Tuesday is the day NFL power rankings are generally released around the league in conjunction with the close of the football week on Monday Night Football the night before. As we leave week 10 and move on to week 11, the San Francisco 49ers look to continue their slow rise back to respectability, while the Oakland Raiders can use positive momentum to gain ground in spite of a bye. The 49ers 0-5 start sent them plummeting to the bottom of most power rankings. After beating Oakland they looked to start rising back up, but then a loss to Carolina destroyed that momentum. Two wins in a row at this point should be sufficient to get them going again.
Detroit and Cincinnati were both ahead of the 49ers in many power rankings and both lost this week. Whatever the thought is on the quality of those losses, power rankings generally operate in a simple vacuum of lose and you drop. Additionally, losses by Minnesota and Arizona could be enough to drop them behind the 49ers as well. Cleveland put on an impressive effort against the Jets and will likely get the benefit of the doubt in that loss. Combining all that together and I'd imagine the 49ers will end up around the 25 or 26 range. I'm curious to see if teams drop the Rams behind the 49ers, even though the 49ers are a game back of them. I don't think the Rams loss was bad enough to cost them that much in the rankings. Of course, the 49ers should have destroyed the Rams considering they had three touchdowns called back.
The Raiders had a bye this past week, but that shouldn't stop them from moving up. A lot of folks had the Raiders as high as 12 or 13 in their week 10 NFL power rankings. Tennessee and Kansas City were both around them and both lost. The Raiders could certainly benefit from that. I see the Raiders potentially moving one or two spots up at most. Several of the teams around them had byes this past week as well, and the other teams mostly won. So look for the Raiders to stick in the 11-12 range.