AFC South Power Rankings: Texans, Colts lead the way entering Week 6

The Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts seem to be the top of the class when it comes to the AFC South.

After five games in the NFL season, there is no clear-cut favorite for predicting the champion of the AFC South. The Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts are tied at 3-2 overall, while the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans are both one win behind them at 2-3 on the season.

Much happened this past weekend for the four AFC South teams, but the two teams of the week had to be the Texans, for scoring 53 points, and the Colts, for defeating the previously undefeated Kansas City Chiefs.

Next is a look at the AFC Power Rankings for all four teams in the division.

For the Tennessee Titans, this has been a strange season. This past Sunday, they lost to the Buffalo Bills by a 14-7 score. The Buffalo defense held Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota to a 13-of-22 performance for 183 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. The Titans had Derrick Henry rush for 78 yards on two carries with one touchdown for the top offensive performance.

Logan Ryan of the Titans stood out with a sack, as did Harold Landry, DaQuan Jones and Reggie Gilbert. Though the Titans have had their good moments, there is still a lot of work to do for this team if they want to get to the top of the AFC South.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have two wins this season, and they are playing better than a year ago, but they still haven’t hit their stride yet through five games of the NFL season. Jackson lost this past Sunday to the Carolina Panthers by a 34-27 score with wins over the Denver Broncos and Tennessee Titans.

Having the win over the Titans puts the Jaguars at three in the AFC Power Rankings, but as for this past weekend the Jaguars had a solid performance from Gardner Minshew at 26-of-44 for 374 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Minshew also rushed for 42 yards on seven carries.

Jacksonville also had Leonard Fournette total 23 carries for 108 yards with one touchdown. Also for their offense, DJ Chark had eight receptions for 164 yards and two touchdowns.

Don’t count out the Jaguars, because they have a very good young group of players, and if they get rolling in all aspects of their team, they could sneak up and be a force in the division as the season keeps rolling along.

Though the Houston Texans played their best game of the 2019 season with a 53-point effort against the Atlanta Falcons, and they did so with a very strong passing game and a solid rushing attack, and the defense had a pick six in the late stages of the fourth quarter for the exclamation point.

When having the proper protection — and a running game to balance the offense — Deshaun Watson can be an elite quarterback in the NFL. Watson passed for 426 yards, had the highest passer rating possible and threw for five touchdown passes with no interceptions.

As a team, the Texans had their best performance of the season, and that has to bring momentum for their upcoming game this Sunday against the Chiefs.

The reason the Indianapolis Colts are the top team in the AFC South this week is not only for them having three wins, but their win on Sunday Night Football against a team like the Kansas City Chiefs was impressive to say the least.

To be honest, the Colts are playing better than many believed their would with Jacoby Brissett as their starting quarterback following the sudden retirement of Andrew Luck this preseason. The Colts defeated the Chiefs, 19-13 and on top of that it was the first loss of the season for KC.

In the win, it was the play of their offensive line leading the rising game of Marlon Mack with 29 carries for 132 yards, averaging 4.6 yards per carry. Though Mack didn’t have a rushing score, he also caught three passes for 16 yards.

The defense of Indianapolis deserves a nod too for keeping a powerhouse like the Chiefs to just 13 points, keeping their leading rusher Damien Williams to only 23 yards on nine carries and quarterback Patrick Mahomes to one touchdown pass.