Here are this week's Natural Power Rankings (NAPOs).  They're a ranking of the teams 1-32, based on a logical and mathematical system I came up with that eliminates any personal bias or opinion.  It's based around the final scores over the past three weeks and nothing else.

If you want more detail, read my earlier blogs.  Here are the rankings, with the team's record over the past three weeks in parentheses:

• 1) Indianapolis (3-0)
• 2) Jacksonville (2-1)
• 3) Minnesota (3-0)
• 4) Dallas (3-0)
• 5) Seattle (3-0)
• 6) New England (3-0)
• 7) Pittsburgh (2-1)
• 8) Cincinnati (2-1)
• 9) Green Bay (2-1)
• 10) San Diego (3-0)
• 11) St. Louis (1-2)
• 12) Tennessee (1-2)
• 13) New Orleans* (2-1)
• 14) Arizona* (1-2)
• 15) Houston* (1-2)
• 16) Cleveland* (2-1)
• 17) Tampa Bay* (2-1)
• 18) Carolina* (2-1)
• 19) San Francisco* (1-2)
• 20) NY Jets (1-2)
• 21) Detroit (0-3)
• 22) Oakland (2-1)
• 23) Buffalo (2-1)
• 24) Washington (1-2)
• 25) NY Giants (2-1)
• 26) Philadelphia (0-3)
• 27) Chicago (1-2)
• 28) Denver (1-2)
• 29) Atlanta (0-3)
• 30) Kansas City (0-3)
• 31) Baltimore (0-3)
• 32) Miami (0-3)

The NAPOs are oddly clean this week.  Normally games like Baltimore and Detroit playing New England and Dallas so close skew the results and give them surprisingly high rankings, but other bigger losses cancelled them out, and Baltimore's almost all the way in the cellar. 

* There's still a big knot in the middle, with New Orleans thru San Francisco all having one win and one loss within that group, but at least even that's a clean knot.  As always, the knot was solved by comparing SoV in all the games that created the knot.

So here's the part where the NAPOs earned their infamy - until last week, they were remarkably good at predicting games (of course, that's using my own predictions as a benchmark, which haven't exactly been the best around).  Last week was the first time I topped the NAPOs, finishing 12-4 against the NAPOs' 9-7.  However, I feel pretty good about what the NAPOs have to say this week.

Here's who the Natural Power Rankings say will win this week:

Houston over Denver

Cincinnati over San Francisco

Tampa Bay over Atlanta

Seattle over Carolina

Cleveland over Buffalo

Tennessee over Kansas City

Baltimore over Miami (bottom two face off - how exciting!)

New England over NY Jets

New Orleans over Arizona (top two "knot" teams - this outcome would also ensure there's still a knot)

Jacksonville over Pittsburgh

Green Bay over St. Louis

Indianapolis over Oakland

Dallas over Philadelphia

San Diego over Detroit

Washington over NY Giants (by virtue of their stronger win over Chicago)

Minnesota over Chicago

I reserve the right to change my mind by Thursday, but I made my preliminary predictions before doing these, and there's only one difference - I'm going with Arizona.