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In SB Nation's Week 15 NFL Power Rankings, Joel Thorman has dropped the Cleveland Browns two spots down to No. 27 overall. Joel has been undervaluing the Browns for most of the season, but after he bumped the team to No. 25 last week, I thought for sure they'd see another bump upward. Here's what Joel said about the Browns this week:
27. Cleveland Browns (LW: 25, 5-8): What if I told you the Browns were one of the five most underrated teams this year? It's true.
This doesn't make much sense. The Browns win their third straight game, have never really been blown out, are coming off of a blowout win, and fall two spots? The Panthers (good god!) and the Chargers, both of whom have been wildly inconsistent, both jumped ahead of Cleveland. Teams like Tennessee, Buffalo, and Detroit are still ahead of the Browns too. Maybe Joel was a little upset that his Chiefs were just defeated by Cleveland?
Knowing he did something wrong, Joel even made an unsolicited comment in response to his own post, stating, "As usual, I wanna tweak like half the rankings now that they've gone up Browns have a reason to be unhappy."
Here is how the rest of the AFC North fared in the rankings:
Baltimore: No. 8 (down from No. 6)
Pittsburgh: No. 12 (down from No. 10)
Cincinnati: No. 16 (down from No. 12)
Cleveland: No. 27 (down from No. 28)
I get why the other three teams declined in the rankings, but not the Browns.
If you see the Browns ranked highly on other sites' power rankings, feel free to share them!