NFL Powerless Rankings: The not very good, the bad and the ugly

The NFL season is halfway done, and now we know who the contenders are and the teams we can write off as pretenders. We can talk about the contenders another time because this list is about those less fortunate teams in the league. Now it’s time to check out the worst of the worst from Week 9.

Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings.

The Jags improved to 2-6 with a 9-6 victory over the Buffalo Bills. That’s a quality win over a good team, no matter the final score. The biggest thing out of this game was Trevor Lawrence leaving with an ankle injury, although he did return later.

Jacksonville has won two of their last three games and has been outscored 57-39 in doing so. It only seems fitting that it’s the Jaguars.

The Jets played in primetime on Thursday Night Football, losing to the Colts, 45-30. Mike White suffered a forearm injury and left the game, forcing Josh Johnson into action for the Jets. We know the deal here. This Jets team isn’t very good, but they have their QB of the future (hopefully) in Zach Wilson. They’re just trying to build it, and hopefully, for head coach Robert Saleh, he’ll still be around in a couple of years to reap the potential benefits. If there are any. These are the Same Old Jets after all.

Miami wasn’t much better than Houston,  but did enough in picking off Tyrod Taylor three times to get their second win of the season.

Jacoby Brissett subbed in for Tua Tagovailoa and didn’t lose the game for Miami. Both starting QBs threw 43 passes, but only Brissett completed a TD pass. Let’s give props to the defense since there were nine sacks total in this game. Whether it’s a good defense or horrid offense, I’ll leave that to you to decide. Dolphins get the win 17-9, but it doesn’t change much. Both the Dolphins and Texans will be drafting in the top five in next spring’s draft.

This was one of those games where you just need to take something positive from it if you’re a Texans fan. On the bright side, Houston only gave up 17 points to Miami. The downside is their field goal kicker went 3 for 3, and those were the only points the Texans could put on the scoreboard.

Tyrod Taylor made his return Sunday and looked like he hadn’t played in a while. Taylor was intercepted three times and completed under 56 percent of his passes.

Winless Detroit, and its head coach Dan Campbell (above), had a bye in Week 9. Had they played, they’d likely have lost and thus remain as the most powerless team in the NFL. The Lions return next week against the Steelers in Pittsburgh. Say hello to 0-9.