NFL Power Rankings, Week 4 vs. Preseason: Bills, Colts, Rams rise, 49ers fall without Nick Bosa
The Inside the Lines team uses its proven NFL model to objectively rank each team's outlook for 2025
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 from '22-24.
We have started out 9-4, +4.2 units in 2025.
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.
Power Rankings
We look to make our power rankings more useful for bettors interested in futures. The teams whose ranks or average SIM WIN% (on a neutral field vs the rest of the league) that has not changed much probably have updated futures lines that reflect the outcomes that have happened and probably do not offer much value.
We don't rank teams based on whether they WON or LOST... it's about did they statistically improve or decline.
For this week we want to focus on the handful of teams whose ranking has changed significantly, see if their futures lines have changed too little, or not enough, vs their preseason odds and see if we can find good betting value for each of them.
| +/- VS PRESEASON | |||||||
| PWR | SIM WIN | FULLNAME | RANK | SIM WIN | DIV | PLAYOFF | SB |
| 1 | 72.5% | Buffalo Bills | +2 | +2.6% | 99.6% | 99.9% | 27.6% |
| 2 | 69.8% | Baltimore Ravens | -2.7% | 63.3% | 89.9% | 10.8% | |
| 3 | 69.5% | Philadelphia Eagles | -2 | -4% | 75.2% | 95.3% | 15.2% |
| 4 | 69.1% | Detroit Lions | -0.4% | 37.9% | 79.7% | 9.1% | |
| 5 | 67.8% | Green Bay Packers | +1.7% | 47.4% | 85.5% | 9.3% | |
| 6 | 61.4% | Washington Commanders | 0.8% | 23.8% | 64.8% | 3.3% | |
| 7 | 59.6% | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 0.5% | 96.5% | 97.3% | 6.1% | |
| 8 | 59.1% | Kansas City Chiefs | -2 | -1.9% | 15.8% | 60.7% | 2.1% |
| 9 | 59.1% | Denver Broncos | 0.7% | 17.4% | 64.2% | 2.5% | |
| 10 | 58.2% | Los Angeles Chargers | +1% | 65.7% | 90.8% | 4.1% | |
| 11 | 56.6% | Pittsburgh Steelers | -0.2% | 28.1% | 70.8% | 2.2% | |
| 12 | 54.0% | Los Angeles Rams | +3 | +1.8% | 33.7% | 59.1% | 1.4% |
| 13 | 53.1% | Seattle Seahawks | +3 | +1.5% | 16.6% | 42.5% | 0.9% |
| 14 | 52.5% | Minnesota Vikings | -2.7% | 14.3% | 42.3% | 0.9% | |
| 15 | 50.5% | Houston Texans | +2 | -0.8% | 3.5% | 15.9% | 0.2% |
| 16 | 49.2% | Indianapolis Colts | +7 | +9.6% | 78.4% | 92.6% | 2.0% |
| 17 | 48.9% | San Francisco 49ers | -3 | -5.4% | 40.5% | 74.8% | 1.2% |
| 18 | 47.7% | Arizona Cardinals | -0.4% | 9.3% | 32.3% | 0.4% | |
| 19 | 47.5% | Cincinnati Bengals | -7 | -7.8% | 7.7% | 30.8% | 0.3% |
| 20 | 45.7% | Dallas Cowboys | -2 | -4.2% | 0.9% | 10.4% | 0.0% |
| 21 | 44.1% | Jacksonville Jaguars | +5 | +7.2% | 17.6% | 41.4% | 0.4% |
| 22 | 41.1% | Chicago Bears | -2 | -4.1% | 0.4% | 5.0% | 0.0% |
| 23 | 40.3% | Atlanta Falcons | -0.5% | 1.1% | 5.3% | 0.0% | |
| 24 | 39.0% | New York Jets | 0.1% | 0.1% | 7.0% | 0.0% | |
| 25 | 38.9% | Miami Dolphins | -4 | -5.2% | 0.1% | 9.1% | 0.0% |
| 26 | 38.6% | Las Vegas Raiders | 0.8% | 1.1% | 10.1% | 0.0% | |
| 27 | 36.7% | New York Giants | +1.6% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 0.0% | |
| 28 | 35.7% | New England Patriots | +2 | +3.7% | 0.2% | 9.4% | 0.0% |
| 29 | 34.6% | Carolina Panthers | +2 | +3% | 1.6% | 4.1% | 0.0% |
| 30 | 33.6% | Cleveland Browns | +1.1% | 0.9% | 5.1% | 0.0% | |
| 31 | 33.3% | New Orleans Saints | +2.9% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 0.0% | |
| 32 | 32.5% | Tennessee Titans | -4 | -0.9% | 0.5% | 2.4% | 0.0% |
San Francisco (Drop from 13th to 17th With Bosa Injury)
We originally published this yesterday before Nick Bosa was ruled out for the season. Our SIM WIN% is based on the roster who would be healthy in February (Super Bowl), but with Bosa ruled out for the season the 49ers dropped several spots and are not even in the Top 15 of the league. Their playoff chances are still very strong because they are 3-0 with 2 division wins, including on the road at Seattle. But their Super Bowl% is down significantly from 2.1% to 1.2%.
Our best future bet for them now is to win under 11.5 games at +100 on BetMGM. Without Bosa, the Cardinals had the lead late vs the 49ers at San Francisco. The Rams were two blocked kicks away from beating the Eagles. Seattle has dominated weak opponents and is underrated.
Buffalo Bills (Win Super Bowl +750 Preseason, Now +500)
FanDuel is offering the best price for them to win the Super Bowl at +500. With our >25% chance we have tremendous value vs their 16.7% odds implied chances.
Pending on what happens on Monday Night Football between Baltimore and Detroit, the oddsmakers give the Bills and Ravens essentially the same chance of winning it all. But with the rest of the AFC East a combined 1-8 the Bills already have basically clinched. When you combine that with their head-to-head win vs Baltimore in Week 1 they have a massive edge for that one seed and the only first round bye. Our model thinks Baltimore is better but not enough to make them a better bet to win it all when you get a 100% chance to advance to the Divisional round, instead of a 70 to 75%, and when you get home field advantage in January in Buffalo.
Philadelphia Eagles (Win Super Bowl +650 Preseason, Now +800)
They literally had more tush push yards than net passing yards for a good chunk of the Rams game. And even though they had a big 2nd half passing the ball to pull out the win it wasn't enough to erase the lack of production for their first 5 halves of football this season and the relative lack of production from Saquon Barkley. The Eagles' Super Bowl odds started at +650 but are up to +800 on DraftKings.
Our model was very high on them as our #1 team in the pre-season because we thought their passing game would start the season the way it ended. The fact that it took 2.5 games to get going has resulted in our SB% dropping from 19% to under 15% but because we had them so high, and because they did manage to re-discover the passing game vs the Rams we still like the value at +800.
Kansas City Chiefs (Win AFC +390 Preseason, Now +750)
The change from +390 to +750 translates to a drop from 20.4% to 11.8%. A big chunk of this nearly 9 percentage point drop went to the Chargers who went from under a 7% chance to over a 12% chance based on the odds. The rest was made up by the Bills and Ravens. It would have been even worse for the Chiefs if not for Joe Burrow's injury.
We have been fading the Chiefs since they were demolished by the Eagles in the Super Bowl and we only had them at 9% to win the AFC at the start of the season. Their odds implied percentage has dropped a lot but not nearly enough for us to consider anything but an under on their win line.
The best price is under 9.5 Wins at +120 on FanDuel. We are projecting them for 9 wins.
LA Rams (Win NFC West 29%, Now 40%)
The Rams had an all-time bad beat not at least covering the spread vs the Eagles. They clearly "should have" won that game. The model sees a better team than it saw in the preseason with Davante Adams still having plenty in the tank, Matt Stafford not showing any signs of pain from his preseason back injury, Blake Corum providing a nice complement at RB to Kyren Williams, and Jared Verse and early Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
Caesars has them at +210 to win the NFC West.
If they had kicked the game winning field goal vs Philadelphia and if Arizona had held onto the 2 point lead vs the 49ers the Rams would have had close to a 40% chance of winning the division and would have been a great betting value. But it's a game of inches and in this case it put them back to where they started in terms of winning the division.
Indianapolis Colts (Win AFC South was +440, Now -135)
Back in early September we gave the Colts a 38% chance of wining the division and said their best best was to win the division. FanDuel is offering the best price at -135. Caesars was the book offering +440 and they are now at -150.
But even at a 60%ish odds implied % we have great value on "Indiana Jones" et al. to keep things going. We give the Colts a nearly 80% chance of winning the division. Tennessee is winless. The Texans and Jaguars had a competition for who stunk more that the Jaguars "won" by default. Our model said the Colts would be much better with Jones over Anthony Richardson but we didn't think their ceiling would be as high as it now is.
Jacksonville Jaguars (Make Playoffs 23% Preseason, Now 40%)
We thought they had an unsustainably low rate of turnovers forced in 2024. They probably won't continue having 6x as many turnovers as last season per game but they shouldn't be at less than 1/2 per game. They do have sustainable statistical improvements vs last season. They were outgained by over 30 yards rushing per game last season but with a healthy Etienne and Tuten at RB they should be able to outgain most teams on the ground this season.
Usually getting a head to head win vs the presumptive division favorite, Houston, would significantly help your playoff chances but the Colts have improved by even more than they have win their SIM WIN%. At -128 to make the playoffs they are nota good value despite our +17 percentage point increase.
Miami Dolphins (Win Total 8.5 Preseason, Now 5.5)
Our model projection leaned under to start the season with an 8.2 win total projection. But I'll go on record and say their 0-3 isn't maybe as bad as everyone thinks. They got killed by the Colts but the Colts have played like one of the 5 best teams in the league so far this season. They hung with Buffalo at Buffalo who is currently ranked #1 in our power ranking. They could have beaten the Patriots if they did not allow a kick return TD and if Tua didn't throw one of his horrific game costing interceptions.
With over 6 wins still projected the over 5.5 at +100 on FanDuel is still a good betting value.
Tua's interceptions eventually have to regress to the mean. The Dolphins in the Tua / Mike McDaniel era can't beat good teams, but they can beat bad ones and they have plenty of those left. They have at least coin flip (45%+) chance of winning their next 5 games. They have 4 more games later in the season. If they go 5-4 in these coin flips and pull out 1 upset vs Baltimore, Buffalo, Washington, or Tampa Bay they can hit the over. The line has steamed too low.
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