The top-five teams in the final regular-season ESPN power rankings look very different from the teams that occupied those spots just 139 days ago when the preseason rankings came out.

Two teams from the preseason top five remain -- the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers -- but two others fell more than 15 spots over the course of the season.

On the flip side, two teams that began outside the top 25 have moved into the top 12 and will be playing in wild-card games on the road this weekend.

Biggest risers

Detroit Lions: 17 spots to No. 10

Matthew Stafford and the Lions won eight of nine games from Weeks 5 to 14, and they had a chance to win the NFC North in Week 17. ESPN’s Football Power Index had the Lions making the playoffs in 3 percent of simulations after their 1-3 start.

Eight of the Lions’ nine wins this season came after they trailed in the fourth quarter, the most such wins in the NFL. Stafford had a Total QBR of 88 when trailing in the fourth quarter during the team’s impressive nine-game stretch, third best in the NFL.

Tennessee Titans: 15 spots to No. 15

Marcus Mariota took a major step in the right direction in his second year in the NFL before his season was cut short due to injury in Week 16. He went from ranking 26th in QBR in his rookie year to 13th this season. Mariota upped his touchdown-to-interception ratio from 1.9-to-1 to 2.9-to-1 and nearly cut his sack rate in half. It helped that his receivers dropped passes at about half the rate that they did in 2015 as well.

Tennessee also got a major boost from DeMarco Murray in his first year as the Titans’ lead back. Murray ranked third in rushing yards and posted eight games with at least 100 yards from scrimmage. The last Titans player with more such games was Chris Johnson in 2009 (13), the year he rushed for over 2,000 yards.

Miami Dolphins: 14 spots to No. 12

Like the Lions, the Dolphins had a rough start to the season. They went 1-4 in their first five games, with the lone win coming against the Cleveland Browns. Through Week 5, only the Browns had a lower percent chance of making the playoffs (less than 1 percent) than the Dolphins (1 percent).

That’s when Jay Ajayi, who hadn’t eclipsed 48 yards rushing in a game in his NFL career at that point, went off for over 200 yards in back-to-back games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills. From Week 6 through the end of the regular season, Ajayi led the NFL with 1,155 yards rushing, including a league-high 604 yards after contact.

Biggest fallers

Carolina Panthers: 19 spots to No. 24

The Panthers followed up their 15-1 2015 season that ended in a loss in Super Bowl 50 with a 6-10 campaign in 2016. They became the sixth team to play in the Super Bowl and then finish with 10 or more losses the next season. No one had done that since the 2005 Philadelphia Eagles.

Cam Newton threw 35 touchdown passes to just 10 interceptions in 2015. He threw 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions this season. The Panthers’ defense went from allowing 19.3 points per game in 2015 to over 25 points per game in 2016.

Arizona Cardinals: 16 spots to No. 18

The Cardinals looked like they would once again be major factors in the NFC playoff picture after a close loss to the Patriots in Week 1 and a 33-point win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2. Arizona lost eight of its next 12 games after that.

Arizona looked a lot like Carolina in 2015, scoring more than 30 points per game and allowing fewer than 20 points per game on the way to first-round byes. The Cardinals took steps back in both categories this season and saw their points per game margin drop as drastically as that of the Los Angeles Rams (minus-7.5 points per game).

Cincinnati Bengals: 14 spots to No. 19

It was a year filled with injuries for skill players on the Bengals. Tyler Eifert played in eight games while A.J. Green and Giovani Bernard played in 10 games. Andy Dalton went from ranking third with a career-high QBR of 75 in 2015 to ranking 20th with a QBR of 58 this season.