1. King likely holds the idea that 'if they play 10 times, New England probably wins 6-7 of them', so he feels even with the loss the Pats are the better team. It's his column, his opinions, so whatever ranking he has....whatever.
2. More importantly, I opened the sports section of my paper this morning, and for some reason it had the Bills ranked higher in the AFC East at 3-0 than the Patriots at 2-1. THAT'S the only ranking that concerns me.