Latest NFL power rankings keep Cleveland Browns dropping

Week 10 of the NFL regular season included one game critical to shaping the top of the order of next year’s draft among two of the league’s worst. The Cleveland Browns were defeated by the downtrodden New York Jets, and while this will increase their odds of obtaining better picks when April comes around, don’t expect a better standing in this week’s Power Rankings.

As we do every week, we take a peek at eight of the most prominent media outlets’ Power Rankings to see how the Browns’ stack up against the rest of the NFL. Be warned Cleveland fans, as things aren’t looking so great at the moment.

The Browns appear at 29th or lower on six of the eight consulted Power Rankings, including placing 31st on two of them. Cleveland also lost positions on five of them this week, after failing badly against the Jets.

The outlier here is USA TODAY Sports, which actually gave the Browns a one-spot promotion -- going from 26th to 25th this week -- despite their messy showing. Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated and ESPN had them staying put on their respective lists; both had them at 29th.

Cleveland took a two-spot dive to 28th on PFT’s rankings, and also lost two positions according to NFL.com, which now sees them at 30th. Yahoo!Sports, FoxSports and CBSSports docked them with three positions each. Yahoo has them 29th, while FoxSports and CBSSports have them next to last in the 32-team league.

Pending matchups against the Raiders and Titans guarantee that the Browns aren’t done sorting out where they’ll pick in next year’s NFL Draft.

As for the rest of the division, the Ravens were the big winners this time around, leap-frogging the Steelers on five of the eight lists -- SI, ESPN, USA TODAY Sports, CBSSports and PFT -- despite still being one game behind in the divisional race.

As a matter of fact, Pittsburgh dropped on seven of the eight lists, with only CBS Sports leaving them in the same place they held the week before.

On the flipside, Baltimore climbed on each and everyone of the eight consulted rankings, as they gear up to visit the Browns as heavy favorites (-8.5) for Week 11.

The Bengals were on their bye, but stayed idle on just half of the weekly rankings consulted. Sports Illustrated and ESPN dropped them one spot each in relation to their previous standing, while Yahoo! Sports and USA TODAY Sports saw fit to hand them a better position than last week.