A week ago I announced that we would have our own community power rankings for the NFC for the upcoming season. 49ers training camp starts a week from Friday and I thought the first rankings would be a relatively complete reflection of the offseason to date. Twelve folks provided their rankings and I'd say that's a decent first effort. Listed below are the teams with their average rank, number of first place votes in parentheses and the high and low ranking.
| Team | Avg. | High | Low |
| 1. Cowboys | 1.42 (9) | 1 | 3 |
| 2. Giants | 3.92 (1) | 1 | 7 |
| 3. Saints | 4.25 | 2 | 7 |
| 4. Seahawks | 4.83 (1) | 2 1 | 8 |
| 5. Vikings | 4.92 (1) | 1 | 10 |
| 6. Packers | 5.42 | 2 | 10 |
| 7. Eagles | 6.58 | 2 | 11 |
| 8. Bucs | 7.50 | 4 | 11 |
| 9. Redskins | 7.83 | 5 | 10 |
| 10. 49ers | 10.58 | 8 | 14 |
| 11. Cardinals | 10.75 | 7 | 13 |
| 12. Panthers | 11.00 | 8 | 14 |
| 13. Rams | 13.08 | 10 | 15 |
| 14. Bears | 14.17 | 11 | 16 |
| 15. Lions | 14.42 | 13 | 16 |
| 16. Falcons | 15.33 | 12 | 16 |
If people want other information, let me know and I can figure that out as well. A quick once-over of the rankings shows a jump between the top 9 and the bottom 7. That doesn't surprise me too much, as the top 9 teams are probably the safest playoff picks. I thought the 49ers would get a little more home-town favoritism, but there was nothing too crazy.
We'll have power rankings each week during the regular season. I'm not sure how often we'll have the power rankings before the regular season, but I'd imagine maybe two more versions. There will be one after the last weekend of the exhibition season, and maybe one halfway through the exhibition season. The more participants the better.