NFL Snark Rankings: Week 2

Can you believe Week 2 is in the books and some teams are already eliminated from playoff contention?

Yes I’m talking to you, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and, wait for it, Pittsburgh!

That Monday Night Football game was about as bad as the Steelers have looked in the last 20 years! Perhaps they might want to get in on the Johnny Manziel sweepstakes.

Last week, the first-ever Snark Rankings were introduced with the mighty Jacksonville Jaguars (meow!) on top. Let’s just say the crown is theirs to lose!

The Jags travel to the rainy, thunder-&-lightning-filled Pacific Northwest in Week 3 to face the Seahawks, who rarely lose at home. If this game was in Jacksonville, the Seahawks might only be a twelve-point favorite. With a banged-up Maurice Jones-Drew, this game could get ugly quick for the Jags, making it a bittersweet homecoming for ex-Seahawks coordinator Gus Bradley, who left a Super Bowl contender to become the head coach in an iffy NFL city. Congrats Gus, great career move!

Presenting the Snark Rankings, Week 2, with last week’s ranking in parentheses …

1. Jacksonville Jaguars (No 1) – I did the unthinkable and took the Raiders in my survivor pool this week, simply because they hosted the Jaguars at home, which now looks like a genius move. I’m taking the Seahawks in Week 3 and may pick whatever team is playing Jacksonville for the rest of the season. The Jags are so bad that fans in northern Florida are campaigning for Tim Tebow to come home. OK, OK, I get it; your team is terrible, Blaine Gabbert looks terrible, your uniforms look terrible, and if Tim Tebow significantly improves your football team's attendance, enjoy! On the bright side, Chad Henne wasn’t completely horrible and may be a good tutor for young Gabbert, until Tebow’s ready. Yikes!
2. Cleveland Browns (No 2) – Cleveland made things interesting by holding the Ravens scoreless in the first half on two Billy Cundiff field goals. It’s great to see kickers burn their old teams, isn’t it?  The Browns ultimately lost, and perhaps the best thing that happened to them is Brandon Weeden getting hurt. But here's the bad news: Jason Campbell is the backup. Yikes!
3. Oakland Raiders (No 3) – Hey, Oakland! You’re on the board with a big W at home over the Jaguars! The bad news is Raiders fans may not get a Top 5 draft pick if they keep up their winning ways and the Browns, Buccaneers, and Redskins keep playing the way they are. Darrin McFadden had a terrific game; however, Terrelle Pryor had a QB rating of 18.2, and no, that's not a typo. Wouldn’t Johnny Manziel fit the Silver & Black perfectly? Raiders K Sebastian Janikowski is still going strong, and clearly, kicking from the infield dirt isn’t detrimental to his game. (Neither is the Old Country Buffet, from the looks of him.) He must’ve been steaming afterward when he found out the A’s opened up a 6½-game lead over the Rangers in the AL West. Things get brutal for the Raiders in Week 3 as they travel to the Mile High City to face the Denver Broncos. Yikes!
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (No 4) – Hosting the New Orleans Saints was not a good follow-up to blowing a game on a last-second penalty on the road against the Jets. This also turned out to be the first game of the day delayed due to weather. Wait a minute, this is football! I thought games only were delayed due to volcanic activity or nuclear detonation? Anyway, terrible field conditions turned this into a slopfest that might make the swine in Florida -- not to mention pythons -- lick their chops, but not football fans. Enjoy Week 3, Buccos, as you travel to Foxboro. Yikes!
5. Pittsburgh Steelers (unranked) – Wow, how the mighty have fallen. Perhaps the Bengals are that good, but until Cincinnati is hosting meaningful football games in late January, they'll always be referred to as the Bungles. The RB situation is in such disarray in the Steel City that Ben Roethlisberger threw a one-yard TD pass in the second quarter instead of handing off handing off to Felix Jones or just keeping it himself. What happened to the days of Jerome Bettis smashing his way to paydirt? Dare to say, Steelers fans may actually miss Rashard Mendenhall this year. Pittsburgh hosts the Bears in Week 3. Yikes!

It doesn’t get any easier for these teams in Week 3, and perhaps the rest of the season. Teams that need to be careful or find themselves on this list next week are Carolina and Washington. In fact, I really wanted to put the Redskins in here this week, but the Steelers were just that bad.

With the high-flying Detroit Lions coming to the Capital City, the Redskins are in danger of starting 0-3. How much patience will DC fans have for Coach Shanahan? More importantly, how much patience will owner Daniel Snyder have? Will the defense be able to stop the Matt Stafford-Calvin Johnson tandem? Don’t bet on it!