NFL Power Rankings, Week 2: How low can the Giants go?

Once upon a time New York Giants fans looked at weekly NFL Power Rankings with disdain. Each week followers of the Giants would see where the Giants were in these meaningless rankings, gnash their teeth and think 'What!!!! That is way too low!!! The Giants get no respect!!!!"

Well, not these days. Coming off a miserable 2013 season little was expected of the Giants, but there was enough good will extended toward Tom Cough, Eli Manning & Co. that most analysts ranked the Giants just a couple of notches below the middle of the pack entering the season, somewhere around No. 20.

After Monday's stinker, a 35-14 abomination of a loss to the Detroit Lions, the Giants toward the bottom of the NFL heap in this week's Power Rankings. Is this rock bottom? If not, how low will the Giants go?

Let's look at this week's rankings.

SBNation (No. 25)

Eli Manning threw for a mere 163 yards and was picked off twice, and the Giants' defense didn't show much better as New York was blown out in Week 1 by the Lions. One bright spot was the run defense, which held Detroit to 2.5 YPC on 30 totes, but that obviously wasn't enough since the pass defense was exploited by Megatron and the Lions' dangerous pass catchers. The good news for the Giants is that Jason Pierre-Paul's injury was only a stinger, and he shouldn't miss much (if any) time in getting back on the field.

FOX Sports (No. 26)

Although the Giants showed flashes of promise on defense, their offensive woes from the preseason carried over. In a new offensive scheme with offensive line issues and limited weapons around him, Eli Manning may struggle to regain form. The defense isn’t good enough to carry this team.

Washington Post (No. 26)

A lively debate can be had about who looked the worst among the Giants, Redskins and Cowboys. The consolation for all of those teams is that they get to play each other.

CBS Sports (No. 28)

They have a lot of work to do to return to the playoffs. Their secondary was supposed to be a strength but Stafford threw for 346 yards on Monday night.

Hard to argue with those rankings. Also, there isn't much room at the bottom for the Giants to slide. There is, however, some.