NFL Week 1 power ratings: How all 32 teams stack up, plus how to build system for ATS betting

After seven months of suspense, the 2025 NFL season finally kicks off Thursday with the Cowboys heading to Philadelphia to take on the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles. With it comes the chance to bet on real NFL football games for the first time since that Super Bowl after a long offseason dissecting win totals and other futures odds.

Ten years ago, I finished in the top 50 of the Las Vegas SuperContest, at the time the biggest NFL spread competition in the world with more than 1,700 participants. Two years later, I finished 18th out of 2,748 competitors in the same contest. While I haven't cashed in a Vegas contest since, my spread picks at SportsLine have hit at a 53.5% rate since 2017 even though I make them at a much higher volume than most experts, with more than 170 picks per season on average.

The basis for that success is my NFL spread power ratings system. Much like the sportsbooks, I assign a rating to each team based on how much better or worse than average I believe they are for that particular week. Then, I take the difference between the two ratings in a matchup to get an initial spread projection if the game were to be played on a neutral field before adding my unique home field advantage rating into the equation. That gives me a number I think "should" be the spread, and for games where there's a notable gap between that number and the actual market spread, I have to dive in further to figure out why that gap exists and whether I trust my power ratings read on the game better than the market.

Let's take the Cowboys-Eagles opener as an example. I have the Eagles tied for the best rating in the league at +7, while I have the Cowboys at -1.5 following the Micah Parsons trade. I believe the Cowboys could be league average, but I worry about how they'll open the season with both left tackle Tyler Guyton and cornerback Trevon Diggs missing time in camp while dealing with injuries. That would typically make the spread Eagles -8.5 on a neutral field, though once I get above a touchdown I adjust downward slightly to account for garbage time. Pair that adjustment with my 1.5-point home-field rating for the Eagles, and we have a power ratings spread of Eagles -9.5 for the game versus a market spread of Eagles -7.5.

I locked in a play of Eagles -6.5 at SportsLine prior to the Parsons trade, but I'd still play the -7.5. My concern would be the Cowboys backdooring a cover with their elite passing game, but those worried about such a thing can look to tease the Eagles with a team like the Broncos to get both spreads through the key numbers of -7 and -3.

Now that you know how projecting spreads using power ratings works, here is my full set of Week 1 ratings. You can use a basic home field adjustment of 1.5 or 2 points depending on how you value each team's home field advantage, though my ratings run from 1-3 points.

Week 1 power ratings

Last year was one to forget for me in terms of spread picks. My initial ratings were much too high on the Jets, Browns, 49ers, Bengals and even the Chiefs, while I should've given the Bills, Ravens and Eagles an even higher rating from the start than I did, and the Vikings, Commanders, Buccaneers and Broncos ended up being much too low. Since part of my success has come from taking advantage of the overreactions of the market week to week, I don't get too aggressive moving ratings up and down in a single week (a full point is a lot to move a team for me). However, this was one year where being aggressive would've paid off, as all those teams more or less followed the tracks they established in the first few weeks. We'll take that lesson into this season and "reset" our rating on teams much quicker if needed.

At the top, I'm just grouping the Ravens, Bills, Chiefs and Eagles together with the same high rating. I'd struggle to lay points on a neutral field with any of these teams against any of the others, even Chiefs vs. Eagles despite what we saw back in February. The Eagles lost plenty of talent on the defensive side of the ball, while the Chiefs look to be in a much better spot on the left side of their offensive line heading into this season.

The Packers are the team I have the highest hopes of reaching those four by the end of the season, and I would've said that even before the Parsons trade. They were my first futures bet of the offseason, taking them to win the Super Bowl at +2000 back in February. I loved the potential of the defense in Year 2 under Jeff Hafley and while I was hoping they'd make an impact addition at receiver during the offseason, Matthew Golden's potential excites me.

I've marked eight other teams as above average. I had the 49ers rated much higher but the receiver situation is a concern entering the season. I'm being fairly aggressive on my Cardinals and Vikings ratings, with the latter having a strong roster but a complete unknown at quarterback, while Arizona made serious defensive upgrades this offseason.

I have four teams as average entering the year, including a Bengals team where I don't have much confidence in the defense at this point and a Texans team that has questions on the other side of the ball. The Chargers seem a bit overrated to me after the Rashawn Slater injury, while the Bears have perhaps the widest range of potential outcomes in the league.

There's a large group of 10 teams I'd rate as slightly below average, though I know some will be higher on certain teams like the Steelers, Patriots, Falcons and Jaguars. I might be making the same mistake on the Jets, but the market has done a complete 180 on where they were last year at this time of the season and I think it's too big an overreaction with the upgrade at quarterback.

At the bottom, I can't be as low on the Giants, Titans or Panthers as I am the Browns or Saints, though of the three I'm the closest to dropping Carolina a bit in the ratings. Maybe the defense can be something better than the abysmal showing they had last year, but I'm not exactly confident in the offense making a leap either.

Full Week 1 projected lines

This is how I would set each game based on my power ratings and home field advantage data for Week 1. As mentioned above, a large discrepancy between the projected power rating lines and the market lines does not make the game an autoplay, but it gives us a basis for potential strong picks pending further analysis.

Cowboys at Eagles (-9.5)
Chiefs (-7) vs. Chargers
Bengals (-4) at Browns
Giants at Commanders (-6.5)
Cardinals (-7) at Saints
Panthers at Jaguars (-4)
Raiders at Patriots (-1.5)
Dolphins at Colts (-1.5)
Buccaneers (-0.5) at Falcons
Steelers at Jets (-1.5)
Titans at Broncos (-8.5)
49ers (-1) at Seahawks
Lions at Packers (-3)
Texans at Rams (-2.5)
Ravens at Bills (-3)
Vikings at Bears (-1.5)