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NFL Elo Power Rankings 2026

This is the 2026-ONLY "Blank Slate" page

The ratings and rankings on this page do not reflect season-ending ratings from the previous year. This page uses a new model for the 2025 season optimized for all teams starting each season at a 1500 rating. See this blog post for a comparison between this "blank slate" model and the regular model.

These ratings are likely to be less accurate for predicting future game outcomes than the regular model, especially toward the beginning of the season, but some people wanted to see them so here they are. Over the 1994-2024 seasons, this model picked 5,286 of 8,230 game winners correctly (64.2%), while the regular model picked 5,419 game winners (65.8%).

All available 2026 season pages:

• 2026 (regular)
• 2026 "Blank Slate"

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Weekly NFL power rankings based on the Elo rating system. Read more here.

Note: I'll try to update this page at least weekly during the NFL season, usually on Tuesdays. Want to compete against this Elo model? Join my public straight-up picks pool at nflpickspage.com. If you enjoy reading these power rankings you can check out the discussion in my weekly posts in the r/nfl subreddit or leave a small tip. Thanks!

Contents

• Before Week 1
• 2026 Summaries by Team
• 2026 Stats and Tidbits
• 2026 Model Accuracy

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↑ Preseason Power Rankings, 2026 season:

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↑ Team Summaries for 2026 Season

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↑ 2026 Season Stats and Tidbits

• Longest Elo Hot Streaks: Consecutive games with an Elo rating increase
• Longest Elo Cold Streaks: Consecutive games with an Elo rating decrease
• Biggest Elo Upsets: Highest Elo rating disparity between teams
• Biggest Elo Score Upsets: Highest disparity between expected and actual game outcome
• Most Improved Elo on the Season:
  1. +0: Houston Texans (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  2. +0: Cleveland Browns (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  3. +0: Jacksonville Jaguars (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  4. +0: Carolina Panthers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  5. +0: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  more...

  6. +0: Seattle Seahawks (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  7. +0: Cincinnati Bengals (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  8. +0: New Orleans Saints (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  9. +0: Atlanta Falcons (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  10. +0: Miami Dolphins (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  11. +0: San Francisco 49ers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  12. +0: Los Angeles Rams (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  13. +0: Minnesota Vikings (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  14. +0: Green Bay Packers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  15. +0: Detroit Lions (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  16. +0: Chicago Bears (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  17. +0: Washington Commanders (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  18. +0: Arizona Cardinals (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  19. +0: Philadelphia Eagles (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  20. +0: New York Giants (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  21. +0: Dallas Cowboys (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  22. +0: Los Angeles Chargers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  23. +0: Las Vegas Raiders (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  24. +0: Kansas City Chiefs (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  25. +0: Denver Broncos (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  26. +0: Pittsburgh Steelers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  27. +0: Tennessee Titans (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  28. +0: Baltimore Ravens (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  29. +0: New York Jets (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  30. +0: Buffalo Bills (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  31. +0: New England Patriots (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  32. +0: Indianapolis Colts (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
• Worst Elo Collapse on the Season:
  1. -0: Houston Texans (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  2. -0: Cleveland Browns (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  3. -0: Jacksonville Jaguars (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  4. -0: Carolina Panthers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  5. -0: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  more...

  6. -0: Seattle Seahawks (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  7. -0: Cincinnati Bengals (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  8. -0: New Orleans Saints (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  9. -0: Atlanta Falcons (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  10. -0: Miami Dolphins (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  11. -0: San Francisco 49ers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  12. -0: Los Angeles Rams (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  13. -0: Minnesota Vikings (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  14. -0: Green Bay Packers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  15. -0: Detroit Lions (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  16. -0: Chicago Bears (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  17. -0: Washington Commanders (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  18. -0: Arizona Cardinals (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  19. -0: Philadelphia Eagles (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  20. -0: New York Giants (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  21. -0: Dallas Cowboys (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  22. -0: Los Angeles Chargers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  23. -0: Las Vegas Raiders (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  24. -0: Kansas City Chiefs (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  25. -0: Denver Broncos (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  26. -0: Pittsburgh Steelers (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  27. -0: Tennessee Titans (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  28. -0: Baltimore Ravens (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  29. -0: New York Jets (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  30. -0: Buffalo Bills (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  31. -0: New England Patriots (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
  32. -0: Indianapolis Colts (1500) before week 1 → (1500) thru week 0
• Most Improved Elo in 8 or Fewer Games:
• Worst Elo Collapse in 8 or Fewer Games:
• Strongest Average Opponent Rating:
  1. Houston Texans: 0
  2. Cleveland Browns: 0
  3. Jacksonville Jaguars: 0
  4. Carolina Panthers: 0
  5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0
  more...

  6. Seattle Seahawks: 0
  7. Cincinnati Bengals: 0
  8. New Orleans Saints: 0
  9. Atlanta Falcons: 0
  10. Miami Dolphins: 0
  11. San Francisco 49ers: 0
  12. Los Angeles Rams: 0
  13. Minnesota Vikings: 0
  14. Green Bay Packers: 0
  15. Detroit Lions: 0
  16. Chicago Bears: 0
  17. Washington Commanders: 0
  18. Arizona Cardinals: 0
  19. Philadelphia Eagles: 0
  20. New York Giants: 0
  21. Dallas Cowboys: 0
  22. Los Angeles Chargers: 0
  23. Las Vegas Raiders: 0
  24. Kansas City Chiefs: 0
  25. Denver Broncos: 0
  26. Pittsburgh Steelers: 0
  27. Tennessee Titans: 0
  28. Baltimore Ravens: 0
  29. New York Jets: 0
  30. Buffalo Bills: 0
  31. New England Patriots: 0
  32. Indianapolis Colts: 0
• Weakest Average Opponent Rating:
  1. Indianapolis Colts: 0
  2. New England Patriots: 0
  3. Buffalo Bills: 0
  4. New York Jets: 0
  5. Baltimore Ravens: 0
  more...

  6. Tennessee Titans: 0
  7. Pittsburgh Steelers: 0
  8. Denver Broncos: 0
  9. Kansas City Chiefs: 0
  10. Las Vegas Raiders: 0
  11. Los Angeles Chargers: 0
  12. Dallas Cowboys: 0
  13. New York Giants: 0
  14. Philadelphia Eagles: 0
  15. Arizona Cardinals: 0
  16. Washington Commanders: 0
  17. Chicago Bears: 0
  18. Detroit Lions: 0
  19. Green Bay Packers: 0
  20. Minnesota Vikings: 0
  21. Los Angeles Rams: 0
  22. San Francisco 49ers: 0
  23. Miami Dolphins: 0
  24. Atlanta Falcons: 0
  25. New Orleans Saints: 0
  26. Cincinnati Bengals: 0
  27. Seattle Seahawks: 0
  28. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0
  29. Carolina Panthers: 0
  30. Jacksonville Jaguars: 0
  31. Cleveland Browns: 0
  32. Houston Texans: 0
• Strongest Average Beaten Opponent Rating:
  1. Houston Texans: 0
  2. Cleveland Browns: 0
  3. Jacksonville Jaguars: 0
  4. Carolina Panthers: 0
  5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0
  more...

  6. Seattle Seahawks: 0
  7. Cincinnati Bengals: 0
  8. New Orleans Saints: 0
  9. Atlanta Falcons: 0
  10. Miami Dolphins: 0
  11. San Francisco 49ers: 0
  12. Los Angeles Rams: 0
  13. Minnesota Vikings: 0
  14. Green Bay Packers: 0
  15. Detroit Lions: 0
  16. Chicago Bears: 0
  17. Washington Commanders: 0
  18. Arizona Cardinals: 0
  19. Philadelphia Eagles: 0
  20. New York Giants: 0
  21. Dallas Cowboys: 0
  22. Los Angeles Chargers: 0
  23. Las Vegas Raiders: 0
  24. Kansas City Chiefs: 0
  25. Denver Broncos: 0
  26. Pittsburgh Steelers: 0
  27. Tennessee Titans: 0
  28. Baltimore Ravens: 0
  29. New York Jets: 0
  30. Buffalo Bills: 0
  31. New England Patriots: 0
  32. Indianapolis Colts: 0
• Weakest Average Beaten Opponent Rating:
  1. Indianapolis Colts: 0
  2. New England Patriots: 0
  3. Buffalo Bills: 0
  4. New York Jets: 0
  5. Baltimore Ravens: 0
  more...

  6. Tennessee Titans: 0
  7. Pittsburgh Steelers: 0
  8. Denver Broncos: 0
  9. Kansas City Chiefs: 0
  10. Las Vegas Raiders: 0
  11. Los Angeles Chargers: 0
  12. Dallas Cowboys: 0
  13. New York Giants: 0
  14. Philadelphia Eagles: 0
  15. Arizona Cardinals: 0
  16. Washington Commanders: 0
  17. Chicago Bears: 0
  18. Detroit Lions: 0
  19. Green Bay Packers: 0
  20. Minnesota Vikings: 0
  21. Los Angeles Rams: 0
  22. San Francisco 49ers: 0
  23. Miami Dolphins: 0
  24. Atlanta Falcons: 0
  25. New Orleans Saints: 0
  26. Cincinnati Bengals: 0
  27. Seattle Seahawks: 0
  28. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0
  29. Carolina Panthers: 0
  30. Jacksonville Jaguars: 0
  31. Cleveland Browns: 0
  32. Houston Texans: 0

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↑ 2026 Season Model Accuracy

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↑ Introduction and Background

This page shows week-by-week NFL power rankings, based on the Elo rating system. The Elo rating system is a fair way to judge to relative strength of competitors, and is therefore an objective way to create NFL power rankings.

The Elo rating system is most notably used for rating chess players. It can be used to calculate the expected winning percentage in a multi- game chess match, where players with similar ratings are expected to win or draw about 50% of games against each other. After a match, player ratings are adjusted based on their actual vs. expected winning percentage.

In applying Elo ratings to football, we can consider each game as a series of drives. If one team "wins" most of the drives within a game, they'll likely end up with a large margin of victory. If both teams "win" the same number of drives, the margin of victory will likely be much more narrow. Therefore, team ratings can be used to calculate an expected margin of victory for the favored team. After a game, the two teams' Elo ratings are adjusted based on the actual vs. expected margin of victory. See the FAQ page for more background.

This Elo rating model was tuned by backtesting against NFL games from several recent NFL seasons, and compares favorably to the straight-up pick rates of the Vegas betting markets. This model also does well compared to the average picker at NFL Picks Page. That being said, these ratings and rankings are not intended for use in informing sports betting decisions. This is a simple Elo model derived from a minimal data set and it does not account for many relevant factors that may impact game outcomes. The accuracy of this model for past seasons is not necessarily indicative of its accuracy for the current or future seasons.

Have more questions? See the FAQ page.

Elo rating details:

• An "average" rating is 1500.
• For every game, the better-performing team takes some number of Elo rating points from its opponent.
• Predictions and rating updates are calculated from:
  • margin of victory/defeat,
  • home field advantage,
  • rest/travel days between games,
  • whether an overtime period occurred,
  • offseason "parity reset" (reversion to the mean),
  • early season shenanigans/uncertainty,
  • division alignment (whether a game is a division matchup),
  • whether a game is meaningless with respect to playoff seeding,
  • and of course both teams' ratings.
• The losing team can gain Elo rating points, as long as they perform above expectations.
• The winning team can lose Elo rating points if they perform below expectations.
• Elo ratings do not move much from week to week. This minimizes the overreaction from upsets. Like all model parameters, this has been carefully adjusted to make the model more accurate.
• Offseason "parity reset": team ratings move a little bit toward the average during the offseason.
• Each week's ratings are based on the previous week's ratings in a chain going back to the start of the 1992 season — although only the last ~20 games have any real impact on current ratings with the most recent ~10 being by far the most significant. The model looks back to the 1992 season solely for testing purposes: after allowing for the 1992 and 1993 seasons to play out, the Elo rating model is tested for accuracy against all games since week 1 of the 1994 season.
• While it would be fun to look at historic data, at this time there is no plan to include 1991 or older seasons in the model search process, nor to publish 2019 or older seasons.
• If you see an unequal number of Elo rating points moved from one team to another after games, it's because ratings are actually decimal values and are only rounded for display here.

2026 Updates

• 2026 offseason - Offseason improvements:
  • A new "v4.2026.04" model was found, and it's the most accurate model yet. It also fixes the misbehavior of last year's "v3.2025.06" model. See more details in the 2026 preseason blog post.

2025 Updates

• 2026-01-03 - Reverted to last year's "v2.2024.07" model. See the 2025 blog post for more details. The "v3.2025.06" 2025 rankings are available here.
• 2025 offseason - Offseason improvements:
  • An improved "v3.2025.06" model was found after a much bigger automated model search where 10 million models were evaluated for each of the regular, "never lose Elo for a win," and "blank slate" model types. The new "v3.2025.06" model is a "regular" model, and was more accurate than the new best found "never lose Elo for a win" and "blank slate" models. It picks a net 2.3 more game winners correctly per season from 1994 through 2024 than last year's "v2.2024.07" model. See more details in the 2025 preseason blog post.
  • Added "frozen" versions of last year's season pages, as they appeared after the Super Bowl in February in 2025. There are links to the frozen pages near the top of the above linked blog post.

2024 Updates

• 2024-11-14 - Added separate "never lose Elo for a win" pages, where the favorite loses 0 Elo rating points for a win by the expected margin or less. They are slightly less accurate than the regular model for now (picking 0.75 fewer game winners per season).
• 2024-11-12 - Added separate "no margin of victory" pages, where the winning team always takes Elo rating points from the losing team. They are less accurate than the regular model (picking 3.9 fewer game winners per season) but are popularly requested on Reddit.
• 2024 offseason - Offseason improvements:
  • After testing millions of models, found an improved model, called "v2.2024.07", that picks a net 3.5+ more game winners correctly per season (from 2012 through 2023). This new model is now being used for all season pages. See more details in this blog post.
  • Added "frozen" versions of last year's season pages, as they appeared after the Super Bowl in February in 2024. See the 2024 season blog post for links to those frozen pages.
  • Added the "Season Model Accuracy" section.
  • Expanded many of the items in the "Season Stats and Tidbits" section to list all 32 teams.
  • Found a separate, better model for the "blank slate" pages where all teams start each season with a 1500 rating (like the 2024-only page).

2023 Updates

• 2023-11-28 - Improvements to the plumbing behind the scenes, which among other things now allows for each team's full schedule to be shown in the season summary section.
• 2023-11-15 - A model update:
  • Correctly picks 2,038 game winners (out of 3,124 total games) from 2012w1-2023w10, where the previous best model picked 2,032 winners.
  • Applies a curve to increase the Elo scores earned from small-to-medium margins of victory, effectively tilting the balance more toward winning in general and away from large margins of victory. See more details in this post.
  • Increases the "Elo score" earned for a "narrow win" (again, increasing the importance of wins and decreasing the importance of margin of victory).
  • Widens the definition of a "narrow win" and awards a linearly-increasing Elo score for those.
  • Slightly increases the Elo score earned from an overtime victory.
  • Slightly increases the value of rest days between games.
  • The ratings and rankings change only slightly from the previous model, following 2023w10:
    • the Chiefs are now rated ~2 Elo points higher than the Bills, up from <1 point
    • the Lions overtake the Bengals in the rankings, moving from 8th to 7th
    • the Bengals drop from 7th to 8th
    • the Dolphins overtake the Chargers in the rankings, moving from 10th to 9th
    • the Chargers drop from 9th to 10th
    • the Eagles are now 20 Elo rating points behind the 1st place 49ers, where previously they were 25 points behind
• 2023-11-13 - Added average opponent rating info to team summaries and to the season "Stats and Tidbids" section.
• 2023-11-07 - A model update:
  • Correctly picks 2,024 game winners (out of 3,110 total games) from 2012w1-2023w9, where the previous best model picked 2,020 winners.
  • Uses a larger Elo "k factor" to react more strongly to individual games.
  • Decreases the "big win" margin of victory, effectively increasing the importance of wins and decreasing the importance of margin of victory.
  • Slightly increases the strength of the "offseason parity reset."
  • Slightly increases the value of rest days between games.
  • Ranks teams closer to where a human might rank them after 2023w9:
    • the Bills drop from 2nd to 4th
    • the Ravens move from 3rd to 2nd
    • the Eagles move from 4th to 3rd
    • the Dolphins drop from 9th to 11th
    • the Lions move from 10th to 9th
    • the Jaguars move from 11th to 10th
  • Also added the 2010 season, which allows using the 2012 season for backtesting the model.
• 2023-10-31 - Added power rank to season summary tables.
• 2023-10-29 - Added longest Elo hot/cold streaks to season "Stats and Tidbids" section.
• 2023-10-26 - Added new per-team season summaries toward the bottom of the page. Team names and week numbers are clickable to easily jump around between the power ranking and season summary sections.
• 2023-10-23 - Added "Stats and Tidbids" section at the bottom of the page. More coming soon.
• 2023-10-23 - Fixed conversion of expected Elo score to margin of victory football points in upcoming games. This doesn't affect the model, only the displayed point values.
• 2023-10-16 - A more dramatic model update: team ratings change more rapidly, yet I was able to optimize the model to pick the same number of game winners as the previous model. I wrote a little more background on my blog post. Changes to the post-week 5 rankings include:
  • the Bills drop from 1st to 2nd
  • the 49ers move from 2nd to 1st
  • the Lions move from 8th to 6th
  • the Dolphins move from 11th to 10th
  • the Jaguars move from 17th to 14th
  • the Jets move from 23rd to 20th
  • the Ravens drop from 6th to 9th
  • the Saints drop from 10th to 11th
  • the Patriots drop from 21st to 26th
  Overall, the new model seems to rank the teams closer to where a human would. While both this new model and the previous model pick 1822 winners correctly out of 2785 games since week 1 of the 2013 season, the previous model has a median "elo score" differential of 0.1152 over those games, where the new model is slightly higher at 0.1177. I'll continue to test tweaks to the model.
• 2023-10-11 - Tiny model improvements, and home-vs-away fixes (these fixes don't alter the current power rankings).
• 2023-10-10 - After lots of feedback on reddit, mostly saying that previous seasons shouldn't matter so much, I went back to the drawing board to look at the "offseason parity reset." Moving to a slightly bigger offseason reset appears to result in rankings that look better to the eye in the early part of the season. Plus, it increases the accuracy of the model when backtested over all games since 2013: the median "Elo score" differential decreased from 0.1168 to 0.1158, and the rate of incorrectly-picked winners decreased from 35.0449% to 34.7935%.
  
  With this change, the post-week-5 rankings have the Lions moving up from 11th to 8th, the Dolphins moving up from 13th to 11th, the Jaguars moving from 19th to 17th, and other minor moves.
• 2023-10-09 - Improved handling of bye and offseason weeks for the "prev:" display.
• 2023-10-06 - Added +/- "since last week" fields to the Rank and Elo Rating columns.
• 2023-10-05 - I found some knobs I could adjust in my Elo model that both increased its accuracy and also made the current (2023 after week 4) rankings look better to my eye. More adjustments that fulfill both of those requirements could be made in the future, if any are found. But depending on feedback I receive I'll leave the Elo rating algorithm to stand pat for now.
  
  These changes increased the rate at which winners were predicted since 2013 (up to 65% from 64%) and decreased the median "Elo score" (where a blowout loss is 0.0, a tie is 0.5, and a blowout win is 1.0) differential between estimated and actual performance from 0.17 to 0.12 (in other words, the model predicted game score differential more accurately).
  
  As for the "eye test" improvements, for the rankings following 2023 week 4, the Lions moved up from 21st to 12th, the Dolphins moved up from 17th to 13th, the Patriots moved down from 9th to 15th, the Packers moved down from 8th to 10th, the Jaguars moved up from 28th to 20th, the 49ers moved up from 3rd to 2nd, etc.
• 2023-10-05 - Added two more seasons to the model: 2011 and 2012. I realized I wanted to use 10 full seasons to backtest the Elo rating model, but the first and perhaps second seasons aren't useful for backtesting because all teams are clustered around the initial 1500 rating. Now that ratings are initially computed for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, all games from 2013 onward are used for backtesting model updates.

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These ratings and rankings are not intended for use in informing sports betting decisions. This is a simple Elo model derived from a minimal data set and it does not account for many relevant factors that may impact game outcomes. The accuracy of this model for past seasons is not necessarily indicative of its accuracy for the current or future seasons.

The schedule on this page is derived from Pro-Football-Reference.com, with weekly scores data from nflverse and some hand-entered scores.

The data on these pages was at one point derived from Wikipedia NFL teams' pages. I donate to Wikipedia annually. If you value free access to information on the web, or have recently found Wikipedia useful, I encourage you to do so as well.

If you enjoy reading these power rankings, check out the discussion in my weekly posts in the r/nfl subreddit or leave a small tip. Thanks!