After a disappointing 23-16 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Buffalo Bills find themselves ranked lower this week than they were in the first edition of the 2021 NFL power rankings. If you read that and said to yourself, “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” it’s okay—the statement was meant to be taken that way. When teams win, they tend to rise in these rankings, and when they lose, they tend to fall. And so it goes.
A nearly universal theme, however, has been to avoid overreacting to just one week. The first week of an NFL season is always a crapshoot.