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There are eight teams with more wins than the Cowboys in the league, and nine with fewer losses. Does that open a door for the Cowboys to slip into the top ten of the Week 8 power rankings?
You bet it does.
Of the 22 power rankings we've surveyed below, 18 rank the Cowboys 10th or better. Read on to find out who the dissenting opinions are, where the Cowboys' next opponent is ranked, and where the other NFC East teams are ranked heading into Week 8 of the 2013 NFL season.
Major Media Networks & Affiliates
Week 8 Rankings (previous rankings in parenthesis)
Covers.com: 8th (7th). "The Cowboys entered last week with the 30th-ranked defense in the NFL, but they held one of the Top-5 offenses in the NFL to a single field goal in their win at Philly."
CBSSports (Kirwan): 9th (12th): "Playing without DeMarcus Ware and DeMarco Murray seemed to give the Cowboys an excuse for a loss at Philly. Instead, the Cowboys limited the Eagles to three points and knocked Nick Foles out of the game. Anytime a defense limits LeSean McCoy to 55 yards at 3.1 per rush, it's doing something right. That defense has surrendered only 19 points the past two games."
Peter King: 10th (12th): "Very impressed with the defensive effort, holding the Eagles to three points and 278 yards."
Foxsports: 10th (12th): "The Cowboys have won back-to-back games for the first time this season, sit atop the NFC East and are a perfect 3-0 against divisional opponents. "
ESPN: 10th (13th): "How about that Cowboys defense? Opponents have completed 46.6 percent of passes with no touchdowns and four interceptions against Dallas since its loss to the Broncos."
CBSSports.com (Prisco): 10th (14th): "Give this team credit for a huge road victory at Philadelphia. Tony Romo continues to play well, but that victory goes to the defense."
NFL.com: 12th (14th). "Defensive line coach Rod Marinelli deserves a "position coach of the year" award after getting that ravaged Cowboys unit -- which is missing three expected starters -- to play like it's been playing. One guy on that line -- Nick Hayden -- didn't even play football last year. The Eagles, by the way, came into the game averaging 449.8 yards per contest, third in the entire league. They got just 278 on Sunday, some of that in garbage time, and put up a paltry three points. "
Blogs & Other Media
Drafttek: 10th (12th). "Foles' QB play on Sunday would make any defense look dominating; as it was, it made Dallas fans overlook 2 Int's by Romo. Barkley may be the future, but the future is not now . . . meanwhile, Cuzzin Jerruh is dancing in a white leisure suit from Al Davis, yelling "Just Win, Baby!""
ProFootballTalk: 10th (15th): " No DeMarcus, no DeMarco? No DeProblem! ("No DeFunny.")"
Shutdown Corner: 11th (12th): "The Cowboys can get comfortable, because they're the best team in the NFC East and that won't change. They don't seem like the 11th best team, but who behind them looks much better?"
Newsday.com: 11th (13th). "Looks like the Cowboys are beginning to assume control in the NFC East as they put away Philly on the road with a nice defensive effort against Chip Kelly’s Eagles."
SB Nation blogs
Blogging The Boys (Your favorite blog): 10th (11th). "Don't look now, but that roller coaster is on an upswing. Dallas goes to Detroit with a chance to move to 5-0 in the NFC, which would bode very well for their playoff chances down the line. They need a couple of wins against above .500 teams before people believe, however. Will this be the week?"
Big Blue View (Giants): 10th (12th). "One game above .500, the Cowboys are the best of the NFC East. I'm not sure that has too much meaning these days."
SB Nation: 10th (12th): "Dallas versus Philadelphia had the makings of a shootout. Vegas agreed, assigning that the game the highest O/U last week at 55. They scored a total of 20 points, only two more than the total number of punts we saw in yet another NFC East stinker. The win gave Dallas a leg up in the division race, and they still look like the easy pick to get the NFC East's default playoff slot."
Bleeding Green Nation (Eagles): 13th (16th). "Credit to Dallas for stepping up and taking the division lead. For now."
Statistics, Computer & Vegas rankings
Sagarin NFL rankings: 7th (8th). These are rankings based on W/L record, points differential and schedule strength.
ColdHardFootballFacts: 8th (12th). This indicator ranks teams based on their average ranking across a range of CHFF's Quality Stats.
Pro Football Reference: 9th (9th). PFRs Simple Rating System (SRS) takes only two factors into account: strength of schedule and adjusted margin of victory.
WhatIfSports.com: 9th (10th). These guys simulate every possible match-up in the NFL 100 times, and use the winning percentages from those nearly 50,000 games to evaluate every team, with updated rosters and depth charts.
Teamrankings.com: 9th (11th). This site measures the relative strength of all teams using team performance, home/away status, margin of victory and other factors.
Oddsshark: 9th (12th). Oddsshark use a multitude of stats to establish an offensive and defensive power ranking, which they then adjust for the strength of schedule.
BeatGraphs.com: 9th (14th). BeatGraphs provide rankings that cannot be defeated by a chain of A beat B beat C scenarios. In the end, when all ambiguity is removed, if A has beaten B, A will be ranked above B.
The table below summarizes the power rankings for the four NFC East teams plus the Cowboys' Week 8 opponent. We will update the remaining power rankings when they are published.
Wk 8 Wk 7 Wk 8 Wk 7 Wk 8 Wk 7 Wk 8 Wk 7 Week 8
Foxsports
10 12 21 17 29 31 24 28 12
Drafttek
10 12 20 17 29 30 26 28 11
SBNation
10 12 19 17 28 30 22 28 14
ESPN
10 13 19 17 29 31 23 28 11
CBSSports.com
10 14 17 15 28 30 25 29 11
Pro Football Talk
10 15 18 14 29 31 25 27 12
Shutdown Corner
11 12 24 18 29 30 27 28 12
Newsday
11 13 20 18 29 30 17 25 13
NFL.com
12 14 19 18 29 31 27 27 10
WEEI
- - 11 - - 16 - - 30 - - 22 - -
Avg.Opinion-based
10.4 12.8 19.6 16.7 28.7 30.4 24.0 27.0 11.7
Sagarin
7 8 20 19 28 31 24 23 13
Covers.com
8 7 17 14 25 27 20 20 12
Cold Hard Football Facts
8 12 20 15 31 31 21 22 12
Pro Football Reference
9 9 19 18 30 31 24 23 11
Whatifsports
9 10 27 15 24 30 23 21 13
Team Rankings
9 11 20 17 29 31 18 23 11
Oddsshark
9 12 29 28 30 30 16 15 18
Beatgraphs
9 14 17 21 30 30 25 28 21
Massey Peabody
- - 5 - - 24 - - 22 - - 21 - -
Football Outsiders
- - 11 - - 15 - - 31 - - 30 - -
Avg. Stat-based
8.5 9.9 21.1 18.6 28.3 29.4 21.3 22.6 13.8
Total
9.5 11.3 20.3 17.6 28.5 29.9 22.7 24.8 12.7
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