NFL power rankings: Giants improve slightly after big victory

Win over Panthers provides temporary relief in New York’s position on Power Rankings

It’s officially that time of the week: NFL Power Rankings. The (2-5) New York Giants earned its second win of the season over the (3-4) Carolina Panthers on Sunday, a 25-3 victory at MetLife Stadium.

Nearly all of the national media outlets below improved the Giants’ ranking by a few spots. These outlets are likely not quite sold on the Giants, but willing to grant them a better position after Sunday’s showing. NFL.com has the Giants at 24th while several others slated them at 27th. It may not be an easy next little while for Big Blue though, as the team will play on the road at both the Chiefs and Buccaneers over the next three weeks.

Aggregating several rankings from around the Internet, the Giants come out to an average ranking of No. 26 (last week: No. 28) in the 32-team NFL. Our figure averages all the rankings below except for DraftKings, which bases its ranking on point spread differential.

Let’s check out what outlets around the league are saying about the Giants after week 7:

NFL.com: No. 24 (was 27)

Daniel Jones continues to be an extremely difficult evaluation subject for the Giants. The former first-round pick regularly produces at a mundane level from a counting-stats perspective, but he still passes the eye test as a difference-maker as a passer and runner. Sometimes as a receiver, too: His acrobatic one-handed catch in the third quarter of Sunday’s 25-3 win over the Panthers was the biggest highlight of New York’s only real touchdown drive of the day. The Giants are a team seemingly headed for a hard reboot, but cutting ties with Jones still feels like a move that could backfire.

NBC Sports: No. 26 (was 29)

Give Daniel Jones credit. Without Saquon Barkley, Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney, and with a porous offensive line in front of him, Jones was QB1, HB1 and WR1 (for one play) in the Giants’ win over the Panthers.

CBS Sports: No. 25 (was 27)

The defense came up big in the victory over Carolina. It had to with all the offensive injuries. Now they face the Chiefs on the road on Monday night.

ESPN: No. 27 (was 31)

Prediction we missed: The offense would be way more explosive

By default the Giants had to get better and more explosive, right? They added Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney, Kyle Rudolph and John Ross and got back Saquon Barkley from a torn ACL. Instead, the Giants are 25th in the NFL, averaging 19.9 points per game, in part because nearly none of these guys have stayed healthy. Rudolph is the only one of the bunch who hasn’t missed a game, but he has been disappointing coming off foot surgery. Meanwhile, quarterback Daniel Jones has never had Barkley, Golladay and Toney on the field healthy for more than a few minutes. Hence the lack of explosiveness. — Jordan Raanan

Sporting News: No. 27 (was 28)

The Giants got in the win column for the second time by beating Carolina, weeks after an upset of New Orleans. That’s still not enough to pull them out of the major cluster for last place in the NFC East, far behind the runaway Cowboys.

Pro Football Network: No. 25 (was 27)

This is still not a good football team, but the New York Giants went out and handled their business against another bad team — the Panthers. They had the better quarterback than Carolina, but neither offense was really any good. The Giants had one 75-yard drive, but the rest of their offensive series each went for fewer than 40 yards.

This game was an example of what happens when two bad teams meet and one gives the other great field position on a consistent basis.

New York’s defense looked good against a poor offensive line and horrific quarterback play. It was more akin to what we expected from this unit going into the season. Azeez Ojulari continues to impress, notching 2.5 sacks and 4 QB hits in the game.

But the rest of this season still comes down to an offense called by Jason Garrett. I feel for Daniel Jones, who has performed well in spite of his play-caller.

Yahoo! Sports: No. 27 (was 29)

Rookie Azeez Ojulari got 2.5 sacks on Sunday, pushing his season total to 5.5. The Giants might have made a great second-round pick to take Ojulari, who led the SEC in sacks last season at Georgia.

New York Post: No. 25 (was 27)

The injury-plagued Giants played their preseason team on offense and cruised past the Panthers. Why? Because the defense feasted on maybe the NFL’s worst offensive line and Sam Darnold’s turnover bug. Daniel Jones did almost everything — 203 yards passing, 28 yards rushing and 13 yards receiving. What didn’t he do? Commit a turnover.

Sports Illustrated: No. 27 (was 24)

The Giants are digging themselves out of a hole, which means more up downs and push-ups for Joe Judge. Give the former Patriots coach credit for this: He’s not backing down from his whole milieu, and hoping that he can continue to smash square pegs into round holes. Can the Giants steal a few more games once they get healthy, legitimizing a third year?

DraftKings: No. 20 (was 30)

DraftKings has moved from subjective assessments to using spread differential. Point differential is a helpful tool for figuring out the best and worst teams. However, point spread can offer a little more context to how good or bad teams might be. This is a pretty fluid list, but some of the top teams are settling in. The Cardinals, Bills, Bengals, and Cowboys are all circulating consistently in the top of the rankings while the Dolphins, Jets, and Washington are at the bottom.