as starting qb's last year and that is very sad. There was no way in he'll they were winning anything last year regardless of the supporting cast (which wasn't that awful). They'd have done better with a pylon playing quarterback.

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I <3 Nunchucks

Reported for racism.

Yeah, I think the owner directed the coach to play Painter knowing that he gave them the worst possible chance to win. It was likely under the guise of, "develop him this year so we know what we have for the future." Except, they already knew what they had in Painter.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.

Charlie's black?

NO WAY! NO...WAY!!!!!!

Oh my God! What is going on here?! Hasn't he ever heard of Russell Wilson?? RUSSELL WILSON!?!?

I have never felt outrage this deep and violent! Damn it! I just punched my son! Clayton you are a dead man!!

I'm as big a Russell Wilson fan as anyone, and I really enjoy watching RGIII, but to denigrate what Andrew Luck is doing is ridiculous. Do you realize he's on track for one of the top 10 passing yard seasons in NFL history...with an outside shot at sneaking in the top 5?

He's not perfect, but he (along with RW and RGIII) is amazing, and when a rookie throws for 4500+ in a season, the hyperbole is to be expected.

ESPN also has the Bears ahead of us in the power rankings. So much for rankings being based on who would beat who on a neutral field when we just spanked the Bears at their house.

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Legal Notice: Only a very small percentage of the things I do and say can be taken seriously. If ever.

Don't mean to burst your bubble, but passing yards are highly overrated. Highly.

If they really mattered a whole bunch, Matt Stafford would have won a few SB's, and Troy Aikman would be a giant bust.

The Colts arnt that good. Wait till next year when the schedule is not so generous to them.

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Yeah, they have a really good record in close games too at 7-1. I expect that to drop soon.

I really can't wait till our schedule is filled with horrible teams (AKA Falcons). That is when we will get a perfect/near perfect record.

It's just too dang hard when you actually play good teams. Lol.

Watch Wilson kick ass and lead us to the Lombardi, with an 80 yard drive in the final seconds of the game, intentionally leaving no time on the clock for our defense to balls it up. Then they'll change their tune.

I think they were nudged in that direction by the owner. And I think the players had it in the back of their minds too.
Take the game against Detroit on Sunday. If the Lions took the field with 2.30 left last year and the Colts only had 2 time outs, do you think the defense would have stepped up and made the stop with enough time to give Painter a chance (albeit one he was unlikely to convert) to win?
No way.
I don't care how good your QB is, you don't go from a 10-6 team to a team that flat out isn't competitive in one off-season when he gets injured. If the talent around Manning was that bad and he made them competitive, then going to a team with the talent the Broncos have should result in a 19-0 season - I mean, Luck is 2 games away from matching the 10-6 result that Manning had in 2010, and only one game behind him in the AFC right now. Basically we're saying the talent of the Colts was SO bad and still IS SO bad that Luck must be a better QB than Peyton Manning.

TBH, I have my suspicions about the Colts that season. Bill Polian was one of the premiere GMs in the game- it's not unthinkable that he could have believed himself capable of surviving one 2-14 season after a decade of playoff berths. The head coach wasn't very well established and always stuck me as a stopgap similar to Romeo Crennel in KC. When Kyle Orton became available that season Indy didn't even flinch, despite the fact that Painter was having the worst season by a QB since the QBs Seattle threw out there in 1992. If we are to believe that they were more about saving their jobs than jobbing for a draft pick, then there is no explaining their insistence of sticking with Painter when an abundance of superior options were available. If they grab Orton, then they would probably finish 5-11 or 6-10, and Polian probably keeps his job. And Manning stays in Indy (he's still a very good QB).

There were also some really, really bad coaching decisions during some of their close losses that honest to god felt like self-sabotage too.

Also, it wasn't until they had essentially secured the #1 pick before they won their first game. Once they had the pick all but locked up, they actually won 2 straight games before losing the finale.

First off, yes, Manning is THAT good. And Polian built that Colts team - the ENTIRE team philosophy - off of what Manning brought to the table. That Indy defense was never built to force stops and come from behind. It was built for speed and on the premise that Manning and his offense would put the other team in a hole. And since Manning had only ever missed one SNAP to injury in his career, it was a gamble that paid off for years.

When Manning was finally unavailable, the whole thing fell apart. Polian deserved the lion's share of the blame for failing to build a more flexible roster, but the coaching staff deserves some as well. Caldwell was never a HC in anything but name. Manning still ran things there. So the team lost essentially its key player AND its leadership in one fell swoop.

For the record, the Broncos are now 9-3, and it's a legit winning record - not the smoke and mirrors they had last season with Tebow. And that's after he recovered from four neck/spinal surgeries. No, they're not on pace for 19-0, but they've won 7 in a row and Manning is playing dominant football. That's what he's done his whole career, and he'll probably do it for at least a handful more years.

As for Luck, the Colts are benefiting from an easier schedule than they normally play, better coaching (Arians is a good QB developer), and the added emotional kick they get from playing for their cancer-stricken HC. If you think that the only new thing on the Colts is Luck, then you haven't been paying attention.

My wife is from Indiana, and I am surrounded by Colts fans every holiday when we visit. I've paid pretty close attention to the Colts franchise over the years, and I'll tell you right now that your conspiracy theory is ridiculously off base. Polian wouldn't have gone for it in any way because it cost his kid a job and made both of them look incompetent.

Additionally, you remember that complete lack of quality QBs that led to us trading for Whitehurst and signing Jackson the last couple of years? That's one big reason the Colts didn't have a suitable backup available other than Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky. They've been drafting low for a decade and never had a shot at a guy to develop behind Manning. With Manning in the house, they were perpetually in "win now" mode, so the future always took a back seat to reloading the offense and patching up the D.

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Super Bowl XLVIII Champions

The Colts last year are a difficult team to describe as tanking, because there is so much evidence on both sides. But the truth is Manning hid a ton of flaws on that team, just like Luck is hiding a ton of flaws on that team. There is a lot of pro Russell Wilson jealousy of the attention Luck is getting, but that is statistical hooey. Luck puts pressure on opposing offenses before the first snap. He is a running threat in the red zone. Yeah, a lot of the hype is about his upside, but that #1 tag is there for his whole life, and he is carrying the weight well. Just ask Alex Smith how heavy that tag can be. Yes, he doesn't have to earn the hype as much as Wilson, but the failures won't weigh as heavy for Wilson either.

It isn't just the media. The teams we beat seem genuinely surprised when Russell does his thing. Ex Players who are in the media still doubt the little guy. And for the next year or two, I still expect opposing DC's to think stopping Seattle's run game and making Russell beat them will be the way to go.

Also, something nobody has mentioned, and it will sound stupid, but damn near everyone is playing fantasy football these days. Russell isn't a big yards guy, he doesn't post 4 or 5 touchdown games. It isn't all of the reason he is still an afterthought, but it is part of the equation.

Anyway, Eff em. Our players have their leader, I don't think there is one player on this squad isn't a believer anymore. I don't know if we could say that just one month ago. And that is all that matters.

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SEAHAWKS.NET. We All We Got, We All We Need

My comments were insensitive. I apologize to pylons everywhere.

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I <3 Nunchucks

Dan Marino was the best rookie qb of all time.

Luck has been good but nowhere near as good as Marino. Marino was favored to win the SuperBowl his rookie season and was destroying every secondary in the NFL. He was the first passing machine, the prototype big-yardage QB that would lead teams to start developing guys like Manning, Brees, Rodgers, etc. Marino is the reason scouts started looking for cannon arms. Before him, a QBs job was to hand the ball off, basically. A 2000 yard season was unheard of. Marino is the one that blew that whole system up and created the 3000 yard watermark, as a rookie.

Its just that America has no cultural memory. Anything that happened 5+ years ago is forgotten, especially in the NFL.

Poor Whiz... Rod Graves destroyed Whiz's chances of succeeding in AZ.

Thank you. Earlier in the thread it was stated that both RGIII and Wilson in their incomplete seasons are ranked higher than any rookie ever. Dan Marino's team finished 12-4, he put up good numbers, and he did it in an era where you didn't run spread offense and pass like nuts because the rules let the DBs maul your receivers and the front seven could hit you. RGIII, Wilson, and Luck might not really have a good full season as Cam Newton did last year.

I hear similar things about our current and last President. I've heard people state that one or other is the "worst ever" but they have no clue who Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan are.