For the rest of the season, it seems like a few juggles are in order.  We know the following:

at Pit: Lowe

StL: Jurrjens, Minor, Hanson, Hudson

After that it could get interesting.  I think there are a few things to consider.

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After the game on Sunday, I heard PM talking about "all the guys who are no longer here" who were part of the decade of excellence. It got me all nostalgic, so I compiled a list of all the players who've played for the Colts since 1/1/2000.

Obviously, Peyton is at the top of the list with now 115 wins in that span. Before I put the data together, I made a guess at who #2-10 would be. I did reasonably well, but I missed a few.

Have a little fun and make your own guesses before you scroll down and see who they are.

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It wasn't a great week for my rating classes, with higher class teams only going 6-3.  Granted the Titans' and Ravens' wins weren't all that shocking, though perhaps their margins of victory were.

I'm pulling 2 teams up out of the mire to Class 3: Carolina confidently and Tennessee somewhat skeptically.

Elite (6): Colts, Patriots, Steelers, Broncos, Saints, Vikings

Contenders (9): Giants, Packers, Cowboys, Bengals, Ravens, Falcons, Eagles, Cardinals, Chargers

The Fringe (10): Jets, Bears, Texans, Jaguars, Bills, Dolphins, Seahawks, 49ers, Panthers, Titans

The Awful (7):  Redskins, Browns, Rams, Raiders, Buccaneers, Chiefs, Lions

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While I enjoy keeping up with the myriad of Power Rankings out there as much as the next guy, I also realize they're somewhat silly and irrelevant.

What I thought might have more meaning relevance is to make categories of teams.  Just off the top of my head, I put the teams into the following 4 tiers:

Elite (6): Colts, Patriots, Steelers, Broncos, Saints, Vikings

Contenders (9): Giants, Packers, Cowboys, Bengals, Ravens, Falcons, Eagles, Cardinals, Chargers

The Fringe (8): Jets, Bears, Texans, Jags, Bills, Dolphins, Seahawks, 49ers

The Awful (9): Titans, Panthers, Redskins, Browns, Rams, Raiders, Bucs, Chiefs, Lions

Obviously that doesn't settle all the quibbling - I'm sure you might want to move a team like the Eagles, Chargers, 49ers, Steelers, etc, etc - but I do think this approach is useful, particularly this year, when the spread between teams seems to be growing.

What I then did was to look at the game results thus far this year.  Now obviously this is a little bit of a chicken and the egg problem, since a large input to my putting teams into tiers was those very results, but the results were nonetheless striking.

Tier 1 vs Tier 4: 13-0

Tier 1 vs Tier 3: 8-2 (Bears over Steelers, Jets over Patriots)

Tier 2 vs Tier 4: 20-1 (Raiders over Eagles)

Tier 1 vs Tier 2: 11-1 (Bengals over Steelers)

Tier 2 vs Tier 3: 9-2 (49ers over Cardinals, Texans over Bengals)

Tier 3 vs Tier 4: 11-1 (Browns over Bills)

(1 vs 1 = 2 games, 2 vs 2 = 6 games, 3 vs 3 = 9 games, 4 vs 4 = 7 games)

So in 79 games involving teams on different tiers, there have only been 7 upsets!

Full stats after the jump.

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