NFL power rankings 2025 with best future bets: Packers to win NFC North, Ravens or Bills to win Super Bowl

My mother wouldn't necessarily be proud of this, but everything we do when it comes to using our SportsLine Projection Model is designed to maximize gambling profit. The SportsLine Projection Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can find all of our team's picks and content at our blog, which has all our personal best bets for free. Our NFL model simulates each game thousands of times and has performed extremely well on top rated spread, total and money line picks, going 72-47, 60.5% (+18.5 units) in NFL betting over the last three seasons. 

Our model is different than most. We don't try to accurately forecast who is going to cover. Over two decades, we have reverse engineered oddsmakers' models which has resulted in 85-90% of our projections being virtually identical to the oddsmaker's lines. When top sportsbooks' lines differ from ours, we know they are likely manipulating a line to generate monetary value or minimize risk. And more often than not, betting a line that is statistically sound is the better side.

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Using the model for (betting) power rankings

In our Week 1 projections on SportsLine, there are three good spread or money line betting values. This is a strong indicator our model's overall opinion of the 32 NFL teams is in line with the oddsmakers' consensus. In order to generate our power rankings, we take our model one step further. We simulate every team vs every other team on a neutral field based on the roster that they'd have at the time of the Super Bowl. The SIM WIN% below is the average percentage of simulations each team has won versus the 31 other teams. 

This allows us to rank teams objectively without the bias that strength of schedule can have when projecting win totals, playoff% and Super Bowl chances. Most futures lines are based on Power Rankings, but betting values come from identifying the situations where strength of schedule is a larger factor than power rankings or when public steam has moved lines too far from what the Power Rankings would indicate.

Betting the Eagles to repeat as NFC East division chances was great even before Dallas traded away Micah Parsons. I spell out my favorite player props that includes a +900 FanDuel SGP here. The Parsons trade sunk the Cowboys' chances to compete with Philly for the division, but the much bigger factor was Washington's tougher schedule. The Commanders rate well in the power rankings but face many more playoff teams this season than last year. Washington definitely got better as the season progressed but the Commanders were still just 1-4 against playoff teams last regular season. They face eight playoff teams this season.

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This is the year we think the Bills or Ravens get over the Chiefs hump. Baltimore is ranked higher on a neutral field than Buffalo but Buffalo has home field advantage in Week 1 and a much easier schedule. That's why they have the higher Super Bowl %. The Bills have the inside track for the No. 1 seed and having a 100% chance of advancing past round one and a 55% chance of winning at home in the AFC Championship game is much better than having a 75% chance of advancing past the first round and a 45% chance of winning a road AFC Championship game.

That said, with BetRivers still offering +700 for Baltimore to win it all and FanDuel offering +750 for Buffalo, we say play them both and turn this into a 38% chance of winning +500 or +550.

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Our last power rankings go into great detail on why we like Green Bay to win the division even though we have Detroit as the slightly better team, even with Parsons in Green Bay. This is all about Detroit's first place schedule and Green Bay's third place schedule, which is much easier than Chicago's 4th place schedule because they have to play the 49ers. 

The big books in our industry are going head-to-head with DraftKings offering the best Packers lines and FanDuel offering the cheapest Lions fades.

When it comes to making sound futures bets, you do not want to abide by the old Bill Parcells adage that "you are what your record says you are." The Chiefs were a distant third in their own division in point differential. Their greatest strength is their ability to win close games at an impossibly high rate that cannot be sustained...at least I think that's the case. I would never bet against the Chiefs in a meaningful game but over 17 games with the regular season quality in the rest of the division, I'll take the Under.

Our model's projected spread is the same as the consensus for this week 1 matchup. Our projected win totals for the rest of the division are essentially the same as the sportsbook lines. Our model is aligned with the oddsmaker's power rankings, which is why we know oddsmakers have set the Chiefs at 11.5.

For futures, I don't mind taking juicier bets like the -190 on Caesars for Cincinnati's Under. Most books have this at 9.5. The Steelers and Bengals bets go hand-in-hand. FanDuel is offering me plus-money on something that has happened in every single season of Mike Tomlin's career.

Cincinnati has an awesome quarterback that has missed the playoffs the last two seasons and only made the playoffs in seasons where Lamar Jackson was hurt, and yet the Bengals decided to "run it back". They have an offense capable of averaging 30 points per game, but unfortunately they are a team that goes .500 when they score 30+ points.

Sam Darnold was awesome in the regular season for Minnesota. The Vikings want to compete for the Super Bowl right now. They have an offensive guru as a head coach. If they didn't know JJ McCarthy was as good, if not better than Darnold, they wouldn't have so easily handed the keys to McCarthy.

The common refrain around running backs, even an obvious outlier like Derrick Henry, is once they are nearly 30 or have taken a lot of hits, they fall off the map. Christian McCaffrey was fantasy RB 1 last season because his injuries weren't supposed to be anything serious. He ended up being completely ineffective and missing most of the season. He is pushing 30. He has many lost seasons due to injury. He's totally jacked up with fast twitch muscles that make you look awesome posing in the mirror and can make you explosive as a runner... but also can result in a ton of injuries when your natural frame isn't built for that much fast twitch muscle.

Last year's disaster in San Francisco wasn't due to an inability to run. The 49ers went from 4.8 ypc with McCaffrey to 4.7 without him. Adding his great receiving skills is offset by losing Deebo Samuel. The 49ers have a statistically easy schedule, but not enough to magically go from six wins to 11. In fact, we like Seattle for a Week 1 money line upset.

Seattle being better than most expect is a big key for our 49ers and Rams fades. Mike Macdonald's defense went from good to "Triple Crown winning" in Year 2 as a defensive coordinator in Baltimore. His schemes can generate elite pass rushing pressure and sack totals without high priced edge talent. Darnold may not complete as high a percentage of his passes as Geno Smith, but he can still generate the same number of passing yards and touchdowns. The duo of Jaxson Smith-Njigba and an older Cooper Kupp is not a big drop from the duo of DK Metcalf and an older Tyler Lockett.  

Before the Parsons trade, we had the Cowboys at 8.1 wins and a decent value over 7.5. After the trade, our projection dropped to 7.4 but the line also dropped and ESPN is now offering 6.5 wins at a not too steep -140.

Caleb Williams had a very uneven training camp, to say the least. If you use these rankings' average SIM WIN% of Bears opponents to calculate strength of schedule, the Bears have the toughest one in the league. Not only do they play in the NFC North, they have to play the AFC North and NFC East. They only have seven games vs non-playoff teams and this includes San Francisco, Cincinnati, and ascending teams like the Raiders and Giants. 

Our model said Anthony Richardson was by far the worst starting quarterback a year ago. He lost the starting job to Daniel Jones because the Colts would rather be locked into a 7-9 win range than have a player with Superman's physique but whose kryptonite is completing 8-yard passes and seeing edge rushers coming right at him in his field of vision. 

The model is not high on any AFC South team. The 'favorite' Houston is 17th in our ranking. The Caesars line implies under a 20% chance the Colts win the division but we have them at nearly 30%. If Jonathan Taylor stays healthy, he and Jones can be as effective as Jones/Barkley were when the Giants made the playoffs.

The Patriots are a classic case of fading the public. A lot has been made of the fact the Patriots have a "cake walk schedule". That's a true statement for the Tom Brady-led dynasty Patriots. Teams that win four games are not allowed to consider any other team a "cake walk win". We are projecting a 50% increase in win total for New England but that is still not good enough to be considered a playoff contender.

As good as Drake Maye might be, he is still at least the eighth-best QB in the AFC. The Patriots do not have the defense or weapons to leapfrog six elite QBs in the AFC. In at least 90% of simulations, they don't.

Even though I fully expect Joe Flacco to come in to Baltimore in Week 2 and pull off a shocking upset the same way Gardner Minshew did in '23 with Indy, I still think the Browns are safe bet to win no more than five games. Once it's clear, Flacco won't be able to recapture the magic of 2023 the team will have to see if Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders are worth viewing as starters.

We are high on two bad teams, the Saints and Titans, to go Over their low win total. If those teams got to play themselves or each other, they'd have the easiest strength of schedules in the league. If all schedules were equal these team would win the five that their lines have, but they both have eight or more competitive games. If they win half of these games, they only have to go 1-8 (New Orleans) or 2-7 (Titans) in games where they are more than a 5.5-point underdog. 

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