NFL Power Ranking Before the Preseason Begins

Last Updated on July 30, 2026 4:55 pm by Erwin Noguera

Training camps are open across the NLF and the preseason starts in days. The offseason produced one of the most aggressive reshuffles in recent memory: the Rams built something the league is already calling a Dream Team, A.J. Brown changed conferences, Myles Garrett left Cleveland, and the defending champion Seattle Seahawks quietly got worse at one position that matters.

Every roster is now essentially set. Here is where all 32 teams stand before a single snap of live football.

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1. Los Angeles Rams

Super Bowl odds: +550. The only team in the league under +1000, and the gap between them and everyone else on the board is enormous.

They traded a first-round pick to Kansas City for Trent McDuffie, a two-time All-Pro cornerback, which fixed their most obvious weakness. Then they made the biggest move of the offseason, sending Jared Verse, a first-round pick and additional compensation to Cleveland for Myles Garrett. A two-time Defensive Player of the Year does not become available often. Matthew Stafford was extended on a one-year, $55 million deal to keep the window open.

There are even rumors that Aaron Donald could come out of retirement. Whether or not that happens, this is the most talented roster in football on paper. The question is whether a team assembled this quickly plays like one by January.

2. Denver Broncos

Sean Payton says Bo Nix is full go for camp. That matters more than anything else on this roster.

Denver’s defense ranked third in points allowed last season, and they reached the AFC Championship Game with an injured quarterback. If Nix had been at full strength for that game, the Broncos likely would have reached the Super Bowl.

The ceiling here depends entirely on whether Nix takes the next step as a passer. The infrastructure is in place: elite defense, strong coaching, a complete supporting cast. At +2000, they are the best value among genuine contenders.

3. Baltimore Ravens

+1000, tied for the second-shortest odds in the league. Everything hinges on health, which has been the Baltimore story for years now.

Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry are still one of the most difficult backfield combinations in football when both are available. The signing of center Ethan Pocic gives the offensive line a real upgrade if he stays on the field. Jesse Minter has inherited a roster widely viewed as Super Bowl caliber.

The AFC North is brutal this year with Cincinnati also loaded. Baltimore has the talent to reach Super Bowl LXI. They have had that talent before.

4. Seattle Seahawks

The defending champions are fourth, and that is not disrespectful. It is a running back problem.

Kenneth Walker III is gone. Zach Charbonnet is recovering from a torn ACL. That leaves rookie Jadarian Price, who was Notre Dame’s second running back last season, carrying a significant load for a team trying to repeat.

At +1100, the market still respects them, and it should; winning a Super Bowl proves things that projections cannot. But repeating in the modern NFL is almost impossible, and doing it while asking that much of an unproven rookie at a premium position makes it harder.

5. New England Patriots

New England got the best offensive addition of the offseason. A.J. Brown is an elite receiver, and he arrives to play with a quarterback who was already MVP-caliber.

Drake Maye did not need help to be very good. With Brown giving him a genuine number one target, the ceiling moves considerably. At +1600, this is one of the better prices on the board among real contenders.

The complication is the schedule, which is significantly harder than last season. They will be tested early and often.

6. Buffalo Bills

+1000 and the same question every year. Josh Allen is a top-three quarterback, and James Cook is one of the league’s best backs. The receiving corps is the issue.

Buffalo entered the offseason needing a legitimate number one wideout and came away with D.J. Moore as the answer. Moore is a good player. He is not the difference-maker this offense has been missing since Stefon Diggs left.

You never write off a team with Allen. You also never quite trust this specific version of the roster in January.

7. Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles are still loaded, and they made the offseason’s most confusing decision. Trading A.J. Brown was defensible for cap and roster construction reasons. It also made this team worse in 2026 with no obvious replacement.

Rookie Makai Lemon is already dealing with hamstring issues. Replacing an elite receiver with an injured rookie is not a plan.

At +1600, they remain a real contender because the rest of the roster is that good. But they dropped from fourth to seventh in the space of one trade, and it is hard to argue with that.

8. Chicago Bears

Year two of the Ben Johnson era, and the offense should be significantly better with a full season of continuity. Chicago has weapons and a scheme that maximizes them.

The defense is the open question. They spent the offseason addressing it, and nobody is quite sure whether they did enough. If the answer is yes, this is a top-five team. At +2400, the price reflects that uncertainty.

9. Houston Texans

Houston has not signed C.J. Stroud to an extension, which tells you the front office wants to see more before committing.

That is fair. Stroud’s rookie season set expectations he has not matched since. If he finds that form again, the Texans are a legitimate dark horse Super Bowl contender at +1800; the defense and supporting cast are there.

Big season for a quarterback who needs one.

10. Cincinnati Bengals

Joe Burrow is back. The defensive front has been rebuilt. The schedule is among the easiest in the league. It is hard not to like this team at +2000.

The caveat is written into Cincinnati’s history. The Bengals start slowly almost every year and then spend December trying to climb out of a hole they dug in September. Zac Taylor is on the hot seat after three straight seasons without a playoff appearance.

Check back in Week 3. If they are 2-1 or better, this becomes a very dangerous football team.

11. Jacksonville Jaguars

Liam Coen is a coach worth trusting. The roster he was handed this offseason is harder to trust.

Jacksonville dropped from eighth in previous rankings largely because of what they did not do. The running back room, led by Chris Rodriguez and Bhayshul Tuten, is a genuine risk for a team with playoff ambitions. Contenders do not usually go into a season hoping their backfield figures itself out.

12. San Francisco 49ers

All the pieces are there. That has been true for several years now.

George Kittle and Nick Bosa both have injury concerns entering camp, and the travel schedule is one of the toughest in the league. The Brandon Aiyuk situation continues to be a distraction that the organization needs to resolve one way or another.

At +1900, the talent justifies the price. Availability is the whole question.

13. Kansas City Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes is cleared to practice after ACL surgery, and Andy Reid has brought rookies and quarterbacks in early after last season’s collapse.

Mahomes will be ready for Week 1 barring a setback, though he may not be fully himself until later in the year. He will also be as motivated as he has ever been.

The Rashee Rice situation is the concern nobody wants to discuss. Knee surgery in June, performed while he was in jail for a probation violation, is not a sentence any team wants written about its top receiver.

Ranking the Chiefs 13th feels wrong. Their roster and their quarterback’s health say it is right.

14. Los Angeles Chargers

Mike McDaniel is now the offensive coordinator, and the entire season comes down to whether he can unlock Justin Herbert.

Herbert has been very good and never quite great. McDaniel has a track record of building offenses that make quarterbacks look better than their raw tools suggest. The offensive line has been revamped and is healthier.

The first half of the schedule is difficult. If they survive it, this could be a problem for the AFC West.

15. Detroit Lions

Detroit made the right call releasing cornerback Terrion Arnold, their 2024 first-round pick, following his arrest on kidnapping and robbery charges. He missed half of last season anyway, and the secondary will be fine without him.

The Lions remain talented across the roster at +1900. This is a team that has not quite converted its regular-season quality into January results, and the window does not stay open forever.

16. Green Bay Packers

A rough offseason. Micah Parsons tore his ACL and will not be back until at least mid-October. Josh Jacobs is under a domestic violence investigation.

Losing Parsons for the first six weeks changes the defensive math significantly. Green Bay dropped from 14th and could fall further if the Jacobs situation escalates.

At +1800, the market has not fully adjusted. The roster is good enough to survive the start of the season. It is not clear it is good enough to thrive.

17. Minnesota Vikings

Kyler Murray in Minnesota is the most interesting quarterback experiment of the offseason.

Kevin O’Connell has one of the best offensive reputations in football and now faces the assignment that defines coaching careers: resurrecting a quarterback whose talent has never matched his production. If anyone can do it, it is O’Connell.

At +5000, this is a lottery ticket on a coach rather than a team.

18. Carolina Panthers

Make or break for Bryce Young. Three NFL seasons in, he has shown flashes of the player Carolina traded up to draft and never sustained them.

If he finally plays like a number one overall pick, the Panthers become a rising force with a young roster around him. The evidence so far says do not count on it.

19. Dallas Cowboys

People around the league like what Dallas did to fix a defense that was genuinely bad last season. The improvement should be real.

Whether it is enough to make them a contender is another matter. The elite offense will still have to carry most of the load, which is the same story as every recent Cowboys season. At +2500, the market is not convinced either.

20. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tampa improved the defense and is relying mostly on better health on offense. That is a thin plan, but the tools are genuinely there.

Extending Baker Mayfield would remove a distraction the team does not need. If they do that and stay healthy, +5000 is a reasonable swing.

21. New York Giants

John Harbaugh is a substantial upgrade at head coach, and the Giants have a young offense led by Jaxson Dart plus a respectable defense. There is a real foundation here.

The problem is health. Malik Nabers is returning from a torn ACL, and nobody in the organization will commit to a timetable or mention Week 1 — usually a bad sign. Cam Skattebo is healthy enough to do backflips, which is a nice image, and not a substitute for a number one receiver.

Much improved. Still a year away.

22. Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta does not know when Michael Penix Jr. will be back or whether he would start over Tua Tagovailoa when he is. Edge rusher James Pearce is likely facing suspension after a February arrest on three felony charges in a domestic incident.

Neither situation is close to resolved. At +13000, the market has already written them off.

23. Indianapolis Colts

Daniel Jones is on track to practice this summer and start the season on time. That is the good news.

The last time Jones returned from a major injury, his play deteriorated badly, and he was eventually benched. How long it takes him to regain form (or whether he does) is an open question that defines Indianapolis’s season.

24. Pittsburgh Steelers

A 42-year-old quarterback, a backloaded schedule, and a division containing two Super Bowl contenders.

Pittsburgh is hoping for one last glorious ride from Aaron Rodgers. The more sensible move would have been starting a rebuild around a young quarterback this year. They chose the other path, and the AFC North will punish them for it.

25. New Orleans Saints

Kellen Moore surprised people with how competitive New Orleans was in his first season. Cam Jordan returning helps the defense, and keeping Alvin Kamara is a positive as long as his workload is managed.

Everything else depends on Tyler Shough, and the league has not seen enough of him to know what that means.

26. Washington Commanders

Washington is justifiably pleased with the work it did on defense. The offense is the problem.

Outside of Terry McLaurin, who turns 31 this year, there is very little around a genuinely dynamic quarterback. Building a defense and then failing to give your best player any weapons is a strange way to construct a roster.

27. Tennessee Titans

Tennessee did a lot of sensible things to overhaul this roster in the offseason. None of it will show up immediately.

If Cam Ward turns out to be good, the Titans should look much improved by December. That is the realistic best case; a team that finishes stronger than it starts and gives the fanbase something to build on.

28. Cleveland Browns

The offseason did not resolve the quarterback battle, which is apparently between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. There is no version of that competition where the Browns come out ahead.

They also traded Myles Garrett, the best player on the roster and one of the best defensive players in football. The return was substantial. The 2026 season is not going to be.

29. Las Vegas Raiders

If the reports are accurate and Las Vegas intends to start Kirk Cousins all season so first overall pick Fernando Mendoza can watch and learn, then 2026 is a deliberately wasted year.

That is not necessarily bad strategy. Sitting a rookie quarterback behind a veteran has worked before. It just makes this season’s results meaningless.

30. New York Jets

There was a version of this offseason where the Jets convinced people they would be better. Geno Smith spent it doing the opposite.

Reports of an angry encounter with police at a traffic stop, an investigation in a domestic dispute that cleared him, and a speeding citation add up to a quarterback whose focus is not obviously on football. It could be a long season.

31. Miami Dolphins

Miami might have found something in Malik Willis. It will be difficult to tell, because they gave him almost no weapons to work with and the schedule is brutal.

First-time head coach Jeff Hafley is facing a long rebuild. At +35000, nobody expects otherwise.

32. Arizona Cardinals

Last, and trapped in the best division in football. The Cardinals will struggle to win more than a handful of games.

The NFL also suspended their scouting director for leaking draft information and betting on college games, which is the kind of organizational story that tends to accompany a bad football team rather than cause one.

What to Watch in the Preseason

Three things will tell you whether these rankings hold.

Mahomes’s mobility. Cleared to practice is not the same as cleared to be Patrick Mahomes. How he moves in August determines whether Kansas City is 13th or top five.

Whether the Rams look like a team. Assembling this much talent in one offseason is the easy part. Garrett and McDuffie integrating into a defense that also lost Jared Verse is the actual project, and preseason snaps will show early signs.

Seattle’s backfield. If Jadarian Price looks capable in August, the defending champions move back into the top two. If he does not, Seattle has a real problem at a position they cannot fix in September.

The season is close. The rosters are set. Now it counts.