NFL Power Rankings: Chiefs cement dynasty in Super Bowl LVIII; what's next for 49ers?

The confetti has been cleared. The planes have all left Las Vegas. Another NFL season has been put to bed.

And with it comes the end of my first year running the Power Rankings, at least as far as the 2023 NFL season is concerned. From here on out, all eyes are pointed forward, toward the healing dawn of another offseason.

It's an anodyne time for any NFL fan, where hope is doled out like candy at most passing turns. Free agency looms. The draft is not too far off in the distance. Anything is possible!

There aren't too many fan bases right now that can't somehow talk themselves into a deep playoff run in 11 months. You might have scoffed at overly rosy Texans, Rams or Packers fans a year ago, but look at them now. Of course, we could also talk in the same vein about the Jets, Chargers and Bengals, and it would elicit far different responses. Such is the ephemeral nature of the NFL.

Instead, I'd prefer to use the rest of this intro space to thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me while I figured Power Ranking things out on the fly this season. My predecessor, Dan Hanzus, set the bar high, and he was a tremendous resource for me; I constantly found myself looking back at his previous work to see how he handled things. I received plenty of additional internal and external support along the way, too.

And honestly, thank you for chewing me out for my rankings. If you didn't, I'd worry you didn't care. But you do. And you know what? Oftentimes, you were right, and I was wrong. Sometimes it was the inverse. Yet most of you were fair in your criticism, and I hope we all keep it up in 2024.

Time's a-tickin' before my preseason rankings are due. We must be ready.