NFL Week 9 betting power ratings: Chiefs in a class by themselves, plus ranking all 32 teams versus spread

Favorites rolled for the second week in a row, with only the Dolphins and Jets managing to cover among underdogs. I thought the Commanders could compete with the Chiefs despite the absence of Jayden Daniels, and they did for a half, but Kansas City completely dominated after the break and proved it's the team to beat in the NFL.

The Chiefs have five double-digit wins in their last six games, a streak only interrupted by an improbable loss to the Jaguars where the Chiefs dominated statistically but surrendered a 99-yard pick-six in the second half as well as a last-minute touchdown drive by Trevor Lawrence. They left no room for a second-half meltdown on Monday, not letting the Commanders finish a drive beyond Kansas City's 48-yard line after all four first-half drives went deeper into Chiefs territory. That helped overcome two uncharacteristic interceptions from Patrick Mahomes, and the fact the Chiefs covered easily in a game where Mahomes threw multiple picks should strike terror into the hearts of the other contenders around the league.

The Chiefs might not get the No. 1 seed in the AFC thanks to the great start by the Colts, but they are my highest rated team in the NFL. The defense is suffocating, squishing out bad offenses and largely keeping good offenses in check. The offense is an engine with Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy back on the field and fully available, leading to Mahomes throwing three touchdowns in three straight games. I'd make them 1.5-point favorites on a neutral field against my No. 2 team, the Lions, and at least a 2.5-point favorite against everyone else. The market has a similar read, making them favored on the road against the Bills team that looked back on track this week.

My spread power ratings 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. Maintaining power ratings allows you to project spreads and potentially get ahead of line moves early in the week. We jumped on the Cardinals as three-point underdogs on Monday, and the line is down to 2.5 at most books as of Tuesday morning.

I'll have several more spread picks this week 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.

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

Week 9 power ratings

It's hard to say the Bills and Ravens are magically fixed after the bye because they dominated weaker opponents dealing with key injury issues, but I'm willing to put the Ravens close to full rating with Lamar Jackson likely back on Thursday and the defense back to mostly full health this past week. The Bills got to beat up on a backup QB and suffered a big loss with the Ed Oliver injury, so I don't think I can bump them up at all and I'd take the Chiefs, Colts and Ravens all on a neutral field against them right now.

I bumped the Eagles up to match the Bills with Saquon Barkley finally returning to form at a time it was desperately needed with A.J. Brown sidelined. My rating assumes they'll have better health coming out of their Week 9 bye, and if others want to rank them a half-point higher with the group of teams under the Chiefs and Lions, I don't have a problem with that. But I think you can make the same argument for the Rams or even the Seahawks coming out of their bye this week, which is why I have them all tied with the Bills at +4.5.

There's a big drop after that tier of +4.5 and +5 teams, as I still am not fully convinced by the Patriots, though there is an argument to put them slightly ahead of the Bills in the gap between these tiers if you want to move the latter down and New England up. The Patriots' schedule hasn't been tough and doesn't really get tough all year, so it's probable we'll see them in the playoffs in some capacity, maybe even as the No. 1 seed if they can sweep the Bills and the Colts stumble a bit.

I have a tier of 11 teams that feel average in a given week but most do enough to fall below that zero rating for me. Most ratings would likely push the Broncos, Steelers and Texans up above average and then some of my -1 and -1.5 teams up to zero, but I don't think that accurately reflects where these teams are currently. I'd also argue that these ratings are in aggregate maybe a little too forgiving, rather than the other way around, as the combined rating of all 32 teams is -2.5 and that jumped well above zero if Joe Burrow is healthy and the Bengals get the related bump.

The Giants' rating has been the most all over the place in the league as they turned from a laughingstock into competitive then started to deal with key injuries, including losing Cam Skattebo this week. He certainly doesn't account for the 1.5-point drop on his own, but I'm being cautious about the defensive injuries that helped lead to the unit's abysmal performance over the last five quarters. If those guys remain out, the Giants are probably down with the -4.5 teams, but if they're back, I'd probably put them up to -2.5, so we're splitting the difference here.

Even with a two-point gap between them and the No. 31 team, the Titans show up as a value play once again for me based on my ratings. I am done falling for that trap.

Full Week 9 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.