ESPN NFL

Posted by ESPN.com's Mike Sando

The pursuit of the most defensible NFL power rankings continues. BanJ2573 improved my initial submissions through Week 9 by eliminating two cases that could have exposed your NFC West host to the worst kind of ridicule: the avoidable kind.

We're not going to rank the Rams ahead of the Redskins just because St. Louis won at Washington this season. But we should rank teams in ways that minimize those head-scratching moments when voters seem to forget what happened on the field. And so I put together a new weapon to help us do just that heading into Week 10. 

Here's how you can shape my rankings for this week and do your part to reduce Wayward Voter Syndrome:

• Download this Excel file and take a look at the information in columns Y and Z.
• Column Y features team rankings.
• Column Z shows how many times a team has defeated higher-ranked teams.
• Change the rankings in column Y as you see fit.
• Re-sort column Y in ascending order (1 to 32) using the standard Excel pull-down menu atop the column.
• The information in column Z, which reflects potential ranking errors, will change (with the adjusted total highlighted in red atop the column).
• The lower the figure in that red box, the fewer conflicts.

We'll have to make adjustments based on what happens in the "Monday Night Football" game. I'll run the order that produced the fewest number of conflicts so far, courtesy of BanJ2573. And we'll probably make a few other logic-based adjustments (moving down Tampa Bay, for example). I do like having this file to check for potential embarrassing oversights, though.

The number to the right of each team name shows how many higher-ranked opponents the ranked team has defeated this season:

1. Tennessee Titans 0
2. New York Giants 0
3. Washington Redskins 0
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0
5. Carolina Panthers 0
6. Philadelphia Eagles 0
7. Pittsburgh Steelers 0
8. Arizona Cardinals 0
9. Atlanta Falcons 0
10. Baltimore Ravens 0
11. Chicago Bears 1
12. New York Jets 1
13. Indianapolis Colts 1
14. Miami Dolphins 0
15. New England Patriots 1
16. Buffalo Bills 0
17. Green Bay Packers 1
18. Minnesota Vikings 1
19. Denver Broncos 1
20. Dallas Cowboys 3
21. New Orleans Saints 1
22. San Diego Chargers 2
23. Cleveland Browns 1
24. Jacksonville Jaguars 2
25. Houston Texans 1
26. Seattle Seahawks 0
27. San Francisco 49ers 1
28. St. Louis Rams 2
29. Cincinnati Bengals 1
30. Oakland Raiders 1
31. Kansas City Chiefs 1
32. Detroit Lions 0

Technical note: The file should update the number of conflicts as you change the rankings in column Y. If the information does not update, you can manually re-calculate by pressing the F9 button on a PC or command/plus sign/equal sign on a Mac. But make sure you re-sort the rankings in ascending order, 1 to 32, each time you change a ranking.