NFL Week 6 betting power ratings: No undefeated teams but one NFC team joins Bills above the pack

No undefeated teams remain after just five weeks with the Eagles and Bills losing on Sunday, and the performance of both requires an adjustment downward in our betting power ratings. The Eagles offense played better than it did the previous week but still couldn't get the run game going against the Broncos, while the defense let a 17-3 lead slip away in the fourth quarter. The Bills wore Raiders-like uniforms and delivered a Raiders-like performance while turning the ball over three times in a close loss to the Patriots.

Even though they have been battling injuries on defense all season, I'm less concerned about the Bills, who I still have No. 1 in my power ratings. They measure how much better or worse a team is than average and allow us to create a spread for the game on a neutral field that we can then adjust to account for home field advantage and get the spread we believe should be offered by sportsbooks for this game. The Eagles are part of a group of four teams tied for third at four points better than average, so it's not like their rating is in the tank. But right now, they aren't making a case to separate themselves from the pack of good teams to be considered elite, which I've reserved for the Bills and another NFC team.

Speaking of the Broncos, they'll face the Jets this week in London and with my power ratings projecting that line at Broncos -8.5, I expected the market to be in on the Broncos and jumped on Broncos -7 early at SportsLine. Maintaining power ratings allows you to project spreads and potentially get ahead of line moves early in the week, and the line in that London game is now Broncos -7.5.

I have several more spread picks already locked in at SportsLine, where members are able to get access to all my picks throughout the week as they're made and hopefully take advantage of some good line value. Last week, we were able to lock in good numbers on the Colts, Saints, Broncos and more.

Let's dive into our betting power ratings and highlight a few teams of note.

Week 6 power ratings

I don't really want to mark the Bills down as I don't see the fumbling issues as being something to worry about moving forward, but it's more about the defense giving up 6 yards per play to the Patriots at home. Even with many other AFC contenders dealing with their own issues, the Bills defense looks like something that's going to cost them in January if they don't get things figured out.

My top NFC team is the Lions, and while you can say beating the Browns and Bengals in successive weeks shouldn't earn you much of an upgrade, their offense has looked unstoppable since the Week 1 game against the Packers. That dud is the only thing keeping them from being even with the Bills in my ratings, so to me it makes sense to have them nestled about midway between Buffalo and the next tier.

It was a tough loss for the Chiefs in Week 5, but the offense looked the best it has all year with the run game showing efficiency and even Travis Kelce looking somewhat in vintage form against a defense that entered the week second in EPA per play. The Kansas City defense melted down at the end, leaving me from elevating their rating even in the loss but it'll be easy to do that next week with Rashee Rice coming back provided the team doesn't completely flop against the Lions.

Washington earns a full point upgrade for a dominant road win across the country against what's been a great Chargers defense, which gave up 7.1 yards per play in Jayden Daniels' return from injury. The tier of Washington, Denver and Indianapolis has played as well if not better than the tier above but doesn't quite have the same perceived ceiling, so those teams still lag a bit behind. But I'm not really going to argue with anyone's order for the third through ninth best teams behind Buffalo and Detroit.

It looks weird to bump both the Buccaneers and Seahawks coming out of a game where they faced each other, but I think both quarterbacks really proved themselves in that game. Baker Mayfield was lacking key weapons on offense and up against a defense that has been great this year, and he was unstoppable anyway. Sam Darnold basically was as well despite not having the greatest passing game weapons on paper. Maybe the defenses for these teams are a lot worse than we think, but I'm treating this as a poor man's version of a matchup like Bills-Ravens where the offenses may just be hitting the level where they're nearly impossible to stop in one of these types of games.

I was among the biggest Patriots detractors heading into the season but I'm willing to give up the ghost and put them as an above average team with Drake Maye and the defense largely playing well. They'll need to get running back sorted out before Rhamondre Stevenson fumbles away a playoff game, and the refusal to feature TreVeyon Henderson remains one of the most frustrating developments of the year.

There's a large group of 10 bad teams I don't think can be rated too far apart, starting with the Raiders. There are problems on defense, where they gave up six straight touchdown drives (two on incredibly short fields), and on offense, where the loss of Kolton Miller at left tackle has put Geno Smith even more under siege. They had no chance against a good Colts team last week, and we'll see if it's any different if they play what's been an awful team to date in the Titans.

I didn't want to move Tennessee up after a fluky win that involved a senseless fumble by Arizona and a lucky fumble recovery touchdown by Tennessee. But hidden by the final box score, which featured another subpar outing by Cam Ward, were signs that the rookie may finally be figuring things out. He led an impressive TD drive after the Emari Demercado fumble that involved pushing the ball downfield, quickly moved the ball into the red zone to set up the interception/fumble/touchdown play and then hit a big play to Calvin Ridley to get his team into field goal range for the win. It's the type of sequence you may never see from a quarterback during a rookie season. I think it's at least an indication the Titans could be on the verge of making some progress and aren't bad enough to rank No. 32 on their own any longer.

Full Week 6 projected lines

This is how I would set each game based on my power ratings and home field advantage data for this week. 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.