Jimmy Boyd in A ranking is an opinion. Someone puts thirty two teams in a list from one to thirty two and defends it with vibes and last week’s score. A rating is different. It is a number in points, measured against an average team, and once you have it for both sides of a game you can build a spread yourself instead of just reading one. That is the whole idea behind this page.
As of Week 2, this fit runs through 30 posted lines, with home field measured at 2.5 points this season. Philadelphia Eagles sits on top at +5.5. The table below updates every week, but the way you read it does not change, and that is what the rest of this page is for.
NFL Power Ratings: Week 2
| Team | Rating | This week | Since preseason | Results | Market − results | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Eagles | +5.5 | +3.7 | +3.7 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Chicago Bears | +4.7 | +2 | +2 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Buffalo Bills | +4.5 | +2.6 | +2.6 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Los Angeles Rams | +4.3 | +3.7 | +3.7 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Dallas Cowboys | +4 | +1.4 | +1.4 | – | – | 0-1 |
| San Francisco 49ers | +4 | +4.6 | +4.6 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Baltimore Ravens | +3.5 | +0.9 | +0.9 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Green Bay Packers | +3.1 | +2.7 | +2.7 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Washington Commanders | +2.5 | +4.3 | +4.3 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Detroit Lions | +2.3 | even | even | – | – | 1-0 |
| Minnesota Vikings | +1.9 | +2.3 | +2.3 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Seattle Seahawks | +1.8 | +1.5 | +1.5 | – | – | 1-0 |
| New England Patriots | +1.6 | +1.9 | +1.9 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Houston Texans | +0.6 | +2.6 | +2.6 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | +0.4 | -0.2 | -0.2 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Denver Broncos | +0 | +0.1 | +0.1 | – | – | 0-0 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 0 | -0.1 | -0.1 | – | – | 0-0 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | -0.1 | -3.2 | -3.2 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | -0.3 | -3.3 | -3.3 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | -0.4 | +0.1 | +0.1 | – | – | 0-1 |
| New York Giants | -0.9 | +1.8 | +1.8 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Carolina Panthers | -0.9 | +1.8 | +1.8 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | -1.2 | -3.3 | -3.3 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Indianapolis Colts | -2 | +0.6 | +0.6 | – | – | 0-1 |
| New Orleans Saints | -2.3 | even | even | – | – | 0-1 |
| New York Jets | -3.7 | -4.1 | -4.1 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Tennessee Titans | -4.4 | -4 | -4 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Atlanta Falcons | -5 | -3 | -3 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Las Vegas Raiders | -5.2 | -5.5 | -5.5 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Arizona Cardinals | -5.6 | -2.6 | -2.6 | – | – | 1-0 |
| Miami Dolphins | -6.3 | -5.9 | -5.9 | – | – | 0-1 |
| Cleveland Browns | -6.3 | -3.2 | -3.2 | – | – | 0-1 |
Rating is points against an average team, fitted to every spread the books have posted this season, so it is the market’s opinion written down. Results is the same fit on actual margins. A positive market-minus-results number means the market rates the team above what its scores say.
Week 2: where the line left the market’s number
| Game | Ratings say | Line | Gap | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Lions at Buffalo BillsThursday, Sep 17 · 8:15 PM ET | Bills -4.7 | Bills -4.5 | +0.2 | 53.5 |
| Carolina Panthers at Atlanta FalconsSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Panthers -1.6 | Panthers -1.5 | -0.1 | 43.5 |
| New Orleans Saints at Baltimore RavensSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Ravens -8.4 | Ravens -8.5 | -0.1 | 46.5 |
| Minnesota Vikings at Chicago BearsSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Bears -5.4 | Bears -5.5 | -0.1 | 49.5 |
| Cincinnati Bengals at Houston TexansSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Texans -2.8 | Texans -3 | -0.2 | 46.5 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers at New England PatriotsSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Patriots -5.3 | Patriots -5.5 | -0.2 | 41.5 |
| Green Bay Packers at New York JetsSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Packers -4.3 | Packers -4.5 | +0.2 | 44.5 |
| Cleveland Browns at Tampa Bay BuccaneersSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Buccaneers -8.4 | Buccaneers -8.5 | -0.1 | 40.5 |
| Philadelphia Eagles at Tennessee TitansSunday, Sep 20 · 1:00 PM ET | Eagles -7.4 | Eagles -7 | -0.4 | 39.5 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars at Denver BroncosSunday, Sep 20 · 4:05 PM ET | Broncos -2.8 | – | – | – |
| Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles ChargersSunday, Sep 20 · 4:05 PM ET | Chargers -7.6 | Chargers -7 | +0.6 | 43.5 |
| Seattle Seahawks at Arizona CardinalsSunday, Sep 20 · 4:25 PM ET | Seahawks -4.9 | Seahawks -4.5 | -0.4 | 41.5 |
| Washington Commanders at Dallas CowboysSunday, Sep 20 · 4:25 PM ET | Cowboys -4.1 | Cowboys -3.5 | +0.6 | 50.5 |
| Miami Dolphins at San Francisco 49ersSunday, Sep 20 · 4:25 PM ET | 49ers -12.8 | 49ers -13.5 | -0.7 | 45.5 |
| Indianapolis Colts at Kansas City ChiefsSunday, Sep 20 · 8:20 PM ET | Chiefs -4.6 | – | – | – |
| New York Giants at Los Angeles RamsMonday, Sep 21 · 8:15 PM ET | Rams -7.7 | Rams -7 | +0.7 | 48.5 |
Before Week 4 every team has only a game or two behind it, so the gaps are soft and read as leanings, not edges; they firm up from Week 4. Lines as of September 14, 2026.
A Rating Is a Tool, a Ranking Is an Opinion
Every major site runs an NFL power rankings column, and every one of them is the same thing: an editor’s list, one through thirty two, that mostly just reshuffles itself based on who won last Sunday. It reads fine over coffee. You cannot bet it. There is no number attached, so there is nothing to compare against a line, nothing to subtract, nothing to build a case with.
A power rating fixes that by putting a number on every team, in points, relative to an average team. Once each side of a matchup has a number, you can do arithmetic with it. Subtract the road team’s rating from the home team’s rating, add home field, and you have a spread. That spread is not gospel, but it is a starting point built the same way a bookmaker builds his own number, and it lets you check your gut against math instead of against a stranger’s opinion.
That is the real difference between a rating and a ranking. A ranking tells you what somebody thinks of a team this week. A rating gives you a number you can use to make a line, compare to the posted line, and decide whether there is a gap worth caring about. Everything else on this page is downstream of that one distinction.
From Two Numbers to a Line: The Math the Books Use Too
The formula behind every spread on this page is simple: home team’s rating minus away team’s rating, plus home field. That is it. If a home team rates two points better than its opponent and home field is worth 2.5, the line comes out to roughly that team favored by the sum of the two. Books do the same basic math, dressed up with more inputs and more staff, but the skeleton is the same.
Home field is not a made up constant here. It is measured from the same batch of lines as everything else, which is why 2.5 moves a little season to season instead of sitting frozen at some textbook number. Treating it as a measured value instead of an assumption keeps the whole rating fit honest.
Where bettors get into trouble is treating every half point as equal. It is not. A shift from 2.5 to 3 matters more than a shift from 5.5 to 6, because 3 and 7 are the two scores that show up over and over in the NFL. A rating built off pure point differential does not know that a game landed on a key number until you check the actual line against it. That is why this table gives you both the ratings math and the posted line side by side. The gap between them, and where that gap falls relative to 3 and 7, tell you more than the raw number ever will on its own.
How the Fit Works and Why It Is the Market’s Opinion, Not Mine
These ratings are not my gut feel about who is good. They are fitted, using least squares, against every point spread the sportsbooks have posted so far this season. The model solves one equation across the whole slate: spread equals home rating minus away rating plus home field. Then it finds the set of team numbers that best explains every line the market has actually put up.
That makes this a market rating, not my rating. It is the collective opinion of the whole betting market, distilled into one number per team. When you read Philadelphia Eagles at +5.5, you are reading what the market as a whole believes that team is worth against an average opponent, not what one handicapper watched on a Sunday afternoon.
Reading the Weekly Move
A media ranking moves because a team scored a lot of points last week. A market rating moves because the market changed its mind, and the market almost always changes its mind before the scoreboard does. An injury report, a coordinator change, a soft opponent on the schedule, all of that gets priced into lines days before kickoff, and this table picks it up the moment it happens.
That is what the weekly move column is showing you. It is not a highlight reel. It is a record of what the market learned since last week, translated into points. A team can lose on Sunday and still see its rating tick up, if the market decides the loss was a fluke against a tough number. A team can win and still slide, if the market was already expecting more.
This week, Miami Dolphins moved the most, down by -5.9 points. The biggest mover is worth a look before anything else on the page, because a big weekly move usually means there is a real reason behind it, whether that is a quarterback situation, a personnel change, or just the market correcting a number it had wrong. Find out why before you decide whether the market got it right.
Market Rating Versus Results Rating: Who to Believe
Next to the market rating sits a second number, the results rating. It is fit the same way, using least squares, except instead of fitting to posted lines it fits to actual scoring margins, capped at 24 points so one lopsided blowout does not drag a team’s whole season number around. Where the market rating tells you what bettors believe, the results rating tells you what has actually happened on the field.
The column between them, market minus results, is where the interesting teams live. A big positive number means the market is carrying a team above what its results say it has earned, usually because of a soft schedule, some luck in close games, or a quarterback the results have not caught up to yet. A big negative number means the opposite, a team playing better than the market currently credits.
As a rule, trust the market rating first. It has more information baked in than any one stat line, including things like game script and opponent quality that a raw margin does not capture. But when the gap gets wide, it is worth asking whether the market is a step behind or a step ahead, because both happen.
This Week’s Slate and What a Gap Actually Means
Below the team ratings sits the week’s slate: every game, the spread the ratings alone would produce, the actual posted line, the gap between them, and the total. The ratings spread here is built from a fit that has not seen this week’s own lines, so it is a genuinely independent check against what the market posted for that specific matchup.
A gap is the market moving off its own season-long number for a reason specific to that game. That could be an injury, a weather forecast, a short week, a look-ahead spot to a bigger game next week, or simply sharp money pushing a number around a key digit. A gap is a flag to go look, not a bet by itself.
One caveat that matters early in the year: before Week 4, every team’s rating is built off one or two games, so the gaps on the table are soft. Read them as leanings, not edges, until every team has a few lines behind it. From Week 4 on they start meaning something. Either way, go find out why a line sits off the ratings before you decide it is value. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the market just knows something the ratings fit cannot see yet. This week’s widest one is New York Giants at Los Angeles Rams, off by 0.7 points.
My Own Tuesday Routine With This Table
Here is how I actually use this page, in order. First, I check the movers. Whoever moved the most tells me what the market learned since last week, and I want to know why before I look at anything else. Second, I check market minus results, to see who the market is carrying and who it might be underrating. Third, I go to the slate and look at the gaps, game by game, and only stop to dig on the ones that cross a key number.
From there I build my own number using the ratings, compare it to the posted line, and I only care about the difference once it crosses 3 or 7. A half point gap that does not touch a key number is noise. A gap that moves a game from a field goal to a touchdown, or across either of those numbers, is worth real time.
None of this replaces watching the games or knowing the news. A quarterback change breaks the model instantly, and it takes the market a week or two to fully reprice a team once that happens. Early season numbers are soft no matter how the math is dressed up, because there just is not enough data yet. And none of this is a prediction. A rating describes what the market believes right now. What happens on the field Sunday is still going to surprise everybody some of the time, and that is exactly why there is a market in the first place.
