u/Cultural-Comment-270

Kinda weird we're over 24 hours out from an injury that made a star QB leave the game and I haven't heard anything. But maybe I missed it?

1. St. Louis - St Louis moves up on my power ranking despite losing because I feel its the only team who truly deserves it right now. They've beaten every other team in the top five in the standings. Yes, a loss to Houston is not great, but like DC last week they get the benefit of the doubt from me as I feel they will take care of business this week.
2. Orlando - Orlando has the leagues best record right now. They are a good football team. But their schedule has them at #2 despite having the leagues best record because they've only faced a winning team once this year and lost. If the Storm were dominating weaker opponents maybe they're #1 but four of their wins have been by the skin of their teeth. I need to see more from Orlando before I'd put them at #1.
3. DC - I had DC at #1 last week. I really thought they'd come out and take it to Louisville but that obviously did not happen. And the loss can't even really be entirely blamed on Ta'Amu being injured. DC looked bad while he was in the game and looked headed for another loss anyway so they don't get any sympathy points from me because their QB got taken out. DC is in serious trouble if Ta'Amu is injured and now they've got Orlando the next two weeks. There is a possibility they could lose two straight and miss the playoffs without Ta'Amu.
4. Louisville - They beat my #1 two weeks in a row. But Louisville is a very inconsistent team so I don't feel comfortable having them any higher than #4 right now. I've said for three weeks now I think Chris Redman can be a good coach if given a chance and I assumed that would bear fruits next year but if he can keep his team rolling, it might be this year. With a win next week they are definitely a candidate to move up in my power rankings and if we get bad news about Ta'Amu, they're almost destined to move ahead of DC.
5. Birmingham - I'm not really riding the DTR train anymore. I see why Plummer beat him out for the job in Orlando. He makes some great plays but he does not elevate the passing game much. I feel like Tyler SIskey also isn't really using DTR to his strengths (outside the pocket, RPO, jet sweep, etc) so its not entirely on him. Still, Birmingham is a team who could make the playoffs kind of in spite of themselves. Credit to McCarron for turning the team around a little when it looked like they were ready to implode.
6. Houston - It's either Houston or Columbus here. Houston just had a win against a good team so they have to be ahead of Columbus. And Sumlin, as poor of a coach as he is, I think is still superior to Ted Ginn.
7. Columbus - They're a bad team. They're poorly coached. Todd Haley gets a lot of flowers from the announcers every game but I'm not sure why, their offense is completely uninspired. Statistically they aren't the leagues worst offense or defense but they're damn close on both.
8. Dallas - No one has been worse on both sides of the football in the last five games combined than Dallas. Five straight losses. Weeks 1-3 have zero meaning anymore. They actually didn't look incompetent on Friday (an improvement!) but with five straight weeks of losing they simply can't be anywhere but last. At this point they have to win a game to get out of my #8 slot, five straight losses is just completely unacceptable for a football team.

Last week:

1. DC
2. St. Louis
3. Orlando
4. Louisville
5. Birmingham
6. Houston
7. Columbus
8. Dallas

1. DC - You can't sound the alarm bells after one week. They got blown out by not great team, yes, but you give them the benefit of the doubt for one week. But one week only. Depending on how the Battlehawks and Defenders look next week, DC could very well move down a slot. They are not at risk of being Dallas but perhaps not being the #1 team.
2. St. Louis - I'd love to put them #1. I think if Luis Perez was just a bit rusty this week (and still did well enough) and can shake off that rust and be the Luis Perez we've seen him be every other season he has played over 7 years, the Battlehawks will genuinely be the #1 team. They have the leagues best defense by a good margin and if they can have a good to great offense, this team can win the championship.
3. Orlando - The Storm have been trending down for three weeks in a row. Yes, they just won, but BARELY against a pretty bad team and that is with Houston gifting them so much - a pick six, two missed field goals and a missed extra point. And they still only won by 1 point with Houston having a shot to win it with 22 seconds left. Orlando had less than half the total offense Houston did, its crazy that Orlando won this game if you look at the box score. Right now, Becht looks destined to have yet another team that is good but not great and its funny because Becht's reputation as a head coach is at an all time high right now.
4. Birmingham - Only team of the bottom six that has been trending up three weeks in a row (even in their loss three weeks ago, granted that was because they were so low on the power rankings then). But they're very shaky. DTR shows flashes but after three games I'm not sure he's a championship QB. 159 yard, 44% completion, 2TD/1INT. Yes, his receivers had a few bad drops but welcome to the experience of every QB every week in this league. I'm also skeptical of Tyler Siskey. He isn't scheming to really play to DTR's strengths. They need to get him outside the pocket and run more RPO. I'm still skeptical of the Stallions' offense and not quite riding the DTR train as hard but I still believe they're the fourth best team and have a shot at least.
5. Louisville - The Kings are all over the place. 2 amazing games in the past four weeks and 2 pretty bad games. Very inconsistent. I actually like Chris Redman as a coach, I think he could be good if he's given a chance. But I don't see Louisville quite putting it together this year. Still, they are certainly better than the bottom three teams because they at least show flashes from time to time.
6. Houston - They SHOULD have won this game against Orlando. They played quite well if you take away all the gifted points. But Kevin Sumlin is who we thought he was. What an incompetent hire by the league with a Houston market already struggling to care.
7. Columbus - No shame in losing to St. Louis. But Ted Ginn seems out of his depth and this team seems like one only capable of beating the worst teams. Ginn also comes off as a bit of a moron, I'm not sure he should be in charge of managing like a hundred people to do anything at all. And then there's the DUI and it makes you wonder how much he cares. With a struggling football team why was he out getting drunk during the week? Ginn should've been fired midseason and absolutely after its over. And honestly with the way he looks in post game pressers, he may want it too.
8. Dallas - Last week they were the leagues worst team through the last three weeks so they simply had to go last on the power rankings. This week they're the leagues worst team through the last four weeks and theres still nowhere else to put them. The offense has completely collapsed. Reed is still sucking. The Luis Perez trade looks worse every week. Neuheisel looking more incompetent than Ginn and Sumlin through 7 weeks wasn't on my bingo card but here we are.

Last week:

1. DC
2. St Louis
3. Orlando
4. Birmingham
5. Louisville
6. Columbus
7. Houston
8. Dallas

I always watch the post game pressers for every team and the difference in Rick Neuheisel is crazy. He was super confident the first three weeks and honestly seemed almost overqualified for the league. Now the past couple weeks he's clearly flustered in the pressers and has zero answers for the hard questions.

Tonight someone basically asked him the question in the title, and he didn't really know how to answer. The best he could come up with is that teams changed their scheming against them and they've been unable to adjust. Which on some level makes sense of course, but it still doesn't really explain why you can be the best team in the league through the first three weeks and the worst team in the league through the last four weeks. That's not just down to teams making adjustments.

The consensus #1 team for three weeks may now be the 7th or 8th best team in the league. I think DC/STL/LOU/ORL are all better than Dallas right now pretty easily. Columbus and Houston have both been paying more competitive football than them the past two weeks too.

Depending on how the Stallions look tomorrow, Dallas has a real chance to be the current worst team in the league which is wild considering how they started off.

All that said, I'm not writing Dallas off completely. But if they don't start playing good football again they could easily miss the playoffs.

I feel like we've once again dodged a bullet with him.

We've had three head coaches since 2020 and all have had zero head coaching experience at any level and astonishingly, all three seem to have worked out. Meanwhile across the leagues in the various seasons, all of these other first time coaching hires seem to end in disaster.

I had this game marked down as a kind of benchmark to see how good we are compared to our alter ego team playing in Orlando. It was kind of the St Louis Battlehawks vs the Orlando Battlehawks tonight and the right one came out on top.

Not that this must mean Proehl is a better coach than Becht. Or that we're going to do better than the Storm this season. But I think those things are a possibility at least.