Power rankings can be fun to look at and certainly make for serious sports debate, but it’s always important to take the source into consideration. For every analyst who thinks Team A is markedly better than Team B, there’s another talking head from somewhere else who says just the opposite.
The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Germany-based stats guy René Bugner, familiar to NFL fans for compiling draft report cards every year and giving composite grades, has worked his spreadsheet magic on power rankings for Week 1 of the 2024 regular season. Using the published rankings from 21 different outlets, Bugner delivers a more comprehensive look at where each team in the league really falls in the eyes of all the major analysts, not just one.
Unsurprisingly, there’s quite a bit of fluctuation in how the experts see the Cowboys shaping up for their opener in Cleveland, but the overall average ranking should leave fans feeling optimistic about Sunday’s game versus the Browns.
Dallas ranks as high as 5th, earning that spot from both Mike Clay at ESPN and Frank Schwab at Yahoo Sports. John Kosko at PFF has the Cowboys slotted 6th, and Josh Kendall of The Athletic puts them at 7.
Those relatively high marks get dragged down somewhat by Nate Davis at USA Today and Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk, who have the Cowboys ranked 18th and 19th, respectively. Mark Maske of the Washington Post grades them slightly better, at 15th, while the New York Post‘s Ryan Dunleavy and Vinnie Iyer of Sporting News rank Dallas 14th this week.
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The other 12 sets of power rankings, though, all have the Cowboys sitting between 9th and 12th. And that’s where the Cowboys finish, with an overall average ranking of 11.00, good for 10th-best in the league this week.
The Browns aren’t too far behind, ranking as high as 9th and as low as 19th. Their average ranking of 13.19 signals that the two teams will likely be well-matched for a close contest when they meet on the shores of Lake Erie.
