Raiders land at No. 22 overall in final NFL power rankings
By Brad Weiss
With the Super Bowl coming to an end, the final power rankings have been released for the 2019 NFL season, and it was not kind to the Oakland Raiders.
Through their first ten games of the 2019 NFL season, the Oakland Raiders were shocking the NFL landscape, navigating a tough early schedule to land at 6-4. With winnable games on the horizon, it looked like the Raiders would make the playoffs in their final season in the Bay Area, but they took a terrible tumble the rest of the way.
In fact, the Raiders won only one of their last six games, and finished another season with a losing record, and outside of the playoffs. Since 2002, the Raiders franchise has been to the playoffs only once, and 2016 was the only season that saw them finish with a record above 8-8.
This week, NFL.com released their final power rankings by Dan Hanzus, and he had the Raiders finishing as the No. 22 overall team in the league. In terms of the division, that ranking landed them second to last behind only the Los Angeles Chargers, a far cry from their 6-4 start.
Of course, division rival Kansas City landed at No. 1 thanks to their commanding victory in the Super Bowl over the San Francisco 49ers, who finished at No. 2. Thanks to their strong finish under quarterback Drew Lock, the Denver Broncos were the No. 18 team in the final rankings, even though they finished with the same record as the Raiders.
These rankings really do not mean anything, but it is a bit surprising that the Broncos would finish above Oakland. In addition, Tampa Bay and Indianapolis finished above Oakland, and while they did have the same record, the Raiders beat the Colts during the regular season, which should count for something.
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It will be interesting to see what the first 2020 power rankings look like after the 2020 NFL Draft and free agency, as teams are going to look much differently then. No matter where Las Vegas ends up, one thing is for sure, they need to finish better, as they wasted an incredible 6-4 start to the season in 2019.