2025 NFL Predictions: Rankings, Standings, Win Totals & Playoff Odds
Our 2025 NFL predictions and team rankings, including season win totals, projected final standings, playoff and Super Bowl odds.
by Jason Lisk - Aug 28, 2025
Josh Allen and the Bills hope to break through the AFC in 2025. (Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire)
Welcome to our 2025 NFL predictions and rankings, which were put together before the start of the season. In this article, you’ll find everything from team ratings to projected records and playoff chances going into Week 1.
We’re releasing our ratings, rankings, and projections in August, after training camp and preseason games are underway. This way, we can include the full offseason picture (free agency, the draft, and the schedule release) plus the latest market moves and injury news from the summer.
We’ll keep these predictions updated all season on our Season Predictions page.
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2025 NFL Predictions & Rankings Menu
Here is what you will find in this article:
- 2025 NFL Team Rankings
- Rankings Highlights
- AFC Predictions
- NFC Predictions
- 2025 Playoffs Projections
- How We Make These Predictions
- Interpreting Preseason Rankings
- Historical Prediction Performance
2025 NFL Team Rankings
The table below shows our 2025 preseason rankings for all 32 NFL teams, along with each team’s associated predictive rating (e.g. “+6.7” for Buffalo).
The team ratings are expressed as points better (a positive rating) or worse (a negative rating) than a “perfectly average” NFL team, when playing on a neutral field.
The final five columns of the table, from BASELINE to COACH, are sub-components of the final team rating and are explained below.
| RANK | TEAM | RATING | BASELINE | QB | LUCK | DRAFT | COACH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buffalo | 6.7 | 7.3 | -0.5 | -0.4 | -0.3 | 0.6 |
| 2 | Baltimore | 6.6 | 6.6 | -0.6 | -0.2 | 0.1 | 0.6 |
| 3 | Philadelphia | 5.9 | 6.9 | -0.4 | -0.5 | 0.2 | -0.3 |
| 4 | Kansas City | 5.6 | 4.2 | -0.4 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| 5 | Detroit | 4.8 | 5.1 | -0.7 | -0.4 | 1.5 | -0.7 |
| 6 | Green Bay | 3.7 | 3.5 | -0.3 | -0.2 | 0.7 | 0.0 |
| 7 | Cincinnati | 2.4 | 3.1 | -0.5 | -0.1 | -0.3 | 0.2 |
| 8 | Washington | 2.2 | 3.1 | -0.6 | -0.6 | -0.2 | 0.5 |
| 9 | San Francisco | 1.8 | 3.0 | 0.0 | -0.4 | -1.0 | 0.3 |
| 10 | LA Rams | 1.7 | 4.3 | -0.8 | -0.5 | -1.9 | 0.6 |
| 11 | Minnesota | 1.7 | 3.3 | -0.5 | -0.9 | 0.0 | -0.2 |
| 12 | Denver | 1.6 | 2.6 | -0.3 | -0.3 | -1.0 | 0.6 |
| 13 | Houston | 1.5 | 0.4 | 0.2 | -1.2 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
| 14 | Tampa Bay | 1.4 | 2.1 | -0.8 | 0.4 | -0.3 | 0.0 |
| 15 | LA Chargers | 1.2 | 3.2 | -0.3 | -1.0 | -0.8 | 0.1 |
| 16 | Pittsburgh | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.4 | -1.1 | 0.2 | 0.8 |
| 17 | Chicago | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.4 | -0.7 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| 18 | Arizona | -0.5 | -0.5 | -0.2 | 0.6 | -0.4 | 0.1 |
| 19 | Seattle | -1.0 | -2.4 | -0.9 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.5 |
| 20 | Atlanta | -1.1 | -2.2 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.9 | -0.3 |
| 21 | Jacksonville | -1.2 | -3.0 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.7 | -0.2 |
| 22 | Dallas | -1.3 | -0.3 | 0.9 | -0.3 | -0.6 | -1.0 |
| 23 | New England | -1.4 | -3.3 | 0.9 | 1.2 | -0.3 | 0.1 |
| 24 | Indianapolis | -3.0 | -3.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | -0.4 | 0.1 |
| 25 | Miami | -3.2 | -0.7 | -0.3 | 0.3 | -2.1 | -0.4 |
| 26 | Las Vegas | -3.3 | -4.3 | 1.2 | 1.0 | -1.5 | 0.3 |
| 27 | Carolina | -4.0 | -4.7 | 0.2 | 0.2 | -0.2 | 0.5 |
| 28 | NY Jets | -5.1 | -6.4 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 1.4 | -0.4 |
| 29 | Tennessee | -5.3 | -7.3 | 0.7 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| 30 | NY Giants | -5.3 | -7.5 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 1.2 | -0.6 |
| 31 | Cleveland | -5.9 | -6.4 | 0.9 | 1.5 | -1.7 | -0.2 |
| 32 | New Orleans | -8.1 | -6.6 | -1.0 | -0.3 | 0.2 | -0.5 |
Preseason Ratings Predictive Factors
Using more than a decade of NFL data, we’ve identified team-level stats and characteristics that are highly correlated with success in an upcoming NFL season.
Just as importantly, we’ve worked to identify and ignore often-cited information that actually has little to no predictive value.
Anyone can build plausible-sounding narratives that attempt to presage why an NFL team might be good or bad this season (great draft class, motivation from losing in the playoffs last year, etc.). But often, those types of theories can’t be clearly substantiated by historical data.
For instance, despite what certain sportscasters may think, there is no strong correlation between the consensus projected quality of an NFL team’s most recent draft class and its upcoming season performance. However, the quality of draft classes from three and four years ago does seem to make a difference, presumably because it typically takes a few years for talented rookies to develop into higher performers.
Here’s a quick explanation of the factors that currently influence our NFL preseason ratings:
- BASELINE: Mix of adjusted recent-season predictive ratings and betting market data
- QB: Projected starting QB play, compared to QB play over the past few seasons
- LUCK: Expected impact of regression of higher-variance metrics like turnovers
- DRAFT: Expected impact of quality of players drafted in recent years
- COACH: Expected coaching impact not already captured in BASELINE factor
The COACH factor is generally the largest when a team changes its head coach, but it can also include situations where we think the betting market is not fairly valuing the influence of a particular coach on a team’s win total.
(You can read more about our research into some coaching factors and win total performance.)
If you’d like to learn about the methodology behind our (mostly) data-driven preseason ratings, please read our post about how we make NFL preseason rankings.
2025 NFL Rankings Highlights
Here are some observations and notes from our preseason rankings and predictions:
Buffalo and Baltimore Sit Ahead of the Two Super Bowl Teams
Buffalo and Baltimore are in a virtual tie at the top of our power ratings, separated by just 0.1 points. Buffalo projects for more wins thanks to a softer schedule, and the two face off in Week 1 in a matchup that could help decide AFC seeding. Last year’s Super Bowl participants, Philadelphia and Kansas City, follow closely, each within a point of the top two.
Detroit Slips but Stays Dangerous
The Lions drop slightly from last year’s power rating but remain a top NFC contender. Coordinator changes on both sides of the ball — Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn both left for head coaching jobs — are part of the reason for the decline. Still, with Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and a strong offensive line, Detroit projects for 9.9 wins and sits firmly in the playoff mix.
We talked about Detroit and did a deeper dive into teams that lose coordinators to head coaching jobs in one of our newsletter topics this summer. If you want to get more analysis in your inbox, subscribe to our “By the Numbers” NFL Newsletter here.
New Orleans Collapses, New England Rises
Both teams have new head coaches, but their outlooks are moving in opposite directions.
New England, 30th in last year’s ratings, jumps with second-year QB Drake Maye and the return of Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels to the sideline. A soft 2025 schedule could accelerate a rebound.
New Orleans, 23rd last year, sinks to 32nd after Derek Carr’s offseason retirement. Rookie Tyler Shough and Spencer Rattler are competing for the starting QB job under new coach Kellen Moore, as the Saints finally begin a long-delayed transition.
Old QB Faces in New Places
Several veteran quarterbacks changed teams for 2025:
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Aaron Rodgers → Pittsburgh (from NY Jets)
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Justin Fields → NY Jets (from Pittsburgh)
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Russell Wilson → NY Giants (from Pittsburgh)
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Daniel Jones → Indianapolis (from NY Giants/Minnesota)
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Sam Darnold → Seattle (from Minnesota)
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Geno Smith → Las Vegas (from Seattle)
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Joe Flacco → Cleveland (from Indianapolis)
Jones is competing with Anthony Richardson for the Colts’ Week 1 job, while Flacco is the likely Week 1 starter in Cleveland, but could split time with rookies on the roster for a rebuilding team.
Worst To First?
Based on our 2025 preseason projections, here are the teams most likely to go from last place in their division last season to first place in their division in 2025-26.
| Team | Division | Odds to Win |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | NFC West | 38% |
| New England | AFC East | 16% |
| Chicago | NFC North | 13% |
| Tennessee | AFC South | 11% |
| Las Vegas | AFC West | 6% |
| New Orleans | NFC South | 5% |
| NY Giants | NFC East | 3% |
| Cleveland | AFC North | 2% |
While it’s never easy to make a one-year leap from the cellar to the top, history suggests it’s far from impossible — and our 2025 projections show several teams with a realistic shot.
Since 2002, a last-place division finisher has jumped to first place the next season 23 different times. On average, that’s exactly one last-to-first jump per season.
Last season, we did not have any worst-to-first division winners, though we did have two go to the playoffs. Those were the Los Angeles Chargers, a team expected to turn it around under new coach Jim Harbaugh, and the Washington Commanders, a team not expected to turn things around so quickly, with rookie QB Jayden Daniels.
In 2025, the eight last-place finishers from a year ago have a combined 99% chance of producing at least one division winner. San Francisco leads the group with a 38% chance, followed by New England (16%), Chicago (13%), and Tennessee (11%) as the most likely contenders to turn things around with a surprise run.
AFC Predictions 2025
| AFC East | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffalo | 11.9 | 5.1 | 86.8% | 72.4% | 28.2% | 13.6% |
| New England | 8.7 | 8.3 | 41.5% | 15.5% | 3.2% | 1.1% |
| Miami | 7.3 | 9.7 | 24.2% | 7.8% | 1.1% | 0.5% |
| NY Jets | 6.4 | 10.6 | 15.3% | 4.4% | 0.5% | 0.2% |
| AFC North | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| Baltimore | 11.2 | 5.8 | 80.5% | 56.8% | 18.7% | 11.8% |
| Cincinnati | 9.4 | 7.6 | 54.5% | 24.8% | 6.1% | 3.4% |
| Pittsburgh | 8.5 | 8.5 | 41.9% | 16.2% | 3.5% | 1.9% |
| Cleveland | 5.4 | 11.6 | 8.0% | 2.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| AFC South | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| Houston | 9.2 | 7.8 | 56.3% | 43.0% | 5.5% | 3.0% |
| Jacksonville | 8.3 | 8.7 | 41.6% | 28.2% | 2.6% | 1.2% |
| Indianapolis | 7.3 | 9.7 | 28.1% | 17.4% | 1.2% | 0.6% |
| Tennessee | 6.5 | 10.5 | 19.4% | 11.4% | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| AFC West | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| Kansas City | 10.9 | 6.1 | 76.5% | 49.9% | 16.8% | 9.3% |
| Denver | 9.3 | 7.7 | 53.7% | 22.7% | 5.7% | 2.9% |
| LA Chargers | 9.0 | 8.0 | 49.9% | 21.1% | 5.3% | 2.5% |
| Las Vegas | 7.0 | 10.0 | 21.7% | 6.2% | 0.8% | 0.4% |
The AFC remains deep, with just four teams projecting below 7 wins. Buffalo leads the way at 11.9 projected wins, slightly ahead of Baltimore (11.2) and Kansas City (10.9). The race for playoff spots should again be tight — twelve teams have at least a 33% chance of making the postseason.
At the bottom, Cleveland (5.4 wins), Las Vegas, and the New York Jets face the longest odds of winning a division.
Best No. 1 Seed Odds: Buffalo (28%), Baltimore (19%), Kansas City (17%)
Biggest Expected Increase in Wins: New England (+4.7, from 4 to 8.7), Jacksonville (+4.3, from 4 to 8.3), Tennessee (+3.5, from 3 to 6.5)
Biggest Expected Decline in Wins: Kansas City (-4.1, from 15 to 10.9), Pittsburgh (-1.5, from 10 to 8.5), Buffalo (-1.1, from 13 to 11.9)
Most Expected Wins: Buffalo (11.9)
Fewest Expected Wins: Cleveland (5.4)
NFC Predictions 2025
| NFC East | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia | 10.7 | 6.3 | 73.8% | 55.1% | 18.3% | 10.2% |
| Washington | 9.3 | 7.7 | 53.5% | 29.1% | 7.2% | 3.6% |
| Dallas | 7.5 | 9.5 | 29.0% | 12.7% | 2.3% | 1.0% |
| NY Giants | 5.5 | 11.5 | 8.7% | 3.2% | 0.3% | 0.2% |
| NFC North | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| Detroit | 9.9 | 7.1 | 63.1% | 35.6% | 11.8% | 7.1% |
| Green Bay | 9.7 | 7.3 | 59.5% | 31.8% | 11.1% | 5.6% |
| Minnesota | 8.7 | 8.3 | 44.9% | 19.5% | 5.4% | 2.7% |
| Chicago | 8.0 | 9.0 | 34.0% | 13.1% | 2.7% | 1.5% |
| NFC South | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| Tampa Bay | 9.5 | 7.5 | 59.9% | 47.3% | 8.3% | 3.4% |
| Atlanta | 8.5 | 8.5 | 46.6% | 32.6% | 4.6% | 1.5% |
| Carolina | 7.0 | 10.0 | 24.4% | 14.7% | 1.3% | 0.4% |
| New Orleans | 5.4 | 11.6 | 9.1% | 5.4% | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| NFC West | W | L | Playoffs | Win Div | Top Seed | Win SB |
| San Francisco | 10.1 | 6.9 | 63.6% | 37.9% | 11.2% | 3.9% |
| LA Rams | 9.3 | 7.7 | 53.4% | 28.0% | 8.0% | 3.3% |
| Arizona | 8.5 | 8.5 | 40.4% | 18.5% | 4.1% | 1.5% |
| Seattle | 8.2 | 8.8 | 36.1% | 15.6% | 3.3% | 1.2% |
The NFC is led by Philadelphia (10.7 projected wins) and San Francisco (10.1), both strong division favorites and top seed contenders. Behind them is a deep second tier — five teams project between 9.0 and 9.9 wins: Detroit, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Washington, and the LA Rams.
The NFC South looks competitive, with Tampa Bay (47% division win odds) favored but Atlanta (33%) and even Carolina (15%) in the mix.
At the other end, the Giants (5.5 wins) and Saints (5.4) are clearly rebuilding, each with playoff odds below 10%.
Best No. 1 Seed Odds: Philadelphia (18%), Detroit (12%), San Francisco (11%)
Biggest Expected Increase in Wins: San Francisco (+4.1, from 6 to 10.1), Chicago (+3.0, from 5 to 8.0), NY Giants (+2.5, from 3 to 5.5)
Biggest Expected Decline in Wins: Minnesota (-5.3, from 14 to 8.7), Detroit (-5.1, from 15 to 9.9), Philadelphia (-3.3, from 14 to 10.7)
Most Expected Wins: Philadelphia (10.7)
Fewest Expected Wins: New Orleans (5.4)
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2025 NFL Playoff Projections
Based on our preseason predictions, we can project the playoff picture for each conference at the close of the 2025-26 regular season.
AFC Playoffs Picture
| Seed | Team | Avg. Projected Wins | Playoff Odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buffalo | 11.9 | 87% |
| 2 | Baltimore | 11.2 | 81% |
| 3 | Kansas City | 10.9 | 77% |
| 4 | Houston | 9.2 | 56% |
| 5 | Cincinnati | 9.4 | 55% |
| 6 | Denver | 9.3 | 54% |
| 7 | LA Chargers | 9.0 | 50% |
| Just Missed | New England | 8.7 | 42% |
| Just Missed | Pittsburgh | 8.5 | 42% |
| Just Missed | Jacksonville | 8.3 | 42% |
Six of last year’s playoff teams return in our current AFC projections, with Cincinnati replacing Pittsburgh. Buffalo, Baltimore, and Kansas City are again the top seeds, while Houston takes the AFC South. Cincinnati, Denver, and the Chargers round out the Wild Card spots.
The race for the final spots should be tight — Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and New England are all within striking distance. As always, injuries and surprises could reshape the picture, but with so many top contenders anchored by quarterbacks in their prime, we’re taking a more conservative stance in projecting turnover.
Denver was the biggest surprise in the AFC last year, with low expectations for rookie quarterback Bo Nix. If you are looking for a sleeper like that, Tennessee’s starting 1st overall pick Cam Ward at quarterback, in a situation with a team that really underachieved last year but has some quality skill players, profiles most similarly.
NFC Playoffs Picture
| Seed | Team | Avg. Projected Wins | Playoff Odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Philadelphia | 10.7 | 74% |
| 2 | San Francisco | 10.1 | 64% |
| 3 | Detroit | 9.9 | 63% |
| 4 | Tampa Bay | 9.5 | 60% |
| 5 | Green Bay | 9.7 | 60% |
| 6 | Washington | 9.3 | 54% |
| 7 | LA Rams | 9.3 | 53% |
| Just Missed | Minnesota | 8.7 | 45% |
| Just Missed | Atlanta | 8.5 | 47% |
| Just Missed | Arizona | 8.5 | 40% |
| Just Missed | Seattle | 8.2 | 36% |
The NFC also projects to return six of last year’s seven playoff teams, with San Francisco replacing Minnesota in our projections, from how last year’s playoffs shaped up. The NFC South, though, is a close division, where Atlanta jumping up to get in the playoffs would not be a big surprise. Minnesota returns with a new young QB taking over in J.J. McCarthy. Arizona and Seattle doing enough from what looks like a very balanced NFC West would also not be a complete surprise.
We’ll note that last year, there were two surprises in the NFC, and we specifically mentioned both (as Meatloaf once sang, two out of three ain’t bad):
We don’t list them here, but three other teams look like decent darkhorse options (>20% chance of making the playoffs) in what could be a wide open race for the final slot. Washington (with Jayden Daniels) will start a rookie quarterback and a new head coach. Minnesota will turn to QB Sam Darnold but has a lot of offensive weapons led by WR Justin Jefferson and a top offensive coach in Kevin O’Connell. Arizona, meanwhile, will have Kyler Murray at the start of the season, unlike last year, and they were much better on offense once he returned in the latter half of the year, and now add a top wide receiver in Marvin Harrison, Jr. to the mix.
Chicago and Dallas, two teams with rookie head coaches, will be among this year’s deeper cuts. Chicago will try to make a leap in Caleb Williams’ second year after a disappointing rookie campaign, and Dallas will hope to have a healthy Dak Prescott back and win shootouts, as concerns about the defense are driving down their odds.
How We Create Our 2025 NFL Season Predictions
As we explain in our article on how we create NFL preseason rankings, we have identified a set of team-level preseason metrics that have demonstrated predictive power.
We identified these metrics by reviewing over a decade’s worth of NFL data and applying significance tests to any interesting-looking findings. We then built an algorithmic model that uses the metrics with predictive power as inputs, and computes a preseason predictive rating for all 32 NFL teams. We also continue to refine this approach a bit more each year.
A team’s preseason rating signifies how good we think it will be this coming season. Figuring out how many games we expect that team to win or how likely it is to make the playoffs, however, is a more complicated problem. To do that, we run thousands of computer simulations of the 2025 NFL season, using our ratings to determine implied win odds for each game.
Thanks to randomness, each season simulation plays out differently. Occasionally, an unheralded team like Washington or New England gets lucky and makes a run. Once in a blue moon, a team projected to be bad in the preseason even wins the Super Bowl.
After thousands of simulations, though, patterns in the results begin to emerge. The 2024 NFL preseason predictions presented in this post represent the averages of the thousands of season simulations we conducted.
What Do These Predictions Mean?
It’s important to understand how our system generates the results it does, and what those results imply. Here are the key details:
- We end up projecting a lot of fractional wins. That obviously can’t happen in real life, but we don’t want to reduce precision in the numbers just to make them look prettier. For example, a team with 9.6 projected wins has worse prospects than a team with 10.4 projected wins. If we rounded our win projections, they’d look the same (10 wins each).
- We may not be very confident that a team will end up with its exact number of projected wins. Let’s say we project a team with almost exactly 8 wins. In our season simulations, 8 wins were probably the most common outcome. However, that team may have ended up with either seven or 9 wins nearly as often, and sometimes with five or 11 wins. Our final projection, since it’s an average of all those numbers, ends up at 8 wins. But the odds of the team ending up with exactly 8 wins may be as low as only 15% or so.
- Our season predictions can change slightly day-to-day, even with no new game results. Because we re-simulate the entire remaining 2024 season every day, randomness in simulation results may cause slight fluctuations in team projections from one day to the next, even if no new games have been played. So it’s wise not to read too much into tiny differences in our projections.
Why Is A Simulation-Driven Approach Valuable?
Despite some limitations, our simulation-driven approach to making preseason NFL predictions has some clear advantages over alternative prediction methods.
Some human NFL “experts” can be decent at projecting the future performance level of a team—especially one they’ve studied closely. But overall, humans tend to have a poor grasp of the potential impacts of probability and randomness over the course of a full NFL season.
In our experience, even knowledgeable football people tend to underestimate a great team’s odds of losing to a mediocre or bad team. Many people like to look at a team’s future schedule and classify games into broad categories like “win,” “loss,” “toss-up,” etc. The implicit assumption there is that a “win” is a definite win, but no game in the NFL is a lock.
While it’s true that a team like San Francisco is unlikely to lose to a team like Arizona, even small upset probabilities keep adding up game after game. So you can’t discount them, especially when division titles can be decided by just one win. Just last year, for example, the Dallas Cowboys went 12-5, but lost a game to the Arizona Cardinals, a team that finished with four wins for the season. The Houston Texans surged to a surprise playoff appearance and 10 wins, but were one of only two teams to lose all year to the Carolina Panthers.
Running thousands of computer simulations of the 2025 NFL season and observing the distribution of outcomes generated by all the various probabilities is a much more objective and precise way to understand what is likely to happen over the course of a full season.
Final Advice On Interpreting Our Preseason NFL Rankings
Some people get worked up about preseason NFL rankings, especially when our numbers suggest that their favorite team will be worse than the popular consensus.
That’s to be expected. No one else ranks teams exactly like we do, and our approach often discounts things that many pundits think matter. We also have very specific goals for our preseason ratings—chiefly, to predict margins of victory this season—which don’t always line up with other rankings makers.
Predicting how 32 teams will perform over a full season is hard. No system is perfect, including ours. We’ll get some teams a little wrong and some very wrong. But over time, our approach has done well by the yardsticks we care about most, like predicting game margins and end‑of‑season performance levels.
Look At Ratings, Not Just Rankings
Don’t just look at where a team is ranked—look at the rating next to it. Ratings show how tightly bunched teams are and where the real tiers are.
For example, in our 2025 preseason ratings:
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No. 7 Cincinnati is 1.3 points behind No. 6 Green Bay.
- No. 7 Cincinnati is 1.2 points ahead of No. 15 Los Angeles Chargers.
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The Bengals, then, are at the top of a large tier of teams from No. 7 to No. 15, and are actually closer to the Chargers than they are to Green Bay, just one spot in front of them in the rankings.
So don’t overreact to a single-slot difference in rank. Focus on the rating to understand how teams cluster into tiers and how small the margins really are across much of the league.
NFL Predictions Historical Performance
Significant year-to-year accuracy fluctuations are always possible with preseason predictions, but our preseason NFL predictions have proven to be quite solid.
Mike Lopez, the NFL’s current Senior Director of Data and Analytics, conducted the only third-party study of preseason projection systems that we’re aware of in 2013 and 2014. He found our preseason projections to be the most accurate system he studied in both years. Our system was also the only system he tracked that was more accurate overall than Vegas’ preseason win totals in both years.
Mike stopped his study after 2014, but we continued to track our win/loss results against win totals lines from leading sportsbooks. From 2011 to 2021, when our preseason prediction for a team indicated that betting either the over or the under on its season win total generated at least 10% ROI, those implied picks generated +14.5 units of profit.
For 2022 and 2023, we highlighted some of our favorite preseason NFL betting picks as part of our Staff Picks. Over those two years, we made six preseason win total picks overall, and they went 6-0 (Giants over 7.0 wins, Vikings over 8.5 wins, Panthers over 5.5 wins, and Bucs under 11.0 wins in 2022; Eagles under 11.5 wins and Broncos under 8.5 wins in 2023).
In 2024, we highlighted four futures picks in our preseason futures betting article. Those picks went 3-1 for +2.9 units, successfully picking the San Francisco Under 11.5 wins, the Atlanta Under 9,5 wins, and the Bills to win the AFC East, and losing on the longer shot Packers to win the NFC North.
With two more wins on the two win total picks last year, that pushed the posted futures picks on win totals to 8-0 over the last three years.
NFL Week 1 Picks 2026
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