Buffalo Bills get no love in rankings ... and you know Rex likes it that way

Power rankings are a strange and cruel beast, sort of like Rex Ryan after a Quarter Pounder binge.

Often arbitrarily constructed, they tend to be short on logic and long to digest. Just how official are these things, anyway? About as official as Adam Gase's genius status, we'd say.

So how can we combat them? How can we reorganise what's been so carelessly jumbled? (I feel your pain Matt Warren of Buffalo Rumblings. We're here to help).

Don't poke the Buffalo

Let's just tackle it one team at a time. And what better place to start than Buffalo, where the home town Bills are treated like sons, and yet ranked like SOBs by people with access to the internet.

For example, Bleacher Report has the Bills 22nd on its before week 1 rankings. They also have the Jags 17 and the Raiders at 11. So, you know, why stop there? Why not say the '79 Bucs are among the greatest teams of all time?

SB Nation places the Bills slightly higher at 18, but then say the Jets are just one better.

For a more official ranking you could turn to NFL.com, which has the Bills in 16th, with a nice blurb from Elliot Harrison about making the club great again.

USA Today seems less optimistic about Buffalo, starting with the line, 'Summer was unkind to Rex Ryan ...' Woah. Take it easy, America's paper. We were just joshing. Now you're taking it too far. They have the Bills at 19.

The World Wide Leader is slightly more generous, suggesting an 8-8 season, with a 16 ranking. Still ... does Boomer know about this?

Yahoo targets holes in the defence at season's open, with a harsh 20 ranking.

And don't expect any support from the gang at Fox Sports, who say it's playoffs or bust for Rex and Co. They've dropped them down to 22.

Then there's everybody's favourite online writer, Mike Florio, who has the guts to stash Buffalo at the bottom of the heap at 29. Don't fret Bills Nation, Mike has the Dak Prescott-led Cowboys at 14 and the Sam Bradford charged Vikings at 11. There's no adequate way to interpret this behaviour, though there are like 25 different 'Talk' tabs across that NBC site, so maybe Mike's logging too many hours.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to one of best comments on the PFT page from firecracker87:

1. firecracker87 says:Sep 5, 2016 1:00 PM
   

   The Bills won the off season; why aren’t they at #1?

   45

   12

   
   

Well played sir.

Cool Rankings: Football's trending teams

Who's the most powerful is important, right?

Most sports sites love an ordered list assessing "power". It's an inescapable force, like the bowel movement that overcomes Obi Wan as the Millennium Falcon is sucked toward the Death Star.

"That's no moon!"

And it surely wasn't, but rather a menacing space station that would play host to Ben's ultimate demise. It was 1977 and still feels raw somehow.

But we won't play into the hands of the powerful Empire, but instead consider those NFL teams everyone is fawning over. This is a stock count of the cool, the trendy, the water cooler contenders.

Our inaugural Cool Rankings are as follows:

1. Seattle Seahawks

The Hawks defense has most pundits, including ESPN's John Gruden and SI's Peter King, in flights of fluorescent fancy. They're good, but isn't the Packers o-line bad? There's always inordinately adored rookie quarterback, Russell Wilson, anyway.

2. San Francisco 49ers

Jim Harbaugh is the NFL's greatest coach, Alex Smith is the new Joe Montana, and the Niner defense relegates Alcatraz to the second most intimidating sight in the Bay.

3. Buffalo Bills

For some reason the Bills are still a sleeper, which is a testament to the prominence they achieved in the offseason. They lost to the New York Sanchez-Tebows in week 1 (who were so distracted by Lauren Tannehill they forgot about Ryan) and they've beaten up on the lowly Chiefs and Browns. Must be the helmets, at least they are cool.

4. Houston Texans

They might just be the new Dallas Cowboys: loaded with talent, full of expectation, and more talked about as a sexy favorite than Jessica Simpson during her Romo years.

5. Arizona Cardinals

Kevin Kolb's return to average is the feel good story of the month, outside of the real refs back like the mortal Clark Kent retrieving his superpowers, that is.