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k 9 Pundit Power Rankings Terrance Smith Jersey , the national writers all left the Kansas City Chiefs in exactly the same spot after they defeated the Denver Broncos 30-23 on Sunday, but put the New Orleans Saints ahead of the Chiefs following their 30-20 win over the the Minnesota Vikings.But the number-crunchers saw Week 8’s results differently.Here’s how the crunchers see the NFL in Week 9:Cruncher Power Rankings for Week 9Chiefs AFC West Teams Other AFC TeamsThe Chiefs are now in first place with three of the crunchers — rising to first place in the SRS rankings for the first time — which is enough to put them in first place in our cruncher rankings.Why?The Los Angeles Rams barely held on to beat the Green Bay Packers, winning by only two points.The Chiefs won by seven against the Broncos.but going into Week 8, Elo saw the Packers and Broncos as below-average teams, so it didn’t give either the Chiefs or the Rams big rewards for their wins.On the other hand, SRS liked the Broncos more than the Packers, and gave the Chiefs a bigger boost for their win.But the other problem for the Rams was the New England Patriots.The Patriots moved ahead of the Rams in Elo after beating the Buffalo Bills by 19 points.Elo didn’t like the Bills much, either — but the Patriots won by a lot.The Houston Texans moved up the most in the cruncher rankings, rising four spots this week after defeating the Miami Dolphins 42-23.The Vikings had the biggest drop, falling five places after their aforementioned loss to the Saints.This week’s biggest disagreement among the crunchers is interesting.The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 37-34.The win pushed the Bengals up one spot in both Elo and PE.But the Bengals rose five positions in DVOA, and dropped five in SRS.How can this be?Remember that neither of these systems care much about winning or losing.SRS doesn’t care at all, and DVOA is more focused on how a team plays situational football.So DVOA saw an improvement in how the Bengals played, while SRS just saw a narrow point differential against a team that it doesn’t like very much.Keep this in mind.We’ll come back to it a little later.So what happens when we average our Cruncher Power Rankings with this week’s Pundit Power Rankings?Let’s look at the Week 9 True Power Rankings.True Power Rankings for Week 9Chiefs AFC West Teams Other AFC TeamsAs you can see, the Chiefs are still ranked second in the this week’s True Power Rankings — still tops in the AFC.There’s remarkable consistency at very the top — the top four spots are unchanged for the third week in a row, although as we have seen, the pundits and the crunchers disagree about them a little.The Philadelphia Eagles fell out of the top 10, while the Vikings moved in.Elsewhere at the top, the Baltimore Ravens dropped again, and the Carolina Panthers moved up.The Jacksonville Jaguars took up residence in the bottom 10, and the Indianapolis Colts climbed out.This week, the most disagreement between the pundits and crunchers is with the Broncos and the Vikings.The pundits are not impressed with the Broncos, but the crunchers like them more.This week Xavier Williams Jersey , the reverse is true for the Vikings — the pundits have a lot more faith in them than the crunchers.And here’s your weekly reality-check. Let’s take a look at the Week 9 cruncher grades:Cruncher Grades for Week 9Chiefs AFC West Teams Other AFC TeamsAP user SonOfAVeach made a good comment on Tuesday’s Pundit Power Rankings article, saying the top four teams in the eyes of the pundits — the Chiefs, Rams, Saints and Patriots, in no particular order — are pretty much interchangeable.That’s exactly what we see here.The pundits may disagree about one team or another, but based on what the crunchers think, these teams would all be pretty equivalent on a neutral field.Sharp-eyed readers might also note that in the grades table, the Rams are ahead of the Chiefs.That’s because in this table, we’re averaging not the grades, but the standard deviations from average values that stand behind the grades.In the earlier table, we were averaging the rankings — and sometimes the math works out differently.The difference between those values in this table for the Rams and Chiefs — they are 1.76376 and 1.73409 respectively — is in no way significant, but the table is sorted in descending order anyway.And before we wrap this up, let’s re-examine the disparity between the cruncher rankings for the Bengals we discussed earlier.SRS and DVOA appeared to sharply disagree about how the Bengals should be ranked compared to last week.But here we see that DVOA only moved the Bengals from a C- to a C.That’s a measurable difference, but not a significant one.And SRS — despite the five position drop it showed for the Bengals in its rankings — has the Bengals unchanged with a C.This is a great example of why we should always be careful about paying too much attention to how rankings change — for any kind of statistic.Sometimes it means something significant, and sometimes it doesn’t.That’s why we show you these grades every week.So let’s get into Week 9, and see what happens — the Rams game against the Saints could have a big impact!On Tuesday, we’ll open up the magic power rankings spreadsheet, and start to figure out how it all shakes out. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t draft Patrick Mahomes merely to make the playoffs.Matt Cassel accomplished that, and quarterbacks Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac, Trent Green and Alex Smith went one better by making it to the divisional round. Smith even won a wild-card game Jordan Lucas Jersey , the first playoff victory by the long-suffering Chiefs since Joe Montana led them to the AFC title game in the 1993 season.No, the Chiefs didn’t trade up to select Mahomes just to make the playoffs.They did it to win in the playoffs.Now, Mahomes gets his first chance when the first-year starter leads the AFC West champions against the Colts — their longtime playoff nemesis — on Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium.Win and the young All-Pro quarterback has the Chiefs one game away from playing in the Super Bowl, lose and Mahomes has to wait a full year to get another crack at wiping away the stink of all those playoff failures.“A playoff run in general would mean a ton to everyone in this community, including us. I know the history,” Mahomes said, “but at the same time, we are a different generation.”That may be true, but he was on the sideline last season for the latest postseason letdown.Mahomes was given his freshman season to learn the ropes under Smith, who ended a streak of eight straight playoff defeats by beating Houston in the wild-card round in January 2016. But they lost the following week at New England to end their playoff run, then lost at home to the Steelers in the divisional round in 2017 and blew a big lead against the Titans in the wild-card round a year ago.Three defeats after that rarest of playoff wins.The sting has been even more brutal at home, where the Colts have won just as many playoff games as the Chiefs (two apiece) over the years. Both of the Chiefs’ wins were in the wild-card round.They’ve never won a home playoff game in the divisional round or beyond.Yet if there’s any reason to believe that stretch of futility will end Saturday, it just may be the optimistic kid with the big arm and curly Mohawk. Bono, Grbac and the rest never put up the kind of numbers that Mahomes has this season, nor did they engender the same kind of confidence in their teams.Mahomes exudes poise. And the rest of the Chiefs can feel it.“It’s the way he plays,” Chiefs center Mitch Morse said recently. “Not only his talent, which is uncanny, but the way he prepares, the way he conducts himself in the huddle, and then the guy has got a swagger about him that’s infectious.”There is no denying this is a new experience, though. Mahomes only played in one bowl game in three seasons at Texas Tech, much less an NFL playoff game with the entire football world watching.“So far I haven’t seen anything that’s too big for Pat. I’m not even worried about that Damien Williams Jersey ,” coach Andy Reid said Monday, just before the Chiefs resumed practicing following a well-earned week off.“He’s going to get himself ready, just like he does every week, to play against a good football team,” Reid said. “But I don’t think he’s wired the other way. I’m not predicting anything, I’m just telling you, matter of fact, how he’s wired, how he goes about his business.”That doesn’t mean Reid hasn’t pulled him aside for a few extra chats.“Everything is a little faster in the playoffs. That’s how things go,” Reid said. “At the same time, he has to be himself and continue to lead and play like he has been doing. I don’t think he will have a problem with that. I think he understands that. He is wired the right way to handle all of it.”Mahomes said he’s chatted with Smith about his postseason experience, and he’s soaked up what he can from the veterans in his locker room. Defensive back Ron Parker, linebacker Justin Houston and fullback Anthony Sherman are among those who have been part of several postseason letdowns.As they take the field with Mahomes on Saturday, they have a chance to scribble over that history.“I mean, we are definitely ready. We know what it’s going to take,” Mahomes said. “It’s going to take a full effort from everyone, every single day, to the game and hopefully on. We know that you have to capitalize on every single play. You can’t let one play get you down for the next. The next play is the most important play. We are excited we get the chance to do that.”