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SB Nation Week 16 NFL Power Rankings: Despite Loss, Cleveland Moves Up to No. 18

Up to No. 18, Yay!
Up to No. 18, Yay!
Jason Miller

In SB Nation's Week 16 NFL Power Rankings, Joel Thorman has made amends for the hatred we spewed at him last week and moved the Cleveland Browns up to No. 18 overall. Wow! You have to wonder if Joel overcompensated a bit here considering the team just suffered their worst loss of the season. At the same time, though, maybe it offers some perspective about how others view Cleveland right now: although we suffered our worse loss of the season, it shouldn't erase what has been accomplished up until this point. Here's what Joel said about the Browns this week:

18. Cleveland Browns (LW: 27, 5-9): Sometimes when you do these rankings, you don't realize how bad you screwed a team on their ranking until someone points it out. Browns fans at Dawgs By Nature were kind enough to point out to me that I had Cleveland dropping two spots last week, despite dropping a 23-point victory on the Chiefs. So, I apologize to you Browns fans. This is a more appropriate ranking.

Here is how the rest of the AFC North fared in the rankings:

Baltimore: No. 9 (down from No. 8) Falling
Cincinnati: No. 13 (up from No. 16) Rising
Pittsburgh:
No. 16 (down from No. 12) Falling
Cleveland: No. 18 (up from No. 27) Rising

Two spots away from Pittsburgh? Our goal before the end of the season is to surpass them, and we can still make it happen considering our Week 17 faceoff.