The ESSENTIAL Football Show 
The first week of preseason is in the books, and barring the latest player injuries, my model is up and ready to run.
In the days to come, I am going to be running through these results and comparing them to the field; to get started, I will take a high-level team view, going through each division, the odds, and where I differ from the market. I will touch on each team, but intend to keep it brief (or as brief as I can); for full breakdowns of each NFL team heading into the 2026 season, you can check out my State of the Team series at EFSanalytics.com.
Future articles will get into the player projections - quarterbacks are up next - but for now, let’s take one more look at each division. Division odds are from DraftKings; the Mkt % numbers are the market odds with vig, which is why the percentages sum to over 100%. I’m not huge on season-long bets, given how long they tie up funds, but we can walk through the hypotheticals.
AFC East
The AFC East is likely to feature two studs and two duds; the Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots roll into the season with MVP candidates at quarterback in Josh Allen and Drake Maye, while the Jets are coming off a disaster of a season and the Dolphins are in roster management hell.
My model has this tighter than the books; for all the talk about New England’s strength of schedule (or lackthereof) in 2025, they played two one-score games against the Bills, winning one, and dropping a second where they held the lead going into the fourth quarter. That’s not to say the strength of schedule stuff is fake - looking back at 2025, New England’s opponents were remarkably terrible - but it is to say that the Patriots are still a pretty good team despite that. I lean to the Bills because I have more confidence in their offensive line, but I’m excited to see A.J. Brown and D.J. Moore at receiver for New England and Buffalo, respectively, and think both teams are likely to be in the thick of the AFC fight. I’d take the Patriots as the better value at the current odds, even if I’d take the Bills to win.
AFC North
The AFC North is another team with two likely favorites, and while I am down on Pittsburgh to repeat, the Steelers are the reigning division champs.
One key difference between the Ravens and Bengals is their cross-over matchups; the Ravens get to play the Cowboys, Bills, and Chargers in their cross-over matchups, while the Bengals get the Commanders, Dolphins, and Chiefs. That might make the AFC West matchup a wash, but the NFC and AFC East matchups both lean heavily in Cincinnati’s favor.
Once again, the model agrees with the stacking of Baltimore as the favorite and Cincinnati as the second team, but the value in odds is on Cincinnati. There’s a lot of potential for the Bengals if it all comes together for the defense around Dexter Lawrence, and the offense is a proven commodity looking to tap into even more with under-center tactics this season; the Ravens could be as good as anyone, but the Bengals at +230 strike me as the superior value. As for the Steelers, I can see them taking advantage of a favorable schedule, and this veteran roster may have too much to it to bottom out, but I don’t think they have the juice to hang with the top teams in the division. As for the Browns, they are laying a nice foundation, but appear to lack the quarterback to be a meaningful factor in 2026.
AFC South
The AFC South is where I see the most value; according to my model, the Jaguars should be a clear favorite to repeat as division champs, but the Texans currently hold the best odds.
I can see the case for Houston - the defense is elite, and there’s hope additions like running back David Montgomery and center Keylan Rutledge can get the run game on track - but Jacksonville’s offense was absolutely humming in the back half of last season, and their defense is pretty darn good in its own right. Jacksonville needs to sort their running back situation, but there is a lot of talent at pass-catcher, and I think we’re set to see the best of Trevor Lawrence moving forward; it took some time to get going, but Lawrence and the offense really came on late, and another offseason should have them even more comfortable in head coach Liam Coen’s system.
The Colts loom as a potential dark horse; the model is roughly in line with their odds when you account for the vig, but while it looks as if Daniel Jones is on track to hit the ground running, there are still questions on defense, where several lynchpin players are returning from injury. Tennessee ranks as a distant 4th in division odds, and the model is even lower than the market on the Titans; I like the quarterback, but don’t have a great deal of optimism that the changes they’ve made are enough to catch up to their AFC South competition in 2026, even if it turns out they’ve set themselves up well for 2027 and beyond.
AFC West
The AFC West could have a lot of value, depending on how you see things, but there are also some huge questions that haven’t been answered here.
Denver is the surest bet to me; the defense is one of the NFL’s best and returns nearly all of its players, and while I imagine it would be difficult to have been more critical of Bo Nix’s early rookie tape than I was, I think it would be foolish not to acknowledge that Nix has completely righted the ship at this point. He uses his mobility well, is expanding his game as a passer, and has made big plays in big moments; Nix did have offseason ankle surgery after last season’s injury, but that is a relatively minor injury in NFL terms.
Los Angeles and Kansas City both have more moving parts; Chargers left tackle Rashawn Slater is not practicing due to inflammation in the knee, and given that ruptured patellar tendons are notoriously problematic, there’s a chance this never gets right, and as exciting as the addition of coordinator Mike McDaniel is on the offensive side of the ball, the loss of Jessie Minter is a big one on the defensive side. Kansas City has Patrick Mahomes coming off an ACL injury; on top of that, the offense hasn’t been particularly productive the past two years with a healthy Mahomes, and it’s a lot to ask running back Kenneth Walker to completely change that. On the defensive side, the Chiefs could be outstanding if their trio of highly drafted rookies hits the ground running, but that’s a big “if”, and if those rookies don’t pan out, Kansas City might have the 3rd-best defense in the division.
The Raiders are at the beginning of a rebuild and their Division Odds reflect that.
NFC East
This division is a great example of why I run this model; on the surface, I would tell you the Cowboys, who could well have the NFL’s best offense, should be the favorites for the NFC East. However, the Eagles could well have the NFL’s best defense, and once the model sorted it all out, Philadelphia came out ahead. The division was also interesting in the fact that the Cowboys are only projected to score 423.2 points, which is far lower than a team with their offensive rating would expect; however, when you look at the schedule, and see they face 4 of the top 5 projected defenses in 5 of their games (PHI x2, HOU, SEA, LAR), and two other potentially strong defenses (BAL and JAX) for good measure, that number makes a bit more sense.
The numbers on the Eagles and Cowboys wind up fairly close to the market, which is also true for the rebuilding New York Giants, but the model is notably down on the Washington Commanders, who have a win total of 7.5 on DraftKings, but come in at 6.14 in the model’s Pythagorean Expected Wins formula. That checks out; I lack confidence in Washington’s plan on defense, and the offense lost their best player in left tackle Laremy Tunsil to a torn triceps, which more than offsets the addition of Stefon Diggs at receiver. The Commanders are relying on Jayden Daniels to elevate two aging receivers, and Terry McLaurin only played in 10 games last season. Perhaps they surprise me - it is the NFL - but I think the most likely scenario is that Washington fires their staff this season.
NFC North
The NFC North is by far the tightest cluster of teams, with strength of schedule playing a key role in the gap between the Lions and the Bears. All four teams are projected to win over 9 games - a stark contrast to the next division up, the NFC South - with the Bears, Lions, and Packers all projected to have some of the better offenses in the league, while the Kyler Murray experiment in Minnesota is expected to be at least average.
It should be a high-flying division, as the Vikings are the only team projected to have an above-average defense. There’s no clear value here; I suppose I am higher on Minnesota than the market, but there’s a big difference between that edge if we’re talking about a two or three-team field vs. a four-team field, and while I am optimistic on Minnesota, they are also the most uncertain team given that we haven’t seen the quarterback in action.
NFC South
Evidently, the football gods decided an NFC South that had an 8-9 champ in 2025 was going to be too darn exciting, because these four training camps appear to be going quite poorly. The Bucs have receiver Emeka Egbuka sidelined with a toe injury, nose tackle/franchise icon Vita Vea requesting a trade, and quarterback Baker Mayfield publicly feuding with management. The Saints lost 8th overall pick Jordyn Tyson for the next two months due to a hamstring, and given the receiver’s spotty health history coming out of college, it would not surprise to see that linger, the Falcons lost last year’s first-rounder, edge rusher Jalon Walker, to a torn ACL, and the Panthers lost edge rusher Nic Scourton to an ACL and right tackle Taylor Moton to blood clots.
This is all in a division where the model’s highest win projection was already hovering around 7.5, a number that has dropped a bit since then. At present, the model has the Saints leading the pack with 7.37 expected wins, and Tampa Bay and Carolina in a dead heat at 7.28, with the Falcons sitting at 6.93. The only part of that that isn’t in line with the market odds is Tampa Bay’s odds to win the division; comparing that to the win totals, I’d say the under on Tampa Bay’s 8.5 wins is a reasonable play. It feels like a few different eras - Baker Mayfield, Chris Godwin, Vita Vea, and perhaps head coach Todd Bowles - may all be coming to a close down there; as fun as this offense was two years ago, injuries and attrition have notably changed the complexion here.
NFC West
In a sense, I’m surprised to see the model come in so much heavier on the Rams relative to the Seahawks and 49ers, and that doesn’t translate to the win totals - the Seahawks are at 10.5 on DraftKings, dead on with their Expected Wins from the model, and the 49ers are at 9.5, which is higher than the model’s expected wins, but not enough to account for this difference.
This does bring up a difficulty of projecting season-long expectations, which is the potential for injury; with Matthew Stafford, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams, and Myles Garrett all in the fold, it’s hard to see why the Rams wouldn’t rate as one of the NFL’s top offenses and defenses. However, Stafford and Adams are both up there in age, and Nacua and Garrett are currently dealing with nagging lower-body injuries; if they have all their guys, I’d be comfortable taking the Rams as a heavy favorite, but a couple of injuries could change that dramatically, and the model isn’t trying to account for the relative difference in odds that Stafford isn’t able to make it through the season against other quarterbacks.