The Oakland Raiders will head into the 2013 NFL season with low expectations as the team begins yet another extensive rebuilding process.
With the Raiders’ coaching staff and front office still looking to put the pieces in place to secure the long-term future, no one expects much out of this team this season and ESPN seems to be in agreement.
ESPN’s Power Rankings for Week 1 were released on Tuesday with a few surprises. The Seattle Seahawks were dubbed the top team in the league while the Raiders were given ranking of second-worst ahead of the lowly New York Jets.
Here’s the bottom five teams to start the upcoming season according to ESPN.com:
No. 32 – New York Jets
No. 31 – Oakland Raiders
No. 30 – Buffalo Bills
No. 29 – Jacksonville Jaguars
No. 28 – Cleveland Browns
With all the changes made in Oakland during the off-season it comes as no surprise this team would be sitting at the bottom or near the bottom of these rankings. Although the Raiders have shown signs of promise in a few areas with Terrelle Pryor under center, the team still hasn’t turn enough heads to convince anyone they’ll be better then their current ranking heading into Week 1.
Here’s the rankings for the AFC West via ESPN:
No. 4 – Denver Broncos
No. 19 – Kansas City Chiefs
No. 24 – San Diego Chargers
As expected, Peyton Manning and company are projected to be a top tier team in the NFL this season and legitimate Super Bowl title contenders. The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to be much improved with the addition of head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Alex Smith while the Chargers remain a mediocre football team in a similar rebuilding situation in comparison to the Raiders.
It’ll be interesting to see how these rankings change over the course of the season and whether or not the Raiders can improve upon their No. 31 ranking.
