There are no unbeaten teams left. Detroit ran for 230 yards to hand Minnesota its first loss, 19-15, and Buffalo moved to the top of most outside rankings after a 36-10 win over Baltimore.

• Lamar Jackson lasted one snap. He hurt his right thumb on his first play back from the ankle injury and is headed for surgery and injured reserve. Backup Tyler Huntley left with a toe injury, and undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano finished the game.
• Tampa Bay won without completing a pass. Baker Mayfield went 0 for 3, the Buccaneers ran 56 times for a team-record 324 yards, and Atlanta lost 16-0 in the rain. It was the first game with zero completions since the 1974 Bills.
• Dallas blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead at home for the first time, losing 33-30 in overtime to an Arizona team that benched Jacoby Brissett for Gardner Minshew.
• Joe Burrow threw for 462 yards and five touchdowns, ran for the winner in overtime and joined Norm Van Brocklin (1951) as the only quarterbacks with 450 passing yards, five touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown in a game.
• Denver held Kansas City out of the end zone from inside the 5 in the final 35 seconds, ending with Malcolm Roach’s sack on the last play, to win 28-24 and take first in the AFC West.
• Jeffery Simmons had a sack in his Bears debut, and Chicago beat the defending champions 34-17 in Seattle on Monday night.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Recap

Lines are the ones we published last week.

Packers 27, Panthers 19 (Thursday)

Box score · Line: Packers -3.5, 48.5 · Our pick: Packers

Expected: which bad line held up. Green Bay was 31st on our offensive line list and without both centers; Carolina was 30th on our defensive line list and without Taylor Moton.

What decided it: Green Bay’s front, not its line. The Packers sacked Bryce Young six times, one each from six players, and Carolina turned three takeaways into a single field goal. Jordan Love threw three touchdown passes while the Packers ran 26 times for 66 yards. Carolina played without Moton and left guard Damien Lewis.

Buccaneers 16, Falcons 0

Box score · Line: Buccaneers -2.5, 46.5 · Our pick: Buccaneers

Expected: Tampa Bay’s run game against an Atlanta front third in run stop win rate, and Michael Penix Jr.’s streak without an interception.

What decided it: the run game, in a driving rain. Tampa Bay ran 56 times for 324 yards, a team record: Bucky Irving had 170 and Kenny Gainwell 140. Mayfield threw three passes and completed none. Penix went 8 of 24 with four interceptions, two by Alex Anzalone in the first quarter.

Cardinals 33, Cowboys 30 (OT)

Box score · Line: Cowboys -6.5, 54.5 · Our pick: Cowboys

Expected: Dallas’ run game (204 yards the week before) against a defense 29th in defensive DVOA, and Arizona’s red-zone trouble.

What decided it: neither held. Dallas ran 39 times for 93 yards. Arizona benched Brissett late in the third quarter, and Minshew went 17 of 23 for 188 yards and three touchdowns. Tyler Allgeier ran 11 times for 147 yards, all but 7 of his scrimmage yards after halftime. Dallas led 24-10 in the fourth quarter. Chad Ryland missed the go-ahead extra point with 6 seconds left, then won it from 42 yards in overtime.

Bills 36, Ravens 10

Box score · Our Ravens review · Line: Bills -3.5, 53.5 · Our pick: Bills

Expected: Jackson’s ankle, Buffalo off its bye, and Baltimore’s coverage.

What decided it: Jackson’s thumb. He was hurt on the first offensive snap, Huntley left in the second quarter, and Fagnano played the rest. Three quarterbacks combined for 68 net passing yards, Baltimore’s fewest since 2017. The Ravens trailed only 16-10 early in the third quarter; Buffalo then scored touchdowns on three of four possessions. Josh Allen threw for 289 yards and two touchdowns, ran for another and passed Jim Kelly for the Bills’ career touchdown record.

Steelers 27, Browns 6

Box score · Line: Steelers -3.5, 39.5 · Our pick: Steelers

Expected: first place in the AFC North, Cleveland’s league-worst 10.6% sack rate, and Deshaun Watson’s late-game finishes.

What decided it: the lines. Pittsburgh sacked Watson eight times, two by T.J. Watt, and ran 33 times for 200 yards; Jaylen Warren had 143. Cleveland ran 15 times for 34. It was the Steelers’ 23rd straight regular-season home win over the Browns.

Jaguars 42, Colts 7

Box score · Line: Jaguars -8.5, 46.5 · Our pick: Jaguars

Expected: Daniel Jones, and Jacksonville off its bye without Anton Harrison.

What decided it: Jones. He threw two interceptions, one returned 92 yards for a touchdown by Rayuan Lane before halftime, and was benched for Anthony Richardson in the fourth quarter. Trevor Lawrence went 10 of 14 for 210 yards and three touchdowns. The cost was nose tackle DaVon Hamilton, carted off with a right knee injury.

Raiders 38, Jets 33

Box score · Line: Raiders -1.5, 45.5 · Our pick: Jets

Expected: the Jets at home against a Raiders defense that had allowed 30-plus points four straight weeks.

What decided it: the Raiders allowed 30-plus again and won anyway. The Jets scored on their first six possessions and Braelon Allen ran for 147 yards. Kirk Cousins went 19 of 26 for 247 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth; Dylan Laube returned a kickoff 95 yards. Jeremy Chinn’s end-zone interception ended it.

Lions 19, Vikings 15

Box score · Line: Lions -3.5, 46.5 · Our pick: Lions

Expected: Minnesota’s defense, first in points allowed, against Jared Goff, and a Vikings offense with 10 touchdowns in six games.

What decided it: Detroit’s run game. The Lions ran 39 times for 230 yards, 164 after halftime, against a defense that had been allowing under 100 a game; Jahmyr Gibbs had 153. Kevin O’Connell punted on fourth-and-5 from his own 33 with 3:01 left, and Detroit never gave the ball back. Linebacker Jack Campbell was taken to a hospital with a neck injury.

Bengals 43, Titans 36 (OT)

Box score · Line: Bengals -10, 46.5 · Our pick: Bengals

Expected: Burrow against a defense last in defensive DVOA, and Tony Pollard.

What decided it: Burrow, both ways. He went 38 of 48 for 462 yards and five touchdowns, was intercepted three times by Amani Hooker, tied it with 1:17 left and ran 9 yards for the winner in overtime. Pollard ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns, and Cam Ward threw for 304, his career high. Tennessee led 13-0 in the first quarter and 36-29 with 3:42 left.

Rams 24, Chargers 9

Box score · Line: Rams -6.5, 44.5 · Our pick: Rams

Expected: the Rams’ run game, first in run block win rate, against an 0-6 team off its bye, and Justin Herbert’s interceptions.

What decided it: Herbert’s two interceptions, by Quentin Lake and Trent McDuffie, which the Rams turned into 10 points. The Rams had no first down until late in the first half and trailed 9-3, then scored on three touchdown drives. The Chargers ran 25 times for 64 yards and have not scored a touchdown in two games.

Broncos 28, Chiefs 24

Box score · Line: Chiefs -1.5, 41.5 · Our pick: Broncos

Expected: a Kansas City offense that scored 3 points without both starting tackles, Denver’s pass rush, and whether Rashee Rice returned.

What decided it: the last two minutes. Rice and tackle Jaylon Moore were back, and Patrick Mahomes threw for 321 yards and three touchdowns as Kansas City led 24-13 early in the fourth. Harrison Butker missed from 54 yards, and Denver scored two plays later on Jonah Coleman’s 51-yard catch and 5-yard run. On fourth-and-goal from the 1, a Moore false start wiped out a touchdown to Rice, and Roach sacked Mahomes on the replay.

Patriots 24, Dolphins 19

Box score · Line: Patriots -7.5, 44.5 · Our pick: Patriots

Expected: Malik Willis and Miami’s red-zone efficiency against a Patriots defense that had slipped.

What decided it: the second half. Miami led 13-3 at halftime, and New England outscored it 21-0 after. Drake Maye went 16 of 20 for 199 yards, with touchdown passes of 43 and 48 yards, and ran for a third, without A.J. Brown or TreVeyon Henderson. The Patriots sacked Willis five times; Miami ran 23 times for 74 yards without left guard Kadyn Proctor.

Commanders 27, Eagles 10 (Sunday night)

Box score · Line: Commanders -5.5, 40.5 · Our pick: Commanders

Expected: Tanner McKee on a five-game losing streak against Washington off its bye, without Terry McLaurin.

What decided it: Washington’s defense after a sloppy first quarter. The Eagles led 10-0; Washington then scored 27 straight points. The Commanders sacked McKee five times and held Philadelphia to 91 rushing yards. Jayden Daniels threw for 217 yards and won as a starter for the first time since Oct. 5, 2025. McLaurin is out for the season.

Bears 34, Seahawks 17 (Monday night)

Box score · Line: Seahawks -3, 46.5 · Our pick: Seahawks

Expected: Seattle’s front, first on our defensive line list, against a Chicago line just outside our top 8, and Caleb Williams’ two straight 300-yard games.

What decided it: Chicago won up front on both sides. Williams threw for 247 yards with no turnovers and one sack, D’Andre Swift ran for three touchdowns, and the opening drive went 17 plays for a touchdown. Simmons had a sack in his debut. Seattle converted 1 of 11 third downs and ran for 81 yards in its first game with Quenton Nelson.

Power Rankings

The 49ers stay first through their bye. They lead FTN’s DVOA, have our No. 1 offensive line, and add DeForest Buckner up front. Buffalo is a close second, and Jacksonville jumps four spots to third.

*NFL.com’s Week 9 rankings were not up at build time; this column is Nate Davis’s USA Today rankings (Nov. 3). DVOA is FTN’s total DVOA through Week 8; ESPN and Pete Prisco (CBS Sports) are their Week 9 lists.

• 49ers (1): first in DVOA and on our offensive line list. Buckner returns for Raiders week.
• Bills (2): No. 1 for ESPN, Prisco, PFT and Fox. Our No. 2 offensive line, but the defensive line is 22nd.
• Jaguars (7): second in DVOA after the 42-7 win, with a three-game division lead. Losing DaVon Hamilton hurts the middle of a run defense already 32nd in run stop win rate.
• Broncos (8): 15 straight wins in one-score games. Our No. 3 defensive line.
• Bears (9): the Seattle win was their best game by DVOA (FTN). Seventh on our offensive line list; Simmons should lift a defensive line that is 20th.
• Chiefs (5): two straight losses. Fourth on our offensive line list, 28th on the defensive one; one elite line and one weak leaves them on results alone.
• Vikings (3): first loss. Their offense is 28th in points per drive (Ringer Staff), and their offensive line is 16th.
• Bengals (6): third in DVOA but 15th on defense, and needed overtime against a 1-7 team.
• Patriots (10): up one. Both lines are in our top 8 (fifth on offense, eighth on defense).
• Steelers (12): up two. Both lines are in our top 8 (eighth on offense, sixth on defense), and they lead the AFC North at 6-2.
• Lions (11): beat Minnesota with a 230-yard run game. Sixth on our offensive line list, 26th in defensive DVOA.
• Seahawks (4): down eight. Three losses in four games, and a run game that managed 81 yards in Nelson’s debut.
• Rams (13): two straight wins, seventh in DVOA. Third on our offensive line list.
• Buccaneers (18): up four. Fifth in DVOA and first on defense, with two straight wins by a combined 59-13.
• Packers (17): 5-3 and up two, but held below their record: both lines are in our bottom 12 (31st on offense, 21st on defense).
• Browns (15): sacked eight times in Pittsburgh. Our worst offensive line and our fourth-best defensive line.
• Giants (19): on bye, still alone in first in the NFC East.
• Panthers (21): lead the NFC South at 3-4, but they lost Moton and Damien Lewis up front.
• Falcons (16): shut out in the rain, with Penix’s four interceptions. Down three.
• Ravens (14): down six. Jackson is headed to injured reserve, and Fagnano may start Thursday.
• Raiders (23): snapped a four-game skid. Their defense has allowed 30-plus five straight weeks (ESPN).
• Texans (22): on bye. 14th in DVOA, ahead of their 2-5 record.
• Cardinals (29): up six after the win in Dallas. Minshew is expected to start (Prisco).
• Cowboys (20): down four. Their defense is last in EPA per play (Barnwell) and their run game managed 93 yards.
• Commanders (25): first win in more than a month (AP). They lost Daron Payne for the season (Ringer Staff).
• Saints (26): on bye. Our offensive line is 18th; the defense is 30th in DVOA.
• Jets (27): down two. Scored on six straight drives and still lost.
• Eagles (24): down four. Six straight losses.
• Colts (28): down one. Jones was benched in Jacksonville days after the Nelson and Buckner trades.
• Dolphins (30): led New England 13-3 at halftime, then were shut out the rest of the way.
• Titans (31): took Cincinnati to overtime in their first game without Simmons.
• Chargers (32): 0-7, no touchdowns in two games, and last in DVOA.

Offensive Lines

San Francisco and Buffalo hold the top two spots. Detroit (14th to sixth) and Chicago (ninth to seventh) move in; Cincinnati and Dallas drop out.

Win rates are ESPN’s season figures (league rank in parentheses). Sack rate and yards per carry are measured against the average of the defenses each line has faced. Win rates don’t capture penalties.

• Out: Bengals (to ninth) and Cowboys (to 17th; 2.4 yards a carry against Arizona).
• First out: Bengals, Colts, Broncos. The Colts are 10th on the numbers but traded Quenton Nelson last week.
• Lions: ran for 230 yards against a Minnesota defense that had been allowing under 100 a game (AP).
• Bears: fourth in pass block win rate; Caleb Williams was sacked once in Seattle.
• Bills: held at two with tackle Spencer Brown out Sunday. His status for Minnesota is the one to watch.
• Charting against results: Packers (last in pass block win rate, 2.9 yards a carry) at 5-3, and Browns (32nd; an 11.6% sack rate after eight sacks in Pittsburgh) at 5-3.
• Watch in Week 9: Seattle’s line with Nelson at left guard; Carolina without Moton and Lewis against Denver’s No. 3 defensive line.

Full order

Defensive Lines

Seattle and Minnesota stay one and two. Denver climbs five spots to third, and Pittsburgh (15th to sixth) and New England (14th to eighth) move in; Atlanta and Baltimore drop out.

Defensive DVOA is FTN’s through Week 8 (negative is better).

• Out: Falcons (to ninth; gave up 324 rushing yards in Tampa) and Ravens (to 12th).
• First out: Falcons, Buccaneers (first in defensive DVOA), Lions.
• Steelers: eight sacks of Watson; they lead the league with 26 (Prisco).
• Broncos: two sacks of Mahomes in the final three minutes, including the one that ended the game.
• Browns: held at fourth on the numbers. Maliek Collins hurt his elbow; watch his status.
• 49ers: 13th on the numbers with Nick Bosa still out. Buckner plays his first game back Sunday; we’ll judge them after it.
• Bears: 20th, with one game of Simmons. Same approach: one game is not enough to move them.
• Jaguars: 19th and without DaVon Hamilton, but fifth in defensive DVOA.
• Giants: 18th on the numbers, second in pass rush win rate. Still not restored on win rate alone after the Burns injury.

Full order

Win Totals

Five of the six calls most likely to move did move. Denver now shares the AFC West projection with Kansas City, Detroit closed within a game of Minnesota, and Chicago pulled level with the Vikings. The projections sum to 271 wins plus the Giants-Commanders tie, with 120 wins and the tie already banked.

• AFC seeds: Bills and Jaguars, then the AFC North and AFC West winners; wild cards are the two division runners-up and the Patriots. First out: the Browns.
• NFC seeds: 49ers, then the NFC North winner, Giants and the NFC South winner; wild cards are the NFC North runner-up, the Lions, and the Packers or Seahawks. First out: whichever of Green Bay and Seattle misses.
• Ties not projected: Buffalo and Jacksonville for the AFC top seed; Cincinnati and Pittsburgh for the AFC North; Kansas City and Denver for the AFC West; Minnesota and Chicago for the NFC North; Carolina and Tampa Bay for the NFC South; Green Bay and Seattle for the last NFC spot.
• Kansas City reversal: first team out in August; now 11-6 and tied with Denver for the AFC West after two straight losses.
• What moved in Week 8: up one each, Packers, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Lions, Broncos, Commanders, Bears, Steelers (Jackson’s injury; they play Baltimore twice) and Jaguars; down one each, Panthers, Falcons, Cowboys, Vikings, Chiefs, Eagles, Seahawks, Ravens and Colts.
• Ravens: 8-9 assumes Jackson misses about a month; it moves if his timeline does.

Calls most likely to move after Week 9: Bills 12-5 at Vikings 12-5 (Monday); Jaguars 12-5 at Ravens 8-9 (Thursday); Packers 10-7 at Patriots 10-7; Buccaneers 8-9 at Bears 12-5 (Sunday night); Broncos 11-6 at Panthers 8-9; Giants 9-7-1 at Eagles 5-12.

Quarterbacks

Josh Allen has played the best through eight weeks. This checkpoint covers Weeks 5 through 8, and the list ranks play this season, not reputation. How we tier the starters on talent follows the list.

Who has played the best through Week 8

QBR is ESPN’s season Total QBR. The NFL.com QB Index (Nick Shook) and the CBS Sports QB Power Rankings are both from Oct. 28, before the Week 8 games. Mike Sando’s QB Tiers for The Athletic are the preseason edition from Aug. 4, the only one this season.

• Allen: led the league in EPA per dropback and total touchdowns entering Week 8 (CBS), then threw for 289 yards and accounted for three touchdowns against Baltimore.
• Burrow: 462 yards and six total touchdowns Sunday. The three interceptions keep him behind Allen.
• Purdy: first in QBR, while playing without as many as six receivers.
• Williams: no turnovers in his three games back. The shortest sample on the list.
• Goff: opened the season with 223 throws without an interception, the most through six games in NFL history (CBS). QBR has him 13th; the rest of the evidence has him higher.
• Lawrence: 14 touchdown passes in six games, then three more on 14 throws against Indianapolis.
• Maye: 14 total touchdowns in October, and Sunday’s win came without A.J. Brown.
• Prescott: sixth in QBR, but held under 200 yards in Sunday’s loss.
• First out: C.J. Stroud (seventh in QBR, fourth in the Index, 15th at CBS), then Patrick Mahomes and Jordan Love.
• Lamar Jackson is off this list after playing one snap since Week 4; he is headed to injured reserve after thumb surgery.

How we tier the starters

This is our read on talent and body of work, not this season alone. The season can move a quarterback one tier at a four-week checkpoint, and four moved at this one.

• Elite (the reason you win): Allen, Mahomes, Burrow, Jackson (injured reserve)
• Excellent: Prescott, Goff, Love, Purdy, Lawrence, Caleb Williams, Maye, Stafford
• Can Win With: Herbert, Stroud, Nix, Cousins, Darnold, Jayden Daniels, Young
• Below Average: Mayfield, Rodgers, Penix, Shough, Murray, Watson
• Bad (a reason you lose): Geno Smith, Ward, Willis, Daniel Jones
• Maye up to Excellent: his form held for the whole stretch, and he has produced without his top receiver.
• Stafford down to Excellent: he was the MVP last season, but he has thrown for under 225 yards in three straight games and ranks 12th or 13th on every in-season list.
• Herbert down to Can Win With: everyone agrees on the talent. His line and supporting cast have been poor, but a quarterback of his ability should lift the players around him, and he has thrown an interception in all seven games.
• Jones down to Bad: benched in the fourth quarter in Jacksonville and 29th in QBR.
• Love above Purdy: Love has more talent; Purdy has run Kyle Shanahan’s system as well as anyone.
• Not tiered: Jalen Hurts (out for the season) and the replacement starters, J.J. McCarthy, Tanner McKee, Gardner Minshew and, if he replaces Jones, Anthony Richardson, until they have played a full checkpoint.

Week 9 Preview

Fifteen games, starting Thursday in Baltimore and including Cincinnati and Atlanta in Madrid. Pittsburgh and Tennessee are on bye.

Jaguars at Ravens (Thursday, 8:15 p.m., Prime Video)

Line: Jaguars -8.5, 42.5 · ESPN: Jaguars 80.9%

Key to the Game: Baltimore’s quarterback. Jackson is headed to injured reserve and Huntley is awaiting an MRI on his toe, so undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano will get his first start on four days’ rest. Baltimore Jacksonville has its own short-week problem in the middle, without nose tackle DaVon Hamilton.

Our Pick: Jaguars.

Bengals vs. Falcons in Madrid (Sunday, 9:30 a.m., NFL Network)

Line: Bengals -3, 52.5 · ESPN: Bengals 77.3%

Key to the Game: whether Michael Penix Jr.’s four interceptions in the rain were a one-off. Atlanta had scored the most points per game in the league since he returned in Week 3 (ESPN). Cincinnati’s defense is 15th in defensive DVOA and may be without cornerback DJ Turner II.

Our Pick: Bengals.

Browns at Saints (1:00 p.m.)

Line: Saints -2.5, 43.5 · ESPN: Saints 62.6%

Key to the Game: Cleveland’s defensive line, fourth on our list, against a Saints line that is 18th. The Browns’ O-line is 32nd after eight sacks in Pittsburgh, and New Orleans comes off its bye.

Our Pick: Browns. Against the line and the model, with low confidence: Cleveland is 22nd in DVOA to New Orleans’ 29th, and its front should decide a low-scoring game.

Cowboys at Colts (1:00 p.m., Fox)

Line: Cowboys -6, 51.5 · ESPN: Cowboys 61.2%

Key to the Game: an Indianapolis team that traded Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner and benched Daniel Jones in the fourth quarter Sunday, against a Dallas defense that is last in EPA per play (Barnwell). Who starts at quarterback for the Colts, and whether Jonathan Taylor is still on the roster, both matter.

Our Pick: Cowboys.

Broncos at Panthers (1:00 p.m.)

Line: Broncos -3, 43.5 · ESPN: Broncos 63.5%

Key to the Game: Denver’s defensive line, third on our list, against a Carolina line that is 26th and was without Taylor Moton and Damien Lewis on Thursday. Denver is 10 for 48 on third down over its last four games (AP), all wins.

Our Pick: Broncos.

Lions at Dolphins (1:00 p.m., Fox)

Line: Lions -7, 50.5 · ESPN: Lions 77.7%

Key to the Game: Detroit’s injuries on defense. Linebacker Jack Campbell went to a hospital with a neck injury, and Brian Branch, DJ Wonnum and D.J. Reed were also hurt Sunday. Miami’s run game struggled without left guard Kadyn Proctor.

Our Pick: Lions.

Rams at Commanders (1:00 p.m., Fox)

Line: Rams -5.5, 47.5 · ESPN: Rams 72.5%

Key to the Game: the Rams’ offensive line, third on our list, against a Washington front without Daron Payne. Matthew Stafford has thrown for under 225 yards in three straight games.

Our Pick: Rams.

Giants at Eagles (1:00 p.m., Fox)

Line: Giants -3.5, 40.5 · ESPN: Giants 54.0%

Key to the Game: J.J. McCarthy’s second start after a bye, against an Eagles defense that has allowed 100-plus rushing yards in every game (Fox). Philadelphia has lost six straight.

Our Pick: Giants. Low confidence: a road division game for a quarterback with one start for this team.

Jets at Chiefs (1:00 p.m.)

Line: Chiefs -9.5, 46.5 · ESPN: Chiefs 80.4%

Key to the Game: Kansas City’s run game, with Kenneth Walker III at 3.0 yards a carry over two straight losses (CBS), against a Jets run defense that has been 31st since Week 3 (ESPN). Braelon Allen has three 100-yard games for New York.

Our Pick: Chiefs.

Texans at Chargers (4:05 p.m.)

Line: Texans -4.5, 40.5 · ESPN: Texans 61.6%

Key to the Game: a Chargers offense that has gone 27 straight drives without a touchdown, behind our 30th-ranked line, against Houston’s No. 5 defensive line off a bye.

Our Pick: Texans.

Cardinals at Seahawks (4:25 p.m., Fox)

Line: Seahawks -11.5, 44.5 · ESPN: Seahawks 81.8%

Key to the Game: Arizona’s health. Minshew is expected to start (Prisco), Jeremiyah Love re-injured his ankle and Bam Knight left with a concussion. Seattle needs its run game, 81 yards on Monday, to show up behind Quenton Nelson.

Our Pick: Seahawks.

Packers at Patriots (4:25 p.m., Fox)

Line: Patriots -3, 46.5 · ESPN: Patriots 57.2%

Key to the Game: New England has both lines in our top 8; Green Bay’s offensive line is 31st and its run game is the league’s worst. Micah Parsons is practicing (Prisco), and A.J. Brown’s knee is the Patriots’ question.

Our Pick: Patriots.

Raiders at 49ers (4:25 p.m., Fox)

Line: 49ers -10, 51.5 · ESPN: 49ers 84.3%

Key to the Game: DeForest Buckner’s first game back in San Francisco, against a Raiders defense that has allowed 30-plus points five straight weeks (ESPN) and is 31st on our defensive line list.

Our Pick: 49ers.

Buccaneers at Bears (Sunday night, 8:20 p.m., NBC)

Line: Bears -4.5, 47.5 · ESPN: Bears 59.8%

Key to the Game: Tampa Bay’s run game, 582 yards over two weeks, against a Chicago front 26th in run stop win rate that lost Grady Jarrett to a groin injury Monday. The Buccaneers are fifth in DVOA, the Bears 13th.

Our Pick: Bears.

Bills at Vikings (Monday, 8:15 p.m., ABC)

Line: Bills -3.5, 46.5 · ESPN: Bills 60.6%

Key to the Game: Minnesota’s blitz-heavy defense, second on our list, against Josh Allen, and whether Kyler Murray’s offense, 28th in points per drive (Ringer Staff), can score enough to matter.

Our Pick: Bills.

Three Things Getting Little Attention

1. Sacks picked the winners. The team with more sacks won 10 of the 14 games. The exceptions were Tampa Bay, which threw three passes, plus Arizona, Detroit and Cincinnati; two of those needed overtime.
2. Five teams won after trailing by 10 or more: Arizona (down 17-3), Cincinnati (13-0), Denver (24-13), New England (13-3) and Washington (10-0). The Raiders also came back from nine down at halftime.
3. The run game still mattered. The team with more rushing yards won 10 of 14, from Tampa Bay’s 324 to Detroit’s 230 against the league’s best defense by points allowed.

The post 2026 NFL: Week 8 Review, Week 9 Preview appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Lamar Jackson lasted one offensive play. He left with a right thumb injury. Tyler Huntley followed in the second quarter with a right toe injury, and Joe Fagnano played the rest of the way. He was the first emergency third quarterback used by any team this season, per Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet).

At this point there is no pressure on the Ravens the rest of this season.

If Jackson can get back in time, maybe they can still fight for the 7th spot.

But zero expectations.

EDIT: @jeffzrebiec Minter said thumb injury is potentially season ending for Lamar Jackson.

What Happened

Buffalo scored on its first possession. Josh Allen hit Khalil Shakir for 26 on third-and-6 and 18 more to the 5, a replay review took a Shakir touchdown back to the 1, and Allen scored from there. It was 7-0 with 10:10 left in the first quarter.

Jackson’s first pass, short right for Zay Flowers, fell incomplete, and he was hurt on the play. Huntley finished the drive, a three-and-out. Tyler Bass kicked a 56-yard field goal for 10-0.

The Ravens got even on the defense’s first takeaway. Broderick Washington intercepted Allen at the Buffalo 17, Derrick Henry ran 12 yards to the 5, and after an encroachment penalty Henry scored from the 2. It was 10-7 with 3:18 left in the first quarter.

Buffalo turned it over on downs at the Ravens 37 to open the second quarter, but two plays into the Ravens’ next drive, Cole Bishop strip-sacked Huntley, and Buffalo recovered at the Ravens 20. Huntley did not take another snap. The Ravens held at the goal line, with Allen losing 3 on third-and-goal from the 1, and Bass kicked a 22-yarder for 13-7.

Fagnano came in with 9:39 left in the half. Rasheen Ali returned the kickoff 59 yards, and Fagnano completed passes of 15 to Josh Cuevas and 13 to Ja’Kobi Lane to the Buffalo 7. He was sacked for 9 on the next play, threw two incompletions, and Tyler Loop’s 34-yard try hit the left upright.

Roquan Smith forced a DJ Moore fumble at the Ravens 21 at the two-minute warning, and T.J. Tampa recovered. Three plays after an offside penalty gave the Ravens a first down, Igbinosun intercepted Fagnano’s pass for Flowers and returned it to the Ravens 33. Bass kicked a 51-yarder with 9 seconds left. It was 16-7 at the half.

The Ravens opened the third quarter with their best drive. Fagnano found Rashod Bateman for 22, Ed Oliver added 15 for roughing the passer, and a low block on Buffalo put the ball at the 28. Henry ran 10 yards for a touchdown, but Ronnie Stanley was called for holding, and Loop kicked a 26-yard field goal instead. It was 16-10.

Buffalo answered in six plays. Allen threw 49 yards to Moore to the Ravens 5, and James Cook scored. Allen hit Dalton Kincaid for 40 early in the fourth quarter and Moore for an 11-yard touchdown, his 259th career touchdown pass including the playoffs, which moved him past Jim Kelly for the franchise record, per the Bills (@BuffaloBillsPR); the two-point try failed. After the Ravens went for it and missed on fourth-and-3 at their own 44, Allen found Kincaid for 23 yards and a touchdown, 36-10 with 5:58 left. The Ravens’ last drive ended on an aborted snap by Fagnano at the Buffalo 48.

The Offense

Three quarterbacks threw 26 passes for 68 net yards, the Ravens’ fewest since the 2017 London loss to Jacksonville. Jackson was 0 for 1 on his only snap. Huntley was 2 of 4 for no yards, was sacked once and lost a fumble. Fagnano was 10 of 21 for 91 yards with an interception, was sacked three times and lost the fumble on an aborted snap. The Ravens turned it over three times.

Flowers was targeted five times and didn’t catch a pass. Justice Hill caught 4 of 8 targets for 20 yards; Bateman’s 22-yarder was the longest completion, and Mark Andrews caught 3 for 14.

The run game was the one part that held up. Henry ran 11 times for 53 yards, 4.8 a carry, and scored, and the Ravens averaged 4.0 a carry as a team. Henry’s 10-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter was wiped out by Stanley’s holding penalty, and the Ravens kicked a field goal instead.

They converted 3 of 13 third downs and missed on their only fourth down. In the red zone they scored one touchdown in three trips: Henry’s run, Loop’s miss off the upright, and the field goal after Stanley’s hold.

Andrew Vorhees started at right guard next to Cam Jurgens, with Emery Jones Jr. inactive. The Ravens allowed four sacks, one of Huntley and three of Fagnano. Carson Vinson reported as an extra eligible lineman once, on a 1-yard Henry run in the second quarter.

The line play wasn’t good, but I’m not sure how you directly evaluate anything with the QB injuries

Ioane getting healthy would obviously help.

Jurgens didn’t look particularly good, but he’s a 2x Pro Bowler that just turned 27.  Presumably he’ll be better.

Stanley is 32 with a lot of games behind him. Where does he rank amongst LT’s at this point?
Rosengarten is in his 3rd year.  You’d like to see him finish strong, and not believe RT is an issue going forward.

The Defense

For a half, the defense kept the Ravens in it. Buffalo had 16 points but one touchdown: the Ravens took the ball away twice, stopped a fourth down at their 37, and held from the 3-yard line to force a field goal. Washington’s interception and Smith’s forced fumble, recovered by Tampa, were the Ravens’ first takeaways in a loss this season.

The second half went the way of the last two. Buffalo scored touchdowns on three of its first four possessions, on drives of 77, 65 and 43 yards. Allen’s three longest completions all came after halftime: 49 yards to Moore, 40 to Kincaid and the 23-yard touchdown to Kincaid.

Allen finished 21 of 34 for 289 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, and ran seven times for 30 yards and a touchdown. Kincaid caught 4 passes for 86 yards, Moore 4 for 82 and Shakir 5 for 64. Cook ran 21 times for 80 yards and a touchdown, which extends the streak Jamison Hensley cited coming in: 22 straight games without a 100-yard running back against the Ravens.

The Ravens sacked Allen once, a sack split by Mike Green and Nnamdi Madubuike. Smith led the team with 11 tackles and Malaki Starks had 10. Tampa, back from injured reserve, made three tackles along with the fumble recovery.

Generally the Ravens defense was fine today given who they were facing and their own QB injuries.
Buffalo’s a high quality offense. The Ravens defense was always going to need help from their offense to help contain the Bills offense.
Jackson’s injury immediately eliminated any real offensive help.

The Ravens gave up 426 yards, but that’s going to happen when you’re giving Allen that many chances.
The Ravens did hold Buffalo to 4 of 14 on 3rd down – unfortunately Buffalo was 4 of 5 on 4th down.

Penalties And Special Teams

The Ravens were penalized seven times for 38 yards, Buffalo ten times for 87.

• Ravens: Stanley’s false start and his holding call on Henry’s touchdown run; Flowers’ false start at the Buffalo 5; Humphrey’s and Madubuike’s defensive holds, the second adding 4 yards to Cook’s fourth-down conversion at the 11; and K’Von Wallace’s illegal block on the final kickoff of the half.
• Buffalo: Oliver’s roughing the passer and Terrel Bernard’s low block set up the Ravens’ field goal drive; James Cook’s chop block cost Buffalo 15 yards before the half.

Loop made 1 of 2 field goals, missing from 34 off the left upright and making from 26. His opening kickoff went out of bounds, giving Buffalo the ball at its 40 for the first touchdown drive. Bass made all three of his tries, from 56, 22 and 51.  Loop is now 13 of 17 on the year.  He’s 5 of 5 from 50+, and he’s 4 of 8 from 30-49 yards.

Ryan Eckley punted five times for a 49.8 average, two inside the 20. Rasheen Ali returned five kickoffs for 147 yards, including a 59-yarder that set up Fagnano’s first drive; he muffed one in the third quarter and recovered it.

The Questions Coming In

Leadership. The week after Cincinnati was about who leads this team. Minter said the Ravens were still working through who grabs everyone on the sideline when a game turns, asking, “Who is that person? Who are those players?” per Ravens.com. Derrick Henry said he hadn’t done a good enough job leading, and Ronnie Stanley said he needs to be more vocal, per FOX45. Leadership doesn’t show up in a box score. What does show up is whether the Ravens held together when Buffalo made its run. In Buffalo, it was 16-10 early in the third quarter, and the Bills scored three touchdowns in their next four possessions. Leadership matters, but generally I think it’s one the of things people point to when things don’t go right between the lines.  Jackson had missed the previous couple of games, and was out of this game after his first snap. The O-Line has been in-flux. The D-Line has regularly got pressure this year, but hasn’t gotten to opposing QBs enough. The Secondary has been burned several times. Are these examples of a lack of leadership and/or character, or are they examples of not enough talent on the roster? For what you can glean (not much) through watching a team through TV, I thought the Ravens continued to compete today even when it was clear what direction this game was headed. That points to some level of cohesiveness and ‘leadership’ in my opinion.

The second half. The Ravens came in plus-65 in first halves and minus-70 in second halves, and without a second-half point in two weeks. Buffalo’s defense came in allowing 1.5 touchdowns per fourth quarter, the worst rate for any defense since at least 1977, per ESPN. Today put one team’s late-game problem against the other’s. The Ravens scored 3 points after halftime, their first second-half points in three games. Buffalo scored 20, 13 of them in the fourth quarter. Again, given the QB injuries, how do you evaluate anything from today?  The next time the Ravens are ‘healthy’ and have a 2nd half lead, we can review how they perform.

The defense. The Ravens had three interceptions in seven games coming in, and no takeaways in their three losses. BSL Ravens Analyst Jamie Sieck asked this week whether Minter’s defense is too passive and too reliant on zone in big spots, and whether calling the defense as a first-year Head Coach is too much. Two pregame markers from ESPN: Baltimore was first in EPA allowed on play-action, against a Bills offense that uses play-action at the fourth-highest rate (Week 8 preview), and the Ravens hadn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in 21 straight games, per Jamison Hensley. In Buffalo the Ravens got two takeaways, Allen threw for 289 yards with an interception, and Cook was held to 80 yards. As I said above, I think the defense was fine today given the circumstances around them. Regarding Jamie’s question about Minter calling games as the Head Coach? I brought this up as a question in our season previews, but found after review that a HC calling plays was more prevalent league wide than I had anticipated. This is supposed to be his strength, I wouldn’t run from it, unless you (the Ravens Front Office) thought it was so tasking, that it was causing Minter to have errors in judgement with situational calls, or his defensive play calling.

Jackson. Since 2019 the Ravens are 76-35 with Jackson and 7-14 without him, and this season they scored 14 touchdowns in his 14 quarters and five in the 14 without him, per ESPN. Entering today, he was averaging 10.1 yards a pass to Huntley’s 6.9. In Buffalo he lasted one snap, an incompletion, and left with the thumb injury. I’ve seen Ravens fans online again calling him soft.  I presume he either broke his thumb or tore a ligament. I’m not sure why anyone would expect him to stay in the game with those injuries to his throwing hand.  I saw one person on X with a decent size following suggest the injury was an example of what happens to a running QB with his cumulative amount of carries. That’s a ridiculous comment as there is no correlation between this freak occurrence of hitting his hand on a DL’s helmet with him also having a history of running.

Buffalo at home. The Bills had beaten the Ravens three straight times in Buffalo, and Josh Allen came in 8-0 in his career after a bye, per Ravens.com. Make it four straight, and Allen 9-0. This was the Ravens first visit to the Bills new Stadium. The Bills are a Super Bowl caliber team, even with their defensive questions. It felt like the Ravens had an opportunity today, even with their QB injuries. Presumably Buffalo lost some focus / intensity when Jackson went out. Maybe they would have won regardless. It feels like the Ravens would have had a reasonable chance to win today had Jackson stayed available.

Week 9: Jacksonville At Baltimore

The Ravens host Jacksonville on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 8:15 p.m. ET at M&T Bank Stadium, on Prime Video, four days after Buffalo. As of Sunday morning, before the injuries, the Ravens were 3-point favorites at DraftKings, and ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gave them a 47.8% chance to win. Both numbers will likely move.

The Jaguars came into today 4-2, leading the AFC South by 2.5 games over Indianapolis and Houston, both 2-5, after their Week 7 bye. Tennessee is 1-6. They beat Indianapolis 42-7 on Sunday and are 5-2. Lawrence completed 10 of 14 passes for 210 yards and three touchdowns, one to the recently benched Brian Thomas Jr., and Rayuan Lane returned an interception 92 yards for a touchdown, per AP. Liam Coen is in his second season; Jacksonville went 13-4 last year and won its final eight regular-season games, per NBC News. Grant Udinski is the offensive coordinator and Anthony Campanile the defensive coordinator, per Jaguars.com.

In our Week 8 rankings the Jaguars were seventh overall and third in DVOA, with an 11-6 projection that wins the AFC South. The Ravens were 14th and 15th in DVOA, projected 9-8 and the first team out of the AFC field, tied with Cleveland.

How Jacksonville got to 5-2

Through six games, before today’s game against Indianapolis, Jacksonville had scored 154 points, eighth in the league, and allowed 104, third fewest, per Pro Football Reference. Both losses were one-score games. In the Houston loss, Trevor Lawrence threw four touchdown passes, and Travis Hunter caught a touchdown and intercepted C.J. Stroud; a too-many-men penalty was Jacksonville’s third straight week of costly flags, per our Week 6 review.

When Jacksonville has the ball

Entering today, Lawrence had completed 120 of 184 passes for 1,480 yards, 14 touchdowns and four interceptions, and had been sacked 10 times, per Pro Football Reference. Fourteen touchdown passes in six games is a career first for him, per Jaguars.com.

Entering today, Parker Washington led Jacksonville with 26 catches for 416 yards and four touchdowns. Brenton Strange had 26 catches for 279 yards, and Jakobi Meyers 20 for 285. Bhayshul Tuten had run 94 times for 388 yards, 4.1 a carry, and Chris Rodriguez Jr. 39 times for 168. Travis Hunter had six catches for 76 yards and a touchdown on offense, and two interceptions on defense.

Entering today, Lawrence had completed 78% of his passes against zone coverage, with a 6.5% off-target rate, both best among 33 qualified quarterbacks, per ESPN Research.

Left tackle Anton Harrison is out for the season with a torn ACL, per Jaguars.com. Jacksonville’s offensive line is 11th on our numbers and amongst the first teams out of our top 8 because of his injury: 47% pass block win rate (22nd), 74% run block (ninth), a 5.2% sack rate, 2.0 points better than its opponents usually allow, and 4.1 yards a carry, 0.2 under what those defenses allow.

Baltimore’s defensive line is seventh: 54% pass rush win rate (seventh), 31% run stop (eighth), a 6.6% sack rate, 0.5 better than its opponents’ lines usually allow, and 3.8 yards a carry allowed. The defense as a whole is 17th in FTN’s defensive DVOA.

When Baltimore has the ball

Jacksonville’s front is 16th on our numbers, and its two halves don’t match. It is fifth in pass rush win rate at 57% but 30th in run stop at 26%, and it still allows only 3.2 yards a carry, 0.6 under what its opponents usually gain.

That front came out of Sunday banged up. Nose tackle DaVon Hamilton was carted off with a right knee injury in the second quarter and ruled out, and defensive end Travon Walker (ribs) and safety Eric Murray (elbow) were also hurt, per AP. On offense, right guard Ezra Cleveland hurt his ankle.

The results favor the run defense over its win rate: Jacksonville came into today first in EPA allowed per designed rush, per ESPN. The pass defense is softer. Entering today, it allowed 8.0 yards per pass attempt, also per ESPN, and had 11 sacks and seven interceptions in six games. Travon Walker had two sacks and Josh Hines-Allen 1.5; Foyesade Oluokun, Jourdan Lewis and Hunter had two interceptions each.

Entering today, Cam Little had made 10 of 12 field goals, 4 of 6 from 50 yards or more, with a long of 60.

Baltimore’s offensive line entering this weekend was 18th in our O-Line Rankings: 48% pass block (20th), 72% run block (21st), an 8.2% sack rate, 1.4 points worse than its opponents usually allow, and 4.7 yards a carry. Vega Ioane (knee) was ruled out for Buffalo. In Buffalo, Vorhees started at right guard next to Cam Jurgens.

The short week

We’ve seen repeatedly that NFL games on Thursday Night’s look like a different product.  Players are still recovering from their games just a few days prior, and we see teams look less prepared.

The Ravens get the benefit of being at home, but this already had the makings of an ugly game prior to the likelyhood of Fagnano making his first NFL start.

What comes after

After Jacksonville, the Chargers come to Baltimore on Monday, Nov. 16, at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN. Here is the rest of the schedule, with each opponent’s place in our Oct. 27th power rankings:

Four of the last five games are against the AFC North, where the Ravens are 0-2.

The Path To A 7 Seed

These numbers include Sunday’s early results; the late games (Chiefs at Broncos, Patriots at Dolphins, Chargers at Rams) use their pregame odds.

We’ll wait for the Ravens’ formal announcement on Jackson’s thumb. For our purposes, we’re assuming he misses four to six weeks. Because the bye falls in Week 13, that’s either three games, with Jackson back Nov. 29th at Houston, or four, with him back Dec. 13th against Tampa Bay.

Here’s how we built it. Each remaining Ravens game rates both teams by their place in our Oct. 27th power rankings, adds home field, and takes 6 points off the Ravens while Jackson is out, which is how far the line moved when he was ruled out against Cincinnati. Every other AFC team plays out its season at the pace of our Oct. 27th win projections. We ran the rest of the season 200,000 times and counted how often the Ravens got in.

Those numbers break ties at random. The Ravens are 0-2 in the division and already behind New England on conference record, so most ties would likely go against them. If they lose every tie, the chances drop to about 18% and 15%.

The 7th seed finished with 9 or 10 wins in almost nine of every 10 simulations. From 4-4, that means going 5-4 or 6-3 the rest of the way. The model’s most common Ravens finish is 8-9.

Thursday is the hardest game without Jackson. Jacksonville is seventh in our Power Rankings, and the model gives the Ravens about a 29% chance; ESPN had them at 47.8% before the injuries and results today. The Chargers, last in our rankings, and Tampa Bay at home are the likeliest wins.

The model doesn’t know who plays quarterback. Huntley and Fagnano were both hurt today, and the 6-point adjustment assumes a healthy backup.

The trade deadline

The deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 10th, at 4 p.m. ET, per CBS Sports. That leaves the Ravens one more game, Thursday, and probably a diagnosis on Jackson’s thumb, before they decide.

Eric DeCosta has been a deadline buyer: Marcus Peters in 2019, Yannick Ngakoue in 2020 and Roquan Smith in 2022, per The Banner. This October he sent a 2028 second-round pick and a 2027 fifth to Philadelphia for Jurgens, per Yahoo Sports. The last Ravens team to sell was Ozzie Newsome’s 2015 team, which made two depth trades.

The case for selling is next year’s cap more than this year’s. The Ravens are tight this season after restructuring Jackson’s contract in the spring, which cleared about $40 million, per The Banner. Over The Cap counts about $1.9 million in room this season. If DeCosta did sell, four veterans are the realistic names:

Figures from the Over The Cap calculator. A trade now leaves this season’s bonus charge on the Ravens’ books and moves the rest of a player’s bonus money onto the 2027 cap as dead money; the last column is what’s left over.

The league cap does rise. Projections for 2027 run from about $323 million to $352 million, up from $301.2 million this year, per Over The Cap and Spotrac. Even so, Jackson’ could be roughly a quarter of it. With 45 players under contract for 2027, Over The Cap has the Ravens at about $372.9 million against a $327 million cap, roughly $46 million over before filling out a roster. Spotrac’s estimate is about $52.8 million over.

The cap has climbed fast: $208.2 million in 2022, $224.8 million in 2023, $255.4 million in 2024, $279.2 million in 2025 and $301.2 million this year.

If the projections hold, the expected Lamar Jackson extension won’t be much of an issue. If the cap doesn’t grow that much, that would make thoughts on the likely extension more complicated.
He turns 30 in January, and obviously there have been times he has missed considerable time as we discussed last week.

Ravens On SI has argued for moving all four. The timing matters less than it sounds. Because it’s after June 1, a trade now puts the same dead money on the 2027 cap as a release or trade in March would; Smith counts $12.7 million in 2027 either way. What a trade now adds is the rest of this season’s salary, which carries over into 2027 as cap space, plus whatever pick comes back. For Smith, that’s about $8 million of his $16 million base salary at the deadline. The cost is losing him for the last nine games.

Of the four, only Smith frees meaningful 2027 space whenever he’s moved. Humphrey frees none: his contract voids after this season, and its $11.9 million 2027 charge is dead money either way. Andrews is the one where a trade beats a release. Five million dollars of his 2027 salary is guaranteed and would go with him in a trade, so trading him saves $3.5 million, while cutting him would cost $1.5 million, per Over The Cap.

The post Ravens At Bills Review, Jacksonville Preview appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Quick Hits

Our record. We went 5-1 straight up, 2-4 against the spread and 5-1 on totals in Week 9 (last week’s picks are here). That puts us at 30-25 straight up, 22-28-2 against the spread and 28-19 on totals for the season. Ohio State was the straight-up miss. The against-the-spread misses were Notre Dame (won by 22, laying 30.5), Arizona and Auburn (Texas Tech and Ole Miss both covered) and Miami (won by three, laying 16.5). In the five games where FPI and SP+ both disagreed with the line, the models went 2-3; Texas Tech’s eight-point win, which covered against our pick, was one of their two.

USC 30, Ohio State 18. USC answered the question we asked last week, and the answer was worse for Ohio State than we expected. Trent Mosley took a screen pass 69 yards for a touchdown on the second snap, against a defense that hadn’t allowed a play longer than 36 yards all season. The Trojans led 20-9 at halftime and 27-9 after freshman tight end Mark Bowman’s 70-yard catch set up a King Miller touchdown. They scored more points than Ohio State’s defense had allowed in its previous 31 games. Luke Fahey, the freshman who got the start over Tavien St. Clair, went 21 of 38 for 260 yards with no interceptions, and his receivers dropped several catchable balls. The Buckeyes gained 464 yards but scored only three field goals on their first five drives, including one after reaching the USC 1 before halftime. They also committed 11 penalties for 75 yards. Jeremiah Smith’s 1-yard touchdown catch with 2:12 left was the 40th of his career, a Big Ten record, and it came too late. Per the AP, Ohio State had not lost two games this early in a season since 2011, and Ryan Day is now 58-2 against unranked teams. We picked Ohio State to win and USC to cover. Half of that held.

We said last week that if Ohio State lost at USC or to Oregon, we would move it, and we have. It drops seven spots, to ninth. The reason is in the Power Rankings below: the loss proved on the field that this is a different team without Sayin.

Miami 38, North Carolina 35. The No. 1 team in the country trailed 28-24 with 11:46 left after Demon June’s 1-yard run. Miami went ahead on Mark Fletcher Jr.’s 2-yard touchdown on fourth down with 7:49 to play. On the next possession, Marquise Lightfoot stripped Billy Edwards Jr. from behind and Justin Scott recovered. Darian Mensah’s 9-yard touchdown to Malachi Toney made it 38-28 with 2:33 left, and Miami still had to recover an onside kick to finish it. Toney caught two touchdowns, and Fletcher tied Miami’s career record for rushing touchdowns. The worry is the defense. Edwards threw for 341 yards and four touchdowns, and North Carolina kept the ball on a 16-play drive that lasted nearly eight and a half minutes. It was the most points Miami has allowed in regulation this season, and Mario Cristobal said afterward that the tackling and coverage weren’t good enough. North Carolina is now 0-12 against No. 1 teams. We said Miami’s place in the field did not depend on this game. It didn’t. The game at Notre Dame on Saturday matters more after this.

Georgia 27, Florida 8. Georgia forced four turnovers and led 24-0 at halftime in Atlanta, where the rivalry moved this year because of renovations in Jacksonville. The swing play came with 29 seconds left in the half: Quintavius Johnson sacked Tramell Jones Jr. and Chris Cole returned the fumble 66 yards for a touchdown. It was Cole’s second long fumble-return touchdown of the season. Aaron Philo started for Florida after missing the Texas game and was benched after two interceptions. Jones then threw an interception in the end zone from the Georgia 3. Georgia outrushed Florida 217-48 and held Jadan Baugh, who started the day leading the SEC in rushing touchdowns, to 38 yards on 17 carries. It was Georgia’s sixth straight win in the series. The caution is Gunner Stockton: 13 of 23 for 101 yards against a Florida pass defense that entered the game 121st nationally in passing yards allowed, per CBS. CBS’s Georgia column makes the case that the passing game is the problem to watch. Kirby Smart conceded afterward that Georgia missed throws and left points on the field. Last week we wrote that a loss would leave Florida at 5-3 with its best case already made. That is where Florida is.

Utah 49, Cincinnati 25. One week after Cincinnati beat Texas Tech, Utah led the Bearcats 42-6 at halftime. Utah kept the ball for more than 10 minutes of the first quarter, Rabbit Evans returned a fumble 51 yards for a touchdown, and Elijah Davis returned an interception 39 yards for another with 34 seconds left in the half. Devon Dampier threw for 260 yards and two touchdowns. His 45 rushing yards made him Utah’s career leader in rushing yards by a quarterback. The Utes are 8-0 for the first time since 2010, and their 14-game winning streak is the longest active streak in the FBS. This was the kind of result Utah needed before BYU comes to Salt Lake City.

Indiana 23, Minnesota 16, in overtime. For the second straight week, Indiana needed overtime against an unranked team. Josh Hoover, who started with an injured right shoulder, was pulled at halftime after his second interception of the season, with Minnesota up 10-7. Grant Wilson went 9 of 17 for 156 yards. Minnesota’s Luke Drzewiecki made a 60-yard field goal for a 16-13 lead with 19 seconds left. Charlie Becker then caught a 33-yard pass and Paddy McAteer made a 60-yarder of his own as time expired. Wilson hit Becker for a 25-yard touchdown on the first play of overtime, and the defense sacked Drake Lindsey on fourth down to end it. Becker finished with eight catches for 149 yards. The special teams were nearly as bad as the offense: two short punts set up both Minnesota scores in the first half, a field goal was blocked, another was missed and a third attempt never happened because of a bad snap. Last week we wrote that the problem is the offense. It still is, and now the quarterback is a question too.

Texas Tech 34, Arizona 26. Joey McGuire benched Will Hammond after the loss at Cincinnati and started Tommy Castellanos, and Texas Tech got its first opening-drive touchdown since the opener. Castellanos completed only 11 of 24 passes for 144 yards but threw two touchdowns and ran for 117 yards and a score. His 27-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-2 late in the third quarter put the Red Raiders ahead for good. J’Koby Williams ran for 175 yards, including a 64-yard touchdown. Noah Fifita threw for 417 yards for Arizona, 182 of them to Isaiah Mizell, but the Wildcats ran for 12 yards and gave up five sacks. Texas Tech tied a school record with its 13th straight home win. The start came a day after a court ruling preserved the eligibility of Castellanos and 29 other athletes suing over the NCAA’s five-year eligibility model. We picked Arizona to cover and it didn’t. Last week we wrote that the loser would have two league losses and that, for Texas Tech, it would end the title-game path. Arizona is the team with two now.

Notre Dame 35, Navy 13. Navy led 13-7 with 1:52 left in the first half after Jackson Gutierrez’s 2-yard run. Notre Dame went ahead 50 seconds later on Nolan James Jr.’s 52-yard run and scored on each of its first three possessions of the second half. Navy, which had the ball for all but 6:27 of the first half, gained 56 yards after halftime. CJ Carr threw for 210 yards and two touchdowns, James ran for 107 and two scores, and Marcus Freeman won his 50th game at Notre Dame. It was the Irish’s ninth straight win over Navy. Notre Dame won by 22, laying 30.5, so we got the winner and the under but not the cover.

Ole Miss 45, Auburn 15. Ole Miss led only 17-15 late in the third quarter. Trinidad Chambliss ran 26 yards for a touchdown, threw two more touchdowns in the fourth, and the Rebels scored the last 28 points. Chambliss threw for 263 yards and ran for 65. Ole Miss converted 13 of 16 third downs and held Auburn to 63 rushing yards. With Kewan Lacy out (separated shoulder), sophomore Shekai Mills-Knight, who had 42 yards in the first seven games, ran 16 times for 71 yards and a touchdown. Coach Pete Golding credited the early running game for setting up everything else. We picked Auburn to cover 11.5. It lost by 30. CBS’s projection lists the score as 45-17; the AP recap and ESPN’s committee column both have a 30-point margin, so we use 45-15.

BYU 27, Arizona State 20. BYU led 17-3 at halftime, saw Arizona State tie it in the third quarter and pulled away late. Matthias Dunn’s 45-yard field goal put BYU ahead for good. Bear Bachmeier converted a fourth-and-1 run from his own 14, hit a 53-yard pass on the next play and set up Sione Moa’s 1-yard touchdown with 2:09 left. BYU had six sacks. There is an asterisk on the first score: the Big 12 said after the game that replay should not have awarded BYU a touchdown when Moa scooped up Bachmeier’s fumble near the goal line, and that BYU should have had third-and-goal from the 2. Arizona State’s Jake Fette was making his first career start.

Boise State 46, Texas State 45. Boise State led by 25 at halftime and then gave up the first 36 points of the second half. Jayden Bradley’s pick-six off Maddux Madsen, Madsen’s first interception of the season, put Texas State ahead 39-28 with 8:58 left. Madsen then took a hard hit near his left knee and left the game. Max Cutforth came in and threw three touchdown passes in the final seven minutes, the last an 18-yarder to Akeem Wright with 2:40 left. Mana Tuioti’s interception on a trick play set up one of them. Madsen watched the end on crutches, and Spencer Danielson said his status is unknown. Danielson also called the third quarter one of the worst he has been part of. Boise was No. 20 in last week’s AP poll, tied with Northwestern; that is the ranking the AP recap used. Boise is 7-1 and 4-0 in the Pac-12. The Madsen news matters more for the Group of Six race than the score does.

The week-after problem kept going. ESPN pointed out earlier this season how often teams lose the week after their biggest win. Three more did it this week. Wisconsin beat USC 17-7 a week ago and lost 30-0 at Iowa, where Hank Brown completed 20 of 24 passes. Cincinnati beat Texas Tech and lost at home to Utah by 24. Florida beat Texas in its last game and lost to Georgia by 19. USC has a bye before it goes to Indiana on November 14th.

Elsewhere. Syracuse beat SMU 30-27 on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Steve Angeli to Noah Meyers with 17 seconds left, which hurts SMU’s hopes of reaching the ACC title game. Iowa State beat Oklahoma State 51-49 on Kyle Konrardy’s 34-yard field goal as time expired, set up in part by an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on Oklahoma State’s go-ahead touchdown. Oregon came back from 10-0 down to beat Northwestern 34-26 behind Dylan Raiola, who threw for 336 yards and three touchdowns. Oregon has ruled Dante Moore out for the season and fired offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer on October 25th. South Carolina won 42-25 at Oklahoma, its third straight win. Washington beat Nebraska with two touchdowns in the last 90 seconds, the second a 48-yard interception return; Nebraska has lost three straight by a combined 13 points. Missouri won 34-10 at Arkansas, and Ahmad Hardy, who was shot in the leg at a concert in May, played for the first time this season. Wake Forest beat Virginia 51-7, though quarterback Gio Lopez limped off with a leg injury. UCLA intercepted four passes and beat Nevada 27-0, its first shutout at the Rose Bowl since 2007. Texas beat Mississippi State 31-3, with defensive tackle Maraad Watson returning a fumble 61 yards for a score. Mississippi State’s starter, AJ Swann, was hurt on that play, which leaves the offense to walk-on Parker Puckett. Thursday night, Troy beat James Madison 24-21 in overtime after the Dukes led 21-7 at halftime and then turned it over five times. Baylor, under interim coach Joe Klanderman, beat UCF 41-9. And Sacramento State beat Kent State 31-10 for its first FBS win.

Power Rankings

Records are through October 31st. Florida dropped out.

Georgia (2nd, up 1). Georgia moves up because Ohio State fell, and it earned the spot. Its two best wins are away from home, at Alabama and against Florida in Atlanta. Saturday was the defense’s game: four takeaways, a touchdown and 48 rushing yards allowed. The passing game is the open question going into Oxford.

BYU (3rd, up 1). BYU moves up one because Ohio State fell. Arizona State made it uncomfortable, and the Big 12 says one of BYU’s touchdowns shouldn’t have counted. BYU still won by seven with six sacks and a fourth-down conversion from its own 14. It stays ahead of Notre Dame on head-to-head and ahead of Utah on the promise we made, which runs out Saturday.

Notre Dame (4th, up 1). Notre Dame moves up one because Ohio State fell. The first half against Navy was sloppy and the second half was not. The Irish held Navy to 56 yards after halftime.

Utah (5th, up 2). Utah passes Indiana. Utah went to a Cincinnati team that had just beaten Texas Tech by 13 and led by 36 at halftime. In the same two weeks, Indiana needed overtime twice against unranked teams and pulled its quarterback at halftime on Saturday. Utah’s schedule is still the weakest of the contenders, and we said so last week, but it is 8-0 and has won its last two big games, Houston and Cincinnati, in very different ways. It stays behind BYU for one more week because we said it would.

UCLA (7th, up 1). UCLA moves up one because Ohio State fell. Four interceptions and a shutout of a 3-5 team don’t change much, but the Bruins are 8-0 and now the only unbeaten team in the Big Ten standings.

Texas (8th, up 1). Texas moves up one and passes Ohio State, which it beat 24-23 in Austin in Week 2. We wrote last week that if Ohio State lost at USC, Texas would move ahead. It has. The 31-3 win over Mississippi State was more about the defense than the offense, which was sacked six times and finished under 300 yards. Cam Coleman left early for the second straight game and was in street clothes in the second half.

Ohio State (9th, down 7). Ohio State drops because it lost, and because the loss showed on the field what losing Sayin means. The defense, first in SP+ a week ago, gave up a 69-yard touchdown on the second snap and 30 points. The offense moved the ball and could not finish. It falls behind Texas, which beat it. It stays ahead of USC, Texas Tech and the rest of this group because of the whole body of work: wins over Indiana and at Iowa, and two losses on the road, both to teams ranked in our top 20. Seven spots is inside our 11-spot ceiling. If the Buckeyes lose to Oregon on Saturday, they drop again.

Wake Forest (16th, up 1). Wake Forest beat Virginia 51-7 for its fifth straight win and has given up four touchdowns in four games. Houston was off. Wake also gained from SMU’s loss at Syracuse, which leaves the Demon Deacons as the clear second team in the ACC.

USC (17th, new). USC enters because it beat the No. 2 team in the country by 12 on Saturday night. The Trojans are 7-2. They lost at home to Oregon earlier in the season and 17-7 at Wisconsin a week ago, so this is not a team without flaws. But beating Ohio State is a win few teams in this part of the ranking can match, and a week after scoring seven points, the offense put up 30 on the Ohio State defense.

Houston (18th, down 2). Houston was off. It drops two because Wake Forest won big and passes it, and because USC’s win over Ohio State is better than any win Houston has. Houston hosts Cincinnati on Saturday.

Boise State (20th, down 2). Boise State won, but it gave up 36 straight points at home to a 4-4 team and needed its backup quarterback to come back. Madsen’s injury is the bigger issue: if he misses time, this is a different team. Missouri, which won 34-10 at Arkansas, passes it.

Why Ohio State is ahead of USC. USC won 30-18 in Los Angeles, and it was not close; the Trojans led 27-9 in the third quarter. Under the rule we have used all season, a result like that does not get overridden. We are making an exception here and saying why. Ohio State played its first full game without Sayin, with a freshman making his first career start on the road. The loss tells us that this version of Ohio State is a lesser team, and we have dropped the Buckeyes seven spots for it. It does not tell us that USC has been the better team across nine games. Ohio State’s two losses are by one at Texas and by 12 at USC. USC’s two losses are at home to Oregon and by 10 at Wisconsin, a team that just lost 30-0. The fairer reading of Saturday is that a short-handed Ohio State lost on the road to a solid, capable team, and that USC is good enough to beat this Ohio State. That is a good result for USC, and it is why USC is ranked. It is not enough to put USC ahead of a team with Ohio State’s full record. If USC wins at Indiana on November 14th, this paragraph changes.

Why Indiana is ahead of Ohio State. Ohio State beat Indiana 19-15 in Bloomington on October 17th. That is a four-point loss, close enough for our rule to allow an override, though it came at home. The reason for the override is Sayin. He played most of that game, and the Ohio State team that beat Indiana is not the one that played at USC. Fahey did not look ready on Saturday, though it was his first start, on the road, and we will see how much he improves. Indiana is 8-1 and Ohio State is 6-2. That is not a claim that Indiana is dominant. Its 23 points against Minnesota were the most it has scored in four weeks, and every one of those games was close. Indiana wins them with good coaching and an experienced team, and it looks like a playoff team, but not one that is beating people up. Ohio State still holds the Big Ten tiebreaker if they finish level, which is a separate question from who is better right now.

Why USC is ahead of Oregon and Wisconsin. Oregon beat USC 41-27 at the Coliseum on September 26th, and Wisconsin beat USC 17-7 in Madison on October 24th. Neither was close. We still have USC ahead of both. USC is 7-2 and 4-2 in the Big Ten, with a win over Ohio State. Oregon is 5-3 and 3-2, with losses to UCLA, Oklahoma State and Illinois since it beat USC. If Oregon wins out, starting at Ohio State on Saturday, the head-to-head result will carry more weight and we will look at it again. Wisconsin is 5-3, and its 30-0 loss at Iowa on Saturday settles that one for now.

Why Texas and Ole Miss are ahead of Florida. Florida beat Texas 27-24 in Austin and Ole Miss 52-28 in Gainesville. We already overrode the Texas result (close) and broke the Ole Miss result as part of the Florida–Missouri–Ole Miss cycle. Florida is now 5-3, has lost three of its last four and is out of our top 20.

Carried over. These standing calls are unchanged. BYU is ahead of UCF, which beat it in double overtime in Orlando. Georgia is ahead of Auburn, which beat it 27-24 in Athens in the final seconds. Texas Tech is ahead of Cincinnati, which beat it 37-24 in Cincinnati. Tennessee is ahead of South Carolina, which beat it 27-24 in Columbia on October 24th; a three-point road loss is the kind our rule allows us to override. That was the middle game of South Carolina’s three-game winning streak, and the Gamecocks are close to our top 20. Boise State is ahead of Oregon, which beat it by seven in Eugene.

Why the rest held. Miami stays first. A three-point win at North Carolina was not the performance of a week ago, but Miami is the only unbeaten team in the top four and has the best résumé. Indiana holds at sixth. It won again and drops only because Utah passed it, which offsets Ohio State’s fall. Texas Tech holds at tenth after a good win over Arizona, still behind Ohio State’s body of work and ahead of three SEC teams that were off. Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky all had byes, and the margin chain that holds them in that order (Tennessee beat Alabama 26-10 in Knoxville; Alabama won 45-17 in Lexington) gets tested Saturday when Kentucky goes to Tennessee. Ole Miss won by 30 and holds at 14th behind 7-1 Kentucky. LSU was off and stays behind Ole Miss and Kentucky, which beat it. Missouri won and holds at 19th. It moves ahead of Boise State without moving itself.

Who’s next. The first team out is Iowa (6-2). It beat Wisconsin 30-0, its third shutout of the season, and its losses are to Ohio State and by three at Minnesota. Then come Florida, South Carolina (three straight wins, over Florida, Tennessee and Oklahoma), Northwestern, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and SMU.

The outside check

Last week we said that this week we would set our ranking next to the committee’s. We can’t yet. The committee’s first ranking comes out Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Eastern, after this piece runs. We will make that comparison in the Week 11 piece on November 8th. For now, the best stand-in is ESPN’s projection of what the committee will do. ESPN’s top seven are Miami, Georgia, BYU, Notre Dame, Utah, Indiana and UCLA, the same seven teams as ours in the same order. Then the lists split. ESPN has Kentucky eighth, Texas ninth, Ohio State 10th, Ole Miss 11th and LSU 12th. We have Texas eighth and Ohio State ninth, then Texas Tech, Tennessee and Alabama, with Kentucky 13th, Ole Miss 14th and LSU 15th. ESPN leaves Texas Tech, Tennessee and Alabama out of its 12. The Kentucky gap is still our biggest disagreement with the outside view, and Saturday’s game in Knoxville is the best chance to settle it on the field.

CBS’s projection of Sunday’s AP poll has Miami and Georgia first and second, as we do, then Notre Dame, Utah, UCLA, Indiana and BYU. It has Ohio State 11th, behind Kentucky, Alabama and Texas, and USC 17th, as we do. We have used CBS’s projection on the board for three weeks, and it was worth checking how close it came. The real post-Week 8 AP poll had Georgia third and Notre Dame fifth, where the projection we printed had them fourth and third. Indiana was fourth, not sixth, and BYU was eighth, not fifth. Utah was sixth, Ole Miss 12th and Houston 18th, and Boise State and Northwestern tied for 20th. The order at the very top was right; the rest moved by a few spots. The labels on this week’s board are CBS’s projection again, because the real poll comes out Sunday afternoon.

SP+, updated Sunday, has Georgia first, then Ohio State, Notre Dame, LSU, Miami, Indiana, Texas, Alabama, Utah, Texas Tech, Tennessee and Oregon. Our biggest gaps with it are the same as last week: LSU is fourth in SP+ and 15th here, and Kentucky is 34th in SP+ and 13th here. SP+ also has BYU 14th and UCLA 15th, well below where we and ESPN’s projection have them. SP+ is a predictive rating, not a résumé ranking, so it doesn’t credit wins the way the committee does. Its résumé SP+ is closer to us: Miami, Utah, Notre Dame, UCLA, Georgia and Indiana are first through sixth, six of our top seven. The exception is BYU, 14th.

Best vs. Most Deserving

Our Power Rankings reward what teams have done: head-to-head results, the margin chain among Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, the promise to hold BYU ahead of Utah until they play, and limits on how far a team can move in a week. A different question is who the 10 best teams are right now, the ones we would expect to win on a neutral field next Saturday. That list leans on how teams are playing, and on FPI and SP+, which are built to predict. Our answer differs from our top 10 in four places.

FPI and SP+ ranks are from the November 1st runs.

BYU and UCLA drop out. They are third and seventh in our Power Rankings, and both earned those spots: BYU beat Notre Dame, and UCLA hasn’t lost. Neither model sees either as elite. FPI has BYU 16th and UCLA 28th; SP+ has them 14th and 15th. BYU lost at UCF, and against Arizona State it got a touchdown the Big 12 says shouldn’t have counted. UCLA’s opponents have a combined winning percentage that ranks 114th, according to ESPN Analytics. Those are good teams with strong résumés, not two of the 10 best teams in the country.

LSU and Alabama come in. We rank them 15th and 12th because each lost to a team we rank above it: LSU to Ole Miss and Kentucky, Alabama to Georgia and Tennessee. Both models put them in the top eight. On a neutral field, we would expect either one to be favored against most of our top 10. One of them will have three losses by Saturday night, because they play each other.

Notre Dame moves ahead of Miami. Miami is first in our rankings because it is unbeaten with the best résumé in the country, first in résumé SP+. As a team right now, Notre Dame looks a little better: first in FPI, top three in both offensive and defensive efficiency by ESPN Analytics. Miami’s defense just gave up 35 points to North Carolina. Saturday in South Bend answers this directly.

Georgia is first. SP+ moved Georgia to No. 1 this week, with the second-best defense in the country. The passing game is a real question, and it is the reason we picked Ole Miss to cover. But Georgia is the only team in the top five of SP+ on both offense and defense.

Ohio State stays in, but lower than the models. FPI and SP+ both have Ohio State second. Both ratings were built mostly on games Sayin played. The defense is still among the best in the country, which is why the Buckeyes are in. We would not put them above Texas, which beat them, or above Indiana, for the reasons in our Power Rankings. That is our judgment, not the models’.

Utah drops to ninth. Utah is fifth in our rankings because it is 8-0 and has handled its two biggest games. Both models have it about ninth or 10th. Its schedule ranks 93rd in SP+, the softest of any team on this list.

The 10th spot is close. Texas Tech gets it over Tennessee and Ole Miss. SP+ has Texas Tech 10th, Tennessee 11th and Ole Miss 13th. FPI goes the other way, with Ole Miss ninth, ahead of Texas Tech (13th) and Tennessee (14th). It is close enough that we would not argue hard against either Tennessee or Ole Miss.

Kentucky is in neither list. Kentucky is 13th in our rankings because it is 7-1 and its only loss is to Alabama. It is 26th in FPI and 34th in SP+, and its own efficiency numbers back the models up. That is why Saturday at Tennessee matters so much for our rankings: it is the clearest test of whether the record or the play is the truer picture.

The Playoff Field

Each number is our estimate of a team’s chance of making the 12-team field, and Change is against our preseason numbers. The 19 teams add up to 9.81. With the Group of Six line (1.06) and the field (1.13), that is 12.00. Boise State’s chance is still inside the Group of Six line so the line can be compared with August.

Ohio State drops 20, from 76 to 56. That is the biggest cut this week and inside our 24-point ceiling. Ohio State is 6-2 with Oregon, two more Big Ten games and Michigan left, and it now has to win most of them with a freshman quarterback. FPI still gives it 74.2 percent, but FPI’s rating was built mostly on Sayin’s games. A third loss would probably end it.

Utah rises 8, to 72. It is 8-0, won its two biggest games of the season back to back, and FPI now puts its playoff chance at 78.1 percent.

Texas, UCLA, Texas Tech and Wake Forest rise 6 each. Texas, to 66, won and now owns the head-to-head that matters most for a two-loss at-large spot; ESPN’s committee projection ranks it highest of the two-loss teams. UCLA, to 58, is the only unbeaten team in the Big Ten and gained when Ohio State lost. Texas Tech, to 50, beat Arizona and is tied for second in the Big 12 at 4-1. Wake Forest, to 32, won by 44, and SMU’s loss makes Wake the clear favorite to face Miami in the ACC title game.

Georgia and Indiana rise 4 each; Ole Miss rises 4. Georgia, to 88, won its rivalry game by 19 and is tied for the SEC lead. Indiana, to 78, did not play well, but Ohio State’s loss opens up its Big Ten path; FPI’s playoff number for the Hoosiers is 84.6 percent. Ole Miss, to 40, won by 30 without its best running back.

Notre Dame and BYU rise 2 each; Miami rises 1; Missouri rises 2. Notre Dame (78) and BYU (58) won games they were expected to win. Miami (95) won but showed a defensive problem. Missouri (8) won on the road and now hosts Texas.

Off-week teams held. Alabama (58), Kentucky (48), LSU (40), Tennessee (28) and Houston (14) did not play and did not move.

In and out. USC enters at 14. That is down 19 from its preseason 33 but up from the field, where it sat last week. Florida drops out of the table, from 14 into the field: the loss to Georgia was its third, and we said a loss would leave it with its best case already made. The field line falls from 1.40 to 1.13. Arizona, Northwestern, SMU, Oklahoma State and Wisconsin, all in the field, lost, and that is where most of this week’s gains came from. The Group of Six line falls slightly, from 1.10 to 1.06; the reason is in the next section.

What the Committee Will Have to Argue About

The 13-member selection committee starts meeting Monday and releases its first ranking Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN, the first of six. Its protocol tells it to pick the best teams and seed them, and it allows the committee to consider things like the unavailability of key players. That last part may matter more this year than usual. Here are the arguments we expect in the room this week, and the ones coming later. Most of the facts below come from ESPN’s committee projection.

This week

• How far Ohio State falls. The Buckeyes lost by one at Texas with Sayin and by 12 at USC without him. The committee has to decide whether it is ranking the team that went 6-1 or the one that played Saturday. ESPN projects Ohio State 10th, right behind Texas, on the head-to-head. We have it ninth, also behind Texas.
• Whether USC’s win counts for more than USC’s losses. USC beat Ohio State convincingly, but it also lost to Oregon and Wisconsin, and neither may be in the committee’s top 25. If the committee honors the head-to-head, USC becomes one of its top two-loss teams. If not, USC lands behind Ohio State, as it does in ours.
• BYU or Notre Dame. BYU beat Notre Dame 28-24 and both are 7-1. But BYU’s loss at UCF is worse than Notre Dame’s loss at BYU, and ESPN Analytics has Notre Dame in the top three in offensive and defensive efficiency, with BYU outside the top 12 in both. The committee doesn’t have to honor a head-to-head result if it decides the teams aren’t comparable. We think it will this week, as we do.
• What to do with unbeaten teams that haven’t played anyone. UCLA is 8-0 and second in ESPN’s strength of record, but its opponents’ combined winning percentage ranks 114th, and it is outside the top 30 in offensive efficiency. Utah is 8-0 with one ranked opponent, though it is one of the more explosive teams in the country. Being unbeaten has never guaranteed a high spot in this committee’s rankings.
• Kentucky’s résumé against Kentucky’s play. Kentucky entered its bye leading the country in strength of record with the eighth-hardest schedule. It also ranks outside the top 20 in offensive and defensive efficiency and has won by an average of 8.1 points. ESPN projects it eighth. We have it 13th. Where the committee puts Kentucky will tell us which of those two things it values more.
• Georgia’s home loss and soft early schedule. Georgia has wins at Alabama and over Florida, but it lost at home to Auburn, and its schedule was the weakest in the SEC going into Saturday. The question is whether it is the committee’s top one-loss team or just one of several.
• Miami’s schedule. Miami is the clearest No. 1 on the board, but its schedule ranked 60th going into Saturday, and the win at North Carolina won’t help much. Some members could see Georgia as the better team.
• Indiana’s quality loss. Indiana has no wins over teams currently ranked, and its offense has struggled for a month. Its best argument is that the four-point home loss to Ohio State came with Sayin playing. That argument depends on the committee also believing Ohio State is weaker now, which cuts both ways.
• Sorting the two-loss SEC teams. Texas, Ole Miss, LSU, Alabama and Tennessee are all 6-2, and the results among them form a web: Texas beat Ole Miss and Tennessee, Ole Miss beat LSU, Tennessee beat Alabama. Florida beat Texas and Ole Miss, and Florida is now 5-3. ESPN projects Texas, Ole Miss and LSU into its 12 and leaves Alabama and Tennessee out.
• The Group of Six spot. Boise State is the frontrunner, but Madsen’s knee injury came three days before the first ranking. The committee will rank the team it has watched, and how much it discounts Boise for the injury is something we won’t know until later rankings.

Coming later

• Miami at Notre Dame. If Notre Dame loses, it has two losses, no conference title to fall back on and SMU still to play. If Miami loses, ESPN notes it can still get in as the ACC champion. If Wake Forest then beats Miami in the ACC title game, the league could get two teams, with Miami holding a win over the eventual champion.
• Two Big 12 teams. BYU and Utah meet Saturday and could meet again in the Big 12 title game. If the results split, the runner-up would have a two-loss case that includes a win over the league champion.
• Ohio State going forward. Every week Fahey plays, the committee gets more evidence about the Buckeyes without Sayin. Oregon this week and Michigan to close are the tests. A third loss would probably make the injury argument moot.
• A possible SEC cycle. If Kentucky beats Tennessee, then Kentucky beat Tennessee, Tennessee beat Alabama and Alabama beat Kentucky. No order respects all three results, and the committee would have to pick one to break, as we did with Florida, Ole Miss and Missouri.
• Texas or LSU. They meet in Baton Rouge on November 14th. If both still have two losses, ESPN expects that game to decide which one gets an at-large bid. LSU has the toughest remaining schedule in the country, according to ESPN Analytics.
• Who wins the Big Ten. UCLA is alone in first and doesn’t play Ohio State or Indiana. If the Bruins reach the title game unbeaten and lose, the committee will have to decide what a 12-1 team with that schedule is worth against two-loss teams with better wins.
• Margin of victory. The committee caps margin at 24 points, so blowouts like Utah’s 49-25 and Wake Forest’s 51-7 count for less than they look. Close wins, like Indiana’s two in overtime, count as wins, but they don’t help a team’s case.

The Group of Six Race

Boise State is still the clear favorite for the Group of Six spot, but for the first time this season the question is about its quarterback rather than its schedule. Two of the teams chasing it, James Madison and Oregon State, lost this week, and New Mexico and UTSA are the only ones left with a real chance of passing Boise if it stumbles.

FPI ranks and playoff percentages (each team’s chance of making the 12-team field) are from ESPN’s FPI, updated November 1st. SP+ and résumé SP+ ranks are from ESPN’s SP+ as of Sunday, November 1st. Records against ranked teams use the AP poll. North Texas replaces North Dakota State (7-2, 0.0 percent).

Who is best. FPI still says Boise State, by a wide margin: its rating is about 5 points better than New Mexico’s, about 6 better than Liberty’s and about 7.5 better than James Madison’s. SP+ sees it much more tightly. Liberty, up 17 spots, is the top Group of Six team at 28th, then Boise State 31st, New Mexico 32nd and James Madison 33rd, four teams within about a point and a quarter of each other. Résumé SP+ still has Boise first in the group (15th), with Liberty 17th and New Mexico 20th. Liberty’s and New Mexico’s schedules rank 130th and 126th in SP+; Boise’s ranks 61st. Both ratings were set with Madsen at quarterback, and that matters this week.

Who is likeliest to get the spot. Boise State. FPI gives it a 61.9 percent chance of making the field, up from 47.6 a week ago, and a 72.1 percent chance of winning the Pac-12. ESPN’s committee projection puts Boise in its bracket as the 12th seed. What changed is Madsen. Boise was trailing by 11 when he went out, and Cutforth won the game, which is a point in Boise’s favor. But the line we have printed for weeks is that the one thing that could change the race is Oregon State on November 14th. Now it is the knee.

Who else. New Mexico is 7-1, 4-0 in the Mountain West and has won five straight; its only loss is 14-6 at Oklahoma. FPI gives it a 66.1 percent chance of winning the league. UTSA is 7-1 and 4-0 in the American, with its only loss to Texas, but North Texas is also 4-0 in the league, and FPI splits the title almost evenly among three teams (34.8 percent for North Texas, 33.6 for UTSA, 25.1 for Memphis). Liberty is 7-1 and 4-0 in Conference USA, and FPI gives it an 80.3 percent chance to win the league, but its schedule ranks 130th in SP+. James Madison lost at home to Troy on Thursday after turning it over five times; it has two losses and FPI’s playoff chance is now 0.0. It is no longer the East leader in the Sun Belt by percentage; Georgia Southern is 3-1 to the Dukes’ 4-2, although FPI still makes James Madison the favorite in the division (61.8 percent). Oregon State lost at Fresno State and has three losses.

Our split. We trim the Group of Six line from 1.10 to 1.06. The line is mostly the one guaranteed spot plus a small chance of a second team as an at-large. That small chance fell when James Madison and Oregon State lost. Of the 1.06, Boise State gets about 0.58 (up from 0.55, since two challengers lost, held down by Madsen’s injury), New Mexico 0.22 (up from 0.20), UTSA 0.12 (unchanged after a bye), Oregon State 0.03 (down from 0.08), James Madison 0.02 (down from 0.08) and the rest 0.09 (up from 0.07, with Liberty, North Texas and Louisiana Tech all winning).

This week. Boise State goes to Colorado State, and the first thing to watch is who plays quarterback. New Mexico plays at Nevada on Friday night. James Madison goes to Southern Miss on Thursday. Texas State, the team that nearly beat Boise, goes to Oregon State.

Conference Projections

These are our chances of each team winning its conference. Changes from last week are in bold.

ACC. Miami 75, Wake Forest 16 (up 5), SMU 3 (down 4), Virginia Tech 4, Pitt 1, Duke 1. SMU’s loss at Syracuse drops it to 4-2 in the league and two games behind Miami. Wake Forest is 5-1 and has the clearer path to the title game; it still goes to SMU, but SMU now needs help. The field point comes off with SMU’s chances. Miami won but holds, because North Carolina scored 35 on its defense. FPI: Miami 75.4, Wake Forest 20.7, Louisville 1.9, SMU 1.8.

SEC. Georgia 43 (up 3), Kentucky 15, Alabama 12, Ole Miss 9 (up 1), LSU 7, Texas 6, Tennessee 5, Missouri 2, field 1 (down 2). Florida drops from 2 to 0 (down 2) with its third conference loss. Georgia is tied with Kentucky at 5-1 and holds the tiebreaker over Alabama, which it beat in Tuscaloosa. Saturday at Ole Miss is the biggest step left. Alabama still holds the tiebreaker over Kentucky. Kentucky’s number is far above FPI’s because it is tied for first; Saturday at Tennessee decides whether that number holds. FPI: Georgia 41.8, Alabama 16.8, Ole Miss 12.2, LSU 11.7, Kentucky 6.8, Texas 6.5.

Big Ten. Ohio State 34 (down 10), Indiana 32 (up 6), UCLA 22 (up 6), USC 3 (up 2), Iowa 2, Oregon 1, Wisconsin 1 (down 2), Northwestern 1 (down 1), Nebraska 0 (down 1), field 4. UCLA is alone in first at 5-0 and does not play Ohio State or Indiana. Indiana is 5-1. Ohio State is 4-1 and still holds the tiebreaker over Indiana. That is why the Buckeyes stay barely ahead, even after Saturday. USC is 4-2 and still goes to Indiana. FPI: Ohio State 42.8, Indiana 38.0, UCLA 11.5, USC 2.6, Oregon 2.6.

Big 12. Utah 44 (up 4), Texas Tech 24 (up 4), BYU 23, Houston 4, Arizona 3 (down 3), Oklahoma State 1 (down 2), Baylor 1, field 0 (down 3). Utah is 5-0. Texas Tech and BYU are 4-1, and Texas Tech plays neither Utah nor BYU, which is why it edges BYU here. Arizona and Oklahoma State each have two league losses. BYU at Utah decides the most likely title-game matchup. FPI: Utah 48.4, Texas Tech 21.6, BYU 17.1, Houston 6.2, Arizona 4.3.

Pac-12. Boise State 70 (up 2), Oregon State 17 (down 3), Fresno State 7 (up 3), Texas State 3 (down 1), San Diego State 1, Utah State 1, Colorado State 1, Washington State 0 (down 1). Boise is 4-0. Oregon State lost at Fresno State and is 3-1. Fresno State is 2-2 but beat the team most likely to face Boise. Boise’s number would be higher without the Madsen injury. FPI: Boise State 72.1, Oregon State 17.1, Fresno State 5.7, Texas State 4.1.

Conference Overviews

We still rank the nine leagues SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Pac-12, American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC. FPI’s top 25 has 10 SEC teams, seven from the Big Ten, four from the Big 12, three from the ACC and Notre Dame. SP+’s top 25 has eight teams from the SEC, eight from the Big Ten, four each from the Big 12 and ACC, and Notre Dame. Kentucky is 34th in SP+.

SEC. The league’s top four (Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, Ole Miss) are a combined 26-6. Georgia and Kentucky lead at 5-1, with Alabama and Ole Miss at 4-2. This week has three games between teams in our top 15: Georgia at Ole Miss, Alabama at LSU and Kentucky at Tennessee, plus Texas at Missouri. FPI puts five SEC teams in its top nine. The bottom is weak: Arkansas and Vanderbilt are a combined 1-9 in league play.

Big Ten. UCLA leads at 5-0, Indiana is 5-1 and Ohio State is 4-1. USC is 4-2 and back in the race on paper. The league’s two best teams by FPI, Ohio State and Indiana, have both looked vulnerable for a month, and its only unbeaten team ranks 28th in FPI. Iowa’s 30-0 win over Wisconsin and Oregon’s win over Northwestern shuffled the middle. Maryland and Michigan State are winless in the league.

Big 12. Utah is 5-0, BYU and Texas Tech are 4-1, and four teams are 3-2. Cincinnati, CBS’s “agent of chaos,” was handled by Utah and goes to Houston next. Baylor’s 41-9 win over UCF, under an interim coach, suggests the middle of this league is still unsettled.

ACC. Miami is 6-0 and Wake Forest 5-1. Louisville and SMU are 4-2. SMU’s loss to Syracuse makes this a two-team league at the top. North Carolina took Miami to the last minute and Syracuse beat SMU, but the league still has only three teams in FPI’s top 25.

Pac-12. Boise State is 4-0 and Oregon State 3-1. The league’s FPI average is still the best of the Group of Six leagues: −2.3, with a median of −2.15. Only two of its eight teams are below 100th in FPI. Only one Pac-12 team, Boise State at 32nd, is now in FPI’s top 50; Oregon State is 53rd.

American. UTSA and North Texas are both 4-0, with Memphis 4-1. The league’s FPI average is −6.1 and its median −4.6, and five of its 14 teams are below 100th. Memphis (54th) is its best team in FPI.

Mountain West. New Mexico is 4-0 and Wyoming 4-1. North Dakota State is 4-2. The FPI average is −9.0, the median −8.85, and five of 10 teams are below 100th. Northern Illinois is 0-8.

Sun Belt. Louisiana Tech leads the West at 4-0. Georgia Southern leads the East at 3-1, ahead of James Madison at 4-2 by percentage. The FPI average is −9.2, the median −9.2, and eight of 14 teams are below 100th.

MAC. Ohio is 4-0 and Western Michigan 4-1. The FPI average is −15.2 and the median −14.7, and 10 of 13 teams are below 100th. FPI rates Toledo (36.0 percent) and Western Michigan (34.7) as the favorites over Ohio (20.1).

SP+ agrees with the order. Its Group of Six averages and medians by league: Pac-12 −2.3 and −2.6, American −4.9 and −3.65, Mountain West −6.8 and −6.2, Sun Belt −7.9 and −8.95, Conference USA −9.8 and −12.1, MAC −13.1 and −14.4. SP+ has three Pac-12 teams below 100th, four from the American, four from the Mountain West, eight from the Sun Belt and nine from the MAC. The Pac-12 (Boise State 31st, Oregon State 49th) and the Mountain West (New Mexico 32nd, North Dakota State 35th) each have two teams in SP+’s top 50.

The Week 10 Board

Spreads and totals are from DraftKings. The percentages are from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor; each is the favorite’s chance of winning. Rankings are CBS’s projection of Sunday’s AP poll, since the real poll was not out when this was written. All games are Saturday, November 7th.

The biggest split between the models and the market is Texas at Missouri. ESPN gives Texas a 71.3 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make Texas about a 7.5-point favorite, but the line is 3.5. Georgia at Ole Miss goes the other way: FPI’s ratings make Georgia only about a 1.5-point favorite, against a 3-point line. FPI also has Alabama–LSU closer than the market (about 2.5, against 4.5). Miami–Notre Dame is the game where the market and FPI agree most closely (about 3, against 3.5). SP+’s ratings make Utah about a 5.5-point favorite, Texas about 4, LSU about 6.5, Tennessee about 10, Notre Dame about 3.5 and Georgia about 8.5. The two models split against the line in three games: Alabama–LSU, Miami–Notre Dame and Georgia–Ole Miss. The biggest is Georgia, where SP+ has the Bulldogs by about 8.5 and FPI by about 1.5.

Predictions

Utah 27, BYU 20. FPI’s ratings make Utah about a 6-point favorite at home, a little more than the 4.5-point line, and ESPN gives the Utes a 65.7 percent chance of winning. SP+’s ratings make it about 5.5, also above the line. Utah just scored 42 in a half against a team that beat Texas Tech; BYU let Arizona State back into its game in the second half and got one touchdown from a replay ruling the Big 12 says was wrong. BYU’s defense, six sacks on Saturday, is what keeps this close. Utah wins and covers. Under 48.5.

What it means. This is the end of our promise. We have kept BYU ahead of Utah for weeks because we said we would wait for this game. The winner leads the Big 12 race and takes the higher spot in our ranking. ESPN’s committee column points out that both teams could still get in, with a rematch in the Big 12 title game: the loser of Saturday would have a case as a two-loss runner-up if it wins in Arlington.

Texas 24, Missouri 17. FPI’s ratings make Texas about a 7.5-point favorite on the road, and ESPN gives Texas a 71.3 percent chance, both well above the 3.5-point line. SP+’s ratings make it about 4, just above it. The Texas defense has carried it for two weeks; the offense was sacked six times by Mississippi State and is running poorly. Missouri got Ahmad Hardy back. But Texas has three wins over teams in our top 14, and Missouri’s two losses include a 31-3 loss to Ole Miss. Texas wins and covers. Under 48.5.

What it means. Three of Texas’s last four games are on the road, with LSU next. A loss here would be its third, and with LSU still ahead, its at-large case would be in serious trouble. A Missouri win would put it into our top 15 and the playoff conversation.

LSU 27, Alabama 24. FPI’s ratings make LSU only about a 2.5-point favorite at home, less than the 4.5-point line; ESPN gives LSU a 57 percent chance of winning. SP+’s ratings make it about 6.5, more than the line, so the models split. We are going with FPI and a closer game. LSU had a bye to prepare for three straight ranked opponents. Alabama also had a week off, but it was without its top corner, Zabien Brown, in its last game and had a player suspended. We think LSU wins a close game. LSU wins, Alabama covers. Under 52.5.

What it means. The loser has three losses. That would almost certainly end its playoff case, and for LSU it would come with Texas and Tennessee still to play.

Tennessee 27, Kentucky 20. FPI’s ratings make Tennessee about a 6-point favorite, about the same as the 5.5-point line; ESPN gives the Vols a 66.8 percent chance. SP+’s ratings make it about 10; SP+ has Tennessee 11th and Kentucky 34th. Kentucky entered its bye leading the country in ESPN’s strength-of-record metric and has won six straight, but its wins have come by an average of 8.1 points. Its pass defense allows almost 240 yards a game. Tennessee wins and covers. Under 50.5.

What it means. This settles our biggest disagreement with the outside view. A Tennessee win confirms the order we have held, with Tennessee ahead of Alabama and Kentucky. A Kentucky win puts Kentucky ahead of Tennessee, but Alabama beat Kentucky by 28 and Tennessee beat Alabama by 16. That would be a three-team cycle, like the one with Florida, Ole Miss and Missouri, and we would have to break one result and explain which.

Notre Dame 30, Miami 27. FPI’s ratings make Notre Dame about a 3-point favorite at home, almost exactly the 3.5-point line; ESPN gives the Irish a 61.3 percent chance. SP+’s ratings make it about 3.5, right on the line. Miami is still first in offensive SP+, and it has two Heisman candidates in Mensah and Toney. Its defense just gave up 35 to North Carolina, with soft coverage and missed tackles, according to its own coach. Notre Dame’s defense was slow to start against Navy and then held the Midshipmen to 56 yards in the second half. We think Notre Dame wins at home by a field goal, which means Miami covers. Over 55.5.

What it means. A Notre Dame loss would give it two, with SMU still to play and no conference title to fall back on. Last week we wrote that losing to Navy would end any argument for a bye; a loss to Miami would make the field itself the question. A Miami loss is less damaging. ESPN notes it would still be the ACC favorite and could reach the field as the league champion, though it would almost certainly lose the top seed.

What it means, part two. This is a rematch of last year’s game, which ended up deciding a playoff spot between these two teams. Whoever wins goes into the committee’s second ranking with a win the committee will find hard to look past.

Georgia 26, Ole Miss 24. FPI’s ratings make Georgia only about a 1.5-point favorite on the road, less than the 3-point line; ESPN gives Georgia a 55.5 percent chance. SP+’s ratings make it about 8.5, well above the line, and SP+ now has Georgia first in the country. This is the biggest split between the models on the board, and we are siding with FPI because of Georgia’s passing game. Georgia’s defense is the reason to pick it: four takeaways against Florida, and CBS notes it has already held Alabama’s Keelon Russell in check. Its passing game, 101 yards against one of the worst pass defenses in the SEC, is the reason not to lay three on the road against an Ole Miss offense that just converted 13 of 16 third downs. Georgia wins, Ole Miss covers. Under 56.5.

What it means. A Georgia loss would be its second in the SEC and would likely cost it a bye. A third loss for Ole Miss would end its playoff case, as we wrote last week.

This week’s tally. Six favorites straight up. Against the spread, three favorites (Utah, Texas, Tennessee) and three underdogs (Alabama, Miami, Ole Miss). Five unders and one over.

The post 2026 College Football: Reviewing Week 9, Previewing Week 10 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

The Knicks are 0-3 after a ring night that went to Philadelphia. The Spurs are 1-2, and their only win came against a Dallas team playing without Cooper Flagg or Kyrie Irving. Meanwhile, the six undefeated teams after the first weekend included Memphis and Portland, two teams the betting market had nowhere near the top.

The usual warning applies. NBA.com’s John Schuhmann notes that over the last 22 seasons, 76 of 100 teams that started 3-0 made the playoffs and only 27 of 105 teams that started 0-3 did. A hot or cold week means something about three times in four. Last season the Celtics started 0-3 and finished as the East’s No. 2 seed.

Eight days ago, our 2026-27 NBA Preview argued that the East got the stars and the West kept the teams, and picked Oklahoma City over New York in the Finals. Here is what the first week told us about those calls, and what it didn’t.

Records are through Monday, Oct. 26.

Oklahoma City Lost More Than a Game

The biggest development of the week didn’t happen in a loss. With 1:14 left in a win over the Clippers on Sunday, Jalen Williams was stretchered off with a dislocated left ankle and fractured fibula. Cason Wallace, who had just signed a five-year, $139 million extension, left the same game with a torn labrum in his left shoulder. Both need surgery and are expected to miss several months. On Monday, Alex Caruso sprained his ankle in a win over Phoenix.

That matters most on defense. Last season the Thunder had four perimeter players who were recent All-Defensive picks. Lu Dort was traded this summer, and Williams and Wallace are now out. Caruso is the only one left, and Oklahoma City usually holds him under 20 minutes a night in the regular season.

The Thunder are still 4-0, still first in ESPN’s BPI, and still the deepest team in the league. They went 39-10 without Williams last season. They also have the tools to deal: a likely $15 million disabled player exception, three trade exceptions and seven tradable first-round picks. ESPN floated Herb Jones, the Clippers’ Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn, and Washington’s Justin Champagnie as realistic targets.

In the preview we gave the Thunder a 26% title chance, ranked their bench the best in the league and named Wallace as the player to watch as Dort’s replacement in the starting lineup. Two of those pieces are now out for months. We still have Oklahoma City as the title favorite, but if we redid that table today, we’d shade the number closer to 20%. ESPN’s Zach Kram now projects the Thunder as the West’s No. 3 seed, which would put them on the same side of the bracket as San Antonio.

The Champions Are 0-3

New York lost to Philadelphia on ring night, lost at Boston, and then blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead at home to an Orlando team playing without Paolo Banchero. The Knicks rank 29th or 30th in offense, depending on whose numbers you use, and are shooting 32% from three.

The most worrying number is Mikal Bridges: 5-for-23 from the field and 0-for-10 from three, with no free throw attempts. Mike Brown didn’t sugarcoat it, telling reporters his team’s crap stinks. The Knicks also got pushed around physically, which is what happens without Mitchell Robinson. They picked up Dalton Knecht on a two-way deal this week.

Our preview listed backup center as the Knicks’ weakness and health as the thing to watch, and the first week found the backup center problem. We also took the under on their 51.5 win total because we expected a slow regular season, and we still have them winning the East. Last year’s team was frustrating for long stretches too.

The Spurs Have a Closing Problem Again

San Antonio opened against the Thunder and Victor Wembanyama went 1-for-13, the worst shooting night of his career. Three nights later, Amen Thompson stuffed his potential tying layup at the rim in Houston. Counting preseason, Wembanyama is 5-for-28 from three.

Mitch Johnson made the call we discussed in the preview and started Dylan Harper alongside De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle. We noted then that three-guard lineups were -26.9 per 100 possessions in a small sample last season. The results are mixed. The new starting group outscored the Thunder but scored only 30 points on 45 possessions against Houston and Dallas, and moving Harper into the lineup took the punch out of the bench.

The defensive case is still overwhelming. San Antonio has allowed less than a point per possession with Wembanyama on the floor and 133 per 100 with him off. The schedule also turns soft for the next dozen games, which NBA.com expects to put the Spurs back near the top of the West by mid-November. One week of clumsy late-game offense is a reason to watch closely, not a reason to panic. Wembanyama is still our MVP pick, but self-created offense in big moments was the one gap we named, and it’s the gap that showed.

The East’s New Order, for Now

Detroit (3-0) is the best story in the conference. The Pistons beat Boston, Miami and Philadelphia, the last of those without Jalen Duren (hamstring, out at least two weeks) and Ausar Thompson (ankle). They have answered the shooting question we raised in the preview by changing their shot profile: 43% of their shots are threes, up from 35%, and Duncan Robinson is 15-for-28. BPI now gives Detroit a 23.8% chance to reach the Finals, behind only Oklahoma City and San Antonio. We had Detroit sixth with a 4% title chance and took the over on 47.5 wins. Our concern was the lack of a second creator next to Cade Cunningham; for now, the shooting is covering it.

Philadelphia (3-1) spoiled the Knicks’ ring night, then came back from 29 points down to beat Cleveland, making the Cavaliers the first team ever to blow a 20-point second-half lead on opening night. Tyrese Maxey is averaging 28.8 points and looks more comfortable playing off LeBron James. The problem is size. With Dominick Barlow, Tacko Fall and Jabari Walker hurt and Ariel Hukporti out for the year, Joel Embiid and Adem Bona are the only healthy centers. The Sixers have been outrebounded in every game, by an average of 19.5 in their last two. Our preview called fit and size the weakness and predicted a slow start. We were wrong about the start and right about the size.

Boston (2-1) looks like the regular-season team we expected. Paul George scored 38 with five steals in the opener. Payton Pritchard had 28 off the bench against Chicago. Jayson Tatum has been uneven but closed out the Knicks with three straight jumpers. One habit carried over from last season: Boston again ranks near the bottom in free throw rate, the weakness we flagged. The regular-season view we took in the preview, with the over on 51.5, looks fine so far.

The West’s Hot Starts

Houston (4-0) has had the best first week in the league. Fred VanVleet has 16 assists and zero turnovers, and the Rockets’ half-court offense has jumped from 96.8 points per 100 plays last season to 106.1. Marcus Smart has been a disruptive presence off the bench. We had Houston seventh with the over on 48.5, and turnovers were the weakness we named. With VanVleet on the floor, the turnover rate has dropped.

Minnesota (3-1) won its first three games by more than 20 points each, something only the 2004-05 Jazz had done. Anthony Edwards has already scored 45 twice, and the Wolves led the league in defense entering the week, the opposite of what most of us projected after the LaMelo Ball trade. Ball and Jaden McDaniels were each +68 in three games. Minnesota was No. 1 on our list of teams we like less than the projections, and we took the under on 46.5 because we expected the defense to slip without Randle and Reid. So far, that looks wrong on both counts.

The Lakers (3-0) have the league’s best offense. Luka Doncic scored 52 in Utah and is averaging 34.3. Austin Reaves is at 26.7 points on absurd efficiency. Walker Kessler made his first 12 shots as a Laker, had 10 dunks in his debut and is 23-for-28 overall. The caveat: the three wins came against Golden State, the Clippers and Utah, a combined 3-8, and the defense ranks 16th. Our fade rested on how the Lakers get stops when Kessler sits. Nothing this week has answered that.

Memphis (4-0) is the week’s biggest surprise. Ty Jerome scored 45, 28 and 31 in the first three games. His 104 points trail only Ja Morant for the most by a Grizzly through three games. Cameron Boozer became the fifth player ever with at least 10 rebounds and four assists in each of his first three games, joining Ben Simmons, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor and Maurice Stokes. Memphis was one of our five teams we like better than the projections, with the over on 30.5, and it leads the league in offensive rebounding.

Miami Has a Problem; Toronto Has a Knee

Miami (0-4) is off to its worst start since 2007-08. Giannis Antetokounmpo has been very good individually, but through three games the Heat were outscored by 54 points in his 88 minutes. His teammates were 6-for-23 on threes off his passes, opponents were burying threes over the Giannis-Bam Adebayo pairing, and Klay Thompson has been hunted on defense in crunch time. Some of that is shooting luck that will even out. Some of it is the roster problem we flagged in the preview: not enough players who can both shoot and defend. We had the Heat 14th and took the under on 44.5. We also wrote that defenses would dare Adebayo and Davion Mitchell to shoot. They have.

Toronto (2-1) won its first two games by a combined 53 points and has the third-best defense in the league. Then Kawhi Leonard was scratched with swelling in his left knee, the Raptors lost by 23 in Minnesota, and Scottie Barnes went 0-for-12. Leonard is now expected to miss weeks. The MRI showed no structural damage, and this is his “good” knee, not the right one that has needed surgeries. But it is the exact risk we described in the preview, arriving in Week One.

The Wizards Are Above .500 (Briefly)

Washington opened by beating Milwaukee, which put the Wizards above .500 for the first time since Nov. 28, 2022. They then won the second game of a back-to-back in Chicago. Over the previous three seasons, they were 2-42 in those games. A loss in Charlotte on Monday leaves them 2-2.

Trae Young has kept his preseason promise. He has 34 assists against seven turnovers and leads the league with 35 free throw attempts, though he is shooting 37%. Anthony Davis was the best player on the floor in the opener, then scored 28 points combined in the next two games. The early lineup data backs a concern from the preview: Washington has been outscored by 14.1 points per 100 possessions when Davis plays alongside Alex Sarr or Deandre Ayton, and has outscored opponents by 17.1 per 100 when only one of the three bigs is on the floor. AJ Dybantsa missed the first couple of games.

In the preview we projected 33-49, named Young’s passing as a strength and called Davis’ health and fit the open questions. Nothing so far changes that, though beating a bad Bulls team on tired legs is more than the last three Wizards teams managed. Washington hosts Charlotte on Friday to open its NBA Cup schedule; the franchise is 1-11 all-time in Cup play.

How Our Preview Is Holding Up

Four games is not a verdict. It’s a mood. Here are the ten team calls from the preview’s like-better and like-less lists.

Quick Hits

• Flagg’s shoulder: Cooper Flagg hurt his left shoulder against Indiana. It isn’t serious, but he’ll miss a handful of games. He was 14-for-23 with 17 free throw attempts before leaving.
• Orlando’s injuries: Banchero is out four to six weeks with a high ankle sprain, Jalen Suggs has a knee bone bruise that will cost him at least two weeks, and Anthony Black, who didn’t sign an extension, has missed time with an ankle sprain. The Magic are 1-2.
• Charlotte’s start: The Hornets are 3-1 without Kon Knueppel or Coby White. Brandon Miller signed a five-year, $209 million extension, $1 million more than Amen Thompson’s.
• Portland’s backcourt: The Lillard-Morant starting group has outscored opponents by 30 in about 18 minutes. ESPN wanted Morant on the bench. For now, Portland is 2-0.
• Golden State’s floor: The Warriors are 1-3, and Zach Kram now predicts fewer than 30 wins. Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg has been the bright spot.
• Sacramento’s rookie: Darius Acuff Jr. is averaging 22.3 points with a 33.2% usage rate, the highest for a rookie in a decade, and a 41.2% true shooting percentage. Zach LaVine is averaging 29 on an expiring deal. Watch the trade market.
• Supermax watch: Tyrese Maxey (28.8 points) and Anthony Edwards (28.7) are both in the top 10 in scoring. All-NBA would make either one eligible for a four-year, $304 million extension next summer.
• The market now: FanDuel’s division favorites are the Lakers (-330), Spurs (-290), Thunder (-240), Pistons (-130), Hawks (+125) and Celtics (+135). The Knicks are third in the Atlantic at +380.

Our Award Picks, One Week In

Victor Wembanyama, our MVP pick, opened 1-for-13 against the Thunder. The early movers are Luka Doncic, our No. 4, at 34.3 points a game, and Anthony Edwards, on our longshot list, who has already scored 45 twice. On our rookie list, Cameron Boozer (No. 3) and Caleb Wilson (No. 4, with a 30-point, 14-rebound night against Washington) have been the loudest, Darius Acuff Jr. (No. 5) is tied with Wilson for the rookie scoring lead, and Yaxel Lendeborg (No. 6) is the best thing about Golden State. Among our duos, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, No. 2 on the list, are now apart for months. Edwards and LaMelo Ball, our No. 7, may already be too low.

Back to the Thesis

Our preview ended on a bet: the East got the names, the West kept the teams, and in June, the teams win.

Week One pushed back in an interesting way. The West did go 5-1 against the East in interconference games. But the teams that renewed are the ones that stumbled. San Antonio, with no subtractions, is 1-2. Oklahoma City, which kept its core and traded depth for savings, lost two starters in one night. The Knicks, who lost only a backup center, are 0-3. Meanwhile, the teams that changed the most, Philadelphia, Minnesota and the Lakers, plus a Houston team that got VanVleet back and added Smart, are a combined 13-2.

We aren’t changing the bet yet. The Knicks were inconsistent for most of last season before going 16-3 in the playoffs. The Spurs blew leads all through the Finals, yet they led for more than 72% of the minutes. October is when good teams learn what they are. But depth was supposed to be the West favorites’ edge, and one week in, it is the thing that has been tested hardest. The standings start to mean something around Thanksgiving.

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The Vikings are the last unbeaten team. The 49ers lost for the first time, 29-20 in Atlanta after four turnovers, and Seattle held the Chiefs to 3 points on Sunday night. Five underdogs won outright, including the Giants at 10 points in Houston, and the Giants now lead the NFC East at 4-2-1 with J.J. McCarthy at quarterback. Lamar Jackson missed a third straight game, and Baltimore blew a 13-0 halftime lead to Cincinnati.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Week 7 Recap

Five of 14 games went to the underdog outright, the biggest the Giants at 10 points in Houston. The run game decided more of them than anything we flagged.

Lines are the ones we published before each game.

Bears 30, Patriots 24 (Thursday)

Box score · Line: Bears -3, 50.5 · Our pick: Bears

Expected: A New England line on a short week without Morgan Moses, Alijah Vera-Tucker and Ben Brown; Romeo Doubs’ shoulder; Kyler Gordon’s nickel blitz; Caleb Williams’ short passing against a secondary with Christian Gonzalez back.

What decided it: Williams’ deep shots, not the short game, and one bad Drake Maye throw. Luther Burden caught four passes for 130 yards: a 58-yarder that set up D’Andre Swift’s touchdown, and a 24-yard screen on third-and-17 for a 20-7 lead with 14 seconds left in the half. Maye went 24 of 31 for 321, but D’Marco Jackson intercepted him in the end zone. New England’s line held up better than we expected: Moses and Will Campbell both played, and Maye was sacked twice, once by Gordon on fourth down. Cairo Santos missed from 53, then hit from 58 with 1:34 left, matching the franchise record (AP), and Chicago recovered the onside kick. Cole Kmet hurt his right knee.

Steelers 16, Saints 10 (Paris)

Box score · Line: Steelers -3, 44.5 · Our pick: Steelers

Expected: Whether New Orleans could play four quarters; Pittsburgh without Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson, leaning on DK Metcalf and Germie Bernard; Tyler Shough’s hand; Cesar Ruiz’s knee.

What decided it: New Orleans’ run game, not its fourth quarter. With Ruiz inactive and rookie Jeremiah Wright at right guard, the Saints ran 17 times for 18 yards. Pittsburgh ran for 148, 101 of them by Jaylen Warren. Shough went 30 of 38 for 278, but Payton Wilson intercepted him in the red zone in the third quarter, and Chris Boswell’s 39-yarder that followed was the last score. Metcalf’s 51-yard catch set up Aaron Rodgers’ 4-yard touchdown to Darnell Washington, his 540th, which moved him past Peyton Manning for third all time. Daniel Carlson missed from 52 in the fourth quarter.

Falcons 29, 49ers 20

Box score · Line: 49ers -4.5, 50.5 · Our pick: 49ers

Expected: Atlanta’s front against a 49ers team coming off Monday night; Michael Penix Jr. pressured on 46% of his dropbacks; Falcons linebackers Kendal Daniels and Divine Deablo hurt; San Francisco thin at receiver.

What decided it: Turnovers, 4-0. San Francisco outgained Atlanta 400-295 and lost anyway. Kaelon Black lost a fumble at the Atlanta 29, and Jessie Bates III intercepted Brock Purdy at the 10 to set up Drake London’s touchdown for a 26-14 lead. Daniels, hurt a week earlier, intercepted Purdy with 2:34 left and recovered George Kittle’s fumble. A review took away Purdy’s apparent 23-yard touchdown to Jordan Watkins, and Za’Darius Smith sacked him on the next play, fourth down. Penix went 25 of 34 with three touchdown passes and no interceptions. Christian McCaffrey hurt his thigh and finished with seven carries; Deablo was inactive.

Browns 27, Titans 24

Box score · Line: Browns -1.5, 38.5 · Our pick: Browns

Expected: Tennessee’s six-sack defense against a Browns offense that wins late.

What decided it: Deshaun Watson late, again. Tennessee sacked him once, and he threw for 308 yards and led his fifth fourth-quarter winning drive: Harold Fannin Jr.’s 36-yard catch-and-run set up Andre Szmyt’s 32-yarder at the gun, after Szmyt hit the upright from 43. The Titans led 14-0, but Maliek Collins stopped Tony Pollard on fourth-and-goal from inside the 1, and Denzel Ward intercepted Cam Ward. Pollard ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns, the last tying it with 58 seconds left. Robert Saleh said officials appeared to miss a false start on the Fannin play. KC Concepcion caught eight passes for 129.

Vikings 16, Colts 10

Box score · Line: Vikings -5.5, 41.5 · Our pick: Vikings

Expected: Daniel Jones’ turnovers; Minnesota off its bye; Sauce Gardner’s calf, no Tyler Warren, a general manager just fired.

What decided it: Minnesota’s blitz, and two missed Colts field goals. Jones went 13 of 22 for 108, was sacked four times for 44 yards, and Harrison Smith’s 40th career interception sealed it. Blake Cashman had two sacks and four passes defensed. Indianapolis led 10-6 into the fourth quarter on Jonathan Taylor’s 38-yard run, but Spencer Shrader missed twice; the 56-yard try on fourth-and-2 set up Kyler Murray’s touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson. Will Reichard hit from 52 with 1:39 left after his 59-yard try was blocked. Gardner and Warren were inactive, and Aaron Jones aggravated his knee.

Dolphins 28, Jets 25

Box score · Line: Jets -4.5, 38.5 · Our pick: Jets

Expected: The Jets’ red zone after 0 for 3 at New England; Miami 0-5 off its bye.

What decided it: The red zone, both ways. Miami scored on all three trips inside the 20. The Jets reached the Miami 1 and settled for a field goal, and Michael Taaffe intercepted Geno Smith at the Miami 21. Malik Willis went 14 of 21 for 208 with two touchdowns to rookie Caleb Douglas, the second a 63-yarder for a 28-17 lead, and ran for another. He also gained 2 on fourth-and-1 at the two-minute warning to end it. Jason Sanders hit the upright from 40. It was Jeff Hafley’s first win, and the Jets are 0-8 in the division under Aaron Glenn.

Buccaneers 43, Panthers 13

Box score · Line: Panthers -3, 44.5 · Our pick: Panthers

Expected: Tampa Bay’s run game, 26th in success rate; Baker Mayfield’s thumb; Carolina’s 13 penalties; Jaelan Phillips’ hamstring.

What decided it: The run game we doubted. Tampa Bay ran 49 times for 258 yards, Bucky Irving 106 and two touchdowns, so Mayfield threw only 11 passes in his return. Carolina’s penalties weren’t the problem (four for 56); turnovers were. Al-Quadin Muhammad’s strip-sack of Bryce Young went back 32 yards for a Calijah Kancey touchdown, David Moore muffed a punt, and Young threw two interceptions. Zyon McCollum returned a blocked extra point for 2. Tampa Bay sacked Young five times, three by Yaya Diaby, and led 33-6 at half. Phillips was inactive, and right tackle Taylor Moton was carted off with a left ankle/fibula injury.

Bengals 35, Ravens 13

Box score · Line: Ravens -3, 51.5 · Our pick: Ravens

What decided it: Jackson didn’t play, and by our own condition the pick was Cincinnati’s. Baltimore outgained the Bengals 258-59 in the first half but led only 13-0 after two short field goals. Cincinnati then scored touchdowns on its first five second-half possessions and went 5 for 5 in the red zone. Joe Burrow threw four touchdown passes and had a perfect 158.3 rating after halftime (Ben Solak, ESPN), and Tee Higgins caught all six of his passes for 148 yards in the second half. Tyler Huntley threw for 215 in the first half, 120 to Zay Flowers, but missed on fourth-and-2 at the Cincinnati 12. Henry ran 17 times for 45 without a fumble. Baltimore became the first team in 76 years to lead by 13 at half and lose by 20 (AP, via Sportradar). Vega Ioane left with a knee injury. (Our full review)

Giants 27, Texans 21 (OT)

Box score · Line: Texans -10, 42.5 · Our pick: Texans

Expected: The Giants’ quarterback, Jameis Winston or J.J. McCarthy; C.J. Stroud with Marvin Harrison Jr., Jaylin Noel and Nico Collins against a secondary without Greg Newsome.

What decided it: McCarthy started, and the Giants ran. New York gained 188 yards on 34 carries, the most Houston has allowed this season. Cam Skattebo, without a carry a week earlier, ran 17 times for 124, and his 42-yard run in overtime set up Devin Singletary’s 30-yard winner. McCarthy went 20 of 28 for 252. Stroud threw for a season-low 153, and Houston punted on its first three second-half possessions before Xavier Hutchinson’s touchdown tied it with under a minute left. Dominic Zvada missed twice, and Kayvon Thibodeaux dropped an interception in overtime. Noel left with a toe injury.

Broncos 30, Cardinals 16

Box score · Line: Broncos -4.5, 43.5 · Our pick: Broncos

Expected: Denver’s offense, 26th in scoring and 31st on third down, against Arizona’s league-best seven fourth-down stops; Jeremiyah Love’s ankle.

What decided it: Big plays, not third downs. Denver went 3 of 11 on third down and still scored 30. Bo Nix ran 62 yards for a touchdown, the longest run of his career, after 37 rushing yards in his first six games, and RJ Harvey took a screen 52 yards for another. Arizona settled: one touchdown in five red-zone trips, 5 of 17 on third down. Denver’s defense had three sacks and 12 quarterback hits, and the Broncos overcame 11 penalties for 114 yards. Love was inactive again, and Arizona has lost 10 straight at home.

Lions 20, Packers 17

Box score · Line: Lions -3, 52.5 · Our pick: Lions

Expected: Detroit’s defense, last in EPA per drive allowed, against Packers drops; Josh Jacobs’ return; Detroit off its bye.

What decided it: Green Bay’s kicking and Detroit’s free first downs. Detroit’s defense allowed 17 points and one touchdown in four Green Bay red-zone trips. Rookie Trey Smack missed from 26 and 35, the first kicker to miss twice from 35 or closer in a game since 2019. Penalties gave Detroit five first downs, two on Karl Brooks during the final drive, and Jake Bates won it from 22 at the gun. Dan Campbell’s fourth-and-1 at his own 24 failed. Jacobs caught a touchdown pass in his season debut. Brian Branch intercepted Jordan Love in his first game back from a torn Achilles, and Green Bay lost both centers.

Rams 35, Raiders 21

Box score · Line: Rams -5.5, 47.5 · Our pick: Rams

Expected: The Rams’ kicking after Blake Grupe’s knee; Davante Adams out; a pass rush that rarely finishes; Ashton Jeanty.

What decided it: The Rams scored touchdowns on all five red-zone trips, so the kicking never came up; Brandon McManus kicked five extra points. Los Angeles led 28-6 at half. Matthew Stafford threw three touchdown passes to become the Rams’ career leader, and Kyren Williams and Blake Corum ran for 192 combined. The rush got two sacks. Jeanty and Mike Washington Jr. ran 14 times for 42. Kirk Cousins threw for 295, but the Raiders failed on two fourth downs in Rams territory and both two-point tries. Puka Nacua played through his calf; Trent McDuffie was inactive again.

Seahawks 20, Chiefs 3 (Sunday night)

Box score · Line: Seahawks -2.5, 42.5 · Our pick: Chiefs

Expected: Seattle’s protection after Denver hit Sam Darnold 17 times, against a rush that just had four sacks; Kansas City’s injured tackles against our top defensive line.

What decided it: Seattle’s lines, on both sides. Kansas City didn’t sack Darnold, and Seattle ran 41 times for 153, Emanuel Wilson 100 of it. Kenneth Walker, the league’s leading rusher against his old team, ran 14 times for 36, and the Chiefs finished with 213 yards. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught nine passes for 150 and a touchdown. Ty Okada intercepted Patrick Mahomes, and Harrison Butker missed from 45. Darnold also threw an interception at the goal line. Kansas City played without both starting tackles, Josh Simmons and Jaylon Moore, and without Rashee Rice; Seattle lost Rashid Shaheed (knee) and Charles Cross (ankle).

Cowboys 38, Eagles 21 (Monday)

Box score · Line: Cowboys -4.5, 44.5 · Our pick: Cowboys

Expected: Tanner McKee with Jalen Hurts out for the season; Philadelphia’s six third-quarter points; Dak Prescott’s interceptions.

What decided it: Dallas ran, and Prescott didn’t throw an interception. Javonte Williams ran for a career-high 155, the first 150-yard game by a Cowboy since 2018, and Dallas finished with 204 on the ground. Prescott threw three touchdown passes, two to CeeDee Lamb, the second a 16-yard floater that retook the lead late in the third quarter. Philadelphia did score in the third, its first third-quarter touchdown this season, for a 21-20 lead. McKee went 23 of 35 for 211, and DeMarvion Overshown’s interception sealed it. Saquon Barkley scored in his return but was limited by his hamstring and back. The Eagles have lost five straight.

Power Rankings

The 49ers hold No. 1 through their first loss; they are still first in DVOA and on ESPN’s list. The biggest moves are the Buccaneers (up 6), Bengals and Steelers (up 5), and Panthers (down 8). Our line rankings count here: both Falcons lines rank in our top 10, which helps lift a 3-4 team four spots, and both Packers lines rank in our bottom five, which drops a 4-3 team two.

DVOA is FTN’s total DVOA through Week 7. Outside rankings: ESPN, NFL.com and Pete Prisco, CBS Sports.

1. 49ers (1). 6-1 after four turnovers in Atlanta, and still first in DVOA and first on our offensive line list. The bye comes with Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey (thigh) all hurt.
2. Bills (3). Up one on a bye. Second on our offensive line list; Lamar Jackson’s possible return is next (Prisco).
3. Vikings (4). Up one at 6-0, first in the other three lists. The defense has allowed a league-low 74 points; the offense has 10 touchdowns in six games.
4. Seahawks (8). Up four. Held Kansas City to 3 points and 50 rushing yards, and our top defensive line again.
5. Chiefs (2). Down three after 213 yards in Seattle. Our third offensive line, but 25th on defense, and Rashee Rice and Jaylon Moore were both out.
6. Bengals (11). Up five. Second in DVOA after five straight second-half touchdowns in Baltimore.
7. Jaguars (5). Down two on a bye. Third in DVOA, but left tackle Anton Harrison is out for the season (Prisco).
8. Broncos (7). Down one despite winning. Three straight wins, and the offense finally hit big plays in Arizona.
9. Bears (9). Held after beating New England. Caleb Williams has 300-yard games in consecutive weeks, though DVOA (17th) is lower on them than any list.
10. Patriots (6). Down four after losing in Chicago. Back on our offensive line list at fifth, with Morgan Moses and Alijah Vera-Tucker playing Thursday.
11. Lions (12). Up one. Two straight wins, but both lines sit outside our top 8 and the defense is 25th in defensive DVOA.
12. Steelers (17). Up five. Three straight wins, ninth in DVOA, and both lines in our top 15.
13. Rams (14). Up one. Both lines rank in our top 13, and they scored touchdowns on all five red-zone trips in Las Vegas.
14. Ravens (10). Down four. A second straight blown lead without Lamar Jackson, and the coverage, not the rush, is the problem (Solak).
15. Browns (18). Up three. 5-2 on Deshaun Watson’s fifth winning drive, with our third-ranked defensive line and 30th-ranked offensive line.
16. Falcons (20). Up four. Handed San Francisco its first loss, and both lines rank in our top 10.
17. Packers (15). Down two. Two missed short field goals in Detroit, two centers hurt, and both lines in our bottom five.
18. Buccaneers (24). Up six. 258 rushing yards in Carolina and seventh in DVOA, well above any outside list.
19. Giants (22). Up three. J.J. McCarthy’s first start won in Houston, and they lead the NFC East at 4-2-1.
20. Cowboys (21). Up one. Javonte Williams’ 155 yards in Philadelphia, with our seventh-ranked offensive line and 31st-ranked defensive line.
21. Panthers (13). Down eight after a 43-13 home loss: five sacks allowed, four turnovers, and Taylor Moton carted off.
22. Texans (16). Down six after losing at home to a third-string quarterback. Houston allowed 188 rushing yards.
23. Raiders (19). Down four after a fourth straight loss and 30-plus points allowed for a fourth straight week.
24. Eagles (25). Up one, mostly as others fell. Five straight losses; Philadelphia has allowed at least 375 yards in each.
25. Jets (23). Down two after losing at home to the Dolphins. 0-8 in the division under Aaron Glenn.
26. Saints (27). Up one. 18 rushing yards in Paris; bye next.
27. Commanders (29). Up two on a bye, ahead of Philadelphia at home.
28. Colts (28). Held. Daniel Jones has four touchdown passes and seven interceptions, and the defensive line ranks last on our list.
29. Cardinals (26). Down three. One touchdown in five red-zone trips at home against Denver, and 10 straight home losses.
30. Dolphins (32). Up two with their first win, behind Malik Willis.
31. Titans (30). Down one. Tony Pollard ran for 129 and three touchdowns, and they still lost.
32. Chargers (31). Down one on a bye, the only winless team.

Offensive Lines

The 49ers take No. 1 back from the Bills. The Patriots return after two weeks held out, and the Cowboys enter after 204 rushing yards in Philadelphia; the Raiders and Bears drop out. Each line is judged on the season: ESPN’s pass and run block win rates, sacks allowed and rushing, both measured against what its opponents’ defenses usually allow, and injuries that change who is available. Win rates don’t capture penalties.

Win rates are ESPN’s through Week 7, rank in parentheses (ESPN). Sack rate is sacks per dropback; the figure in parentheses is the difference from what the same opponents’ defenses averaged (negative is better). YPC in parentheses is the difference from what those defenses allowed (positive is better). Opponent averages are from CBS Sports team stats through Week 6 and the Week 7 box scores, and include each opponent’s game against that team.

• 49ers: up two, first in pass block win rate and a 3.2% sack rate. Ran for 123 in Atlanta without Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel or, for most of the first half, Christian McCaffrey.
• Bills: down one on a bye. Second in run block win rate; the sack rate is now exactly what their opponents allow.
• Chiefs: down one. Allowed one sack in Seattle but ran 16 times for 50, without both starting tackles, Josh Simmons and Jaylon Moore (Solak).
• Rams: held, first in run block win rate. Ran for 199 in Las Vegas and allowed one sack; Alaric Jackson’s suspension length is still unknown.
• Patriots: back in at fifth, where the numbers had them the last two weeks. Morgan Moses, Alijah Vera-Tucker and Will Campbell all played Thursday, and Drake Maye was sacked twice; center Ben Brown was inactive.
• Bengals: down one. Third in run block win rate but 28th in pass block; Joe Burrow was sacked once in Baltimore.
• Cowboys: in, on the league’s lowest sack rate, 2.5%, and Monday’s 204 rushing yards. Still 28th in run block win rate, the gap we charted last week.
• Steelers: held after 148 rushing yards in Paris, though Aaron Rodgers was sacked three times.
• Out: Raiders and Bears. The Raiders are 15th on the numbers: second in pass block win rate, but 3.0 yards a carry, a full yard below expectation. The Bears, ninth, allowed three sacks Thursday.
• First out: Bears, Falcons, Jaguars (left tackle Anton Harrison out for the season, per Prisco).
• Charting against results: Packers (last in pass block win rate but a 4.9% sack rate; 2.9 yards a carry) and Browns (30th; a 10.6% sack rate, the league’s worst, on a 5-2 team).
• Watch in Week 8: Green Bay’s centers Thursday, with Sean Rhyan and Jacob Monk hurt; the Chiefs’ tackles in Denver; Carolina without Taylor Moton.

All 32 teams

Ordered by the four measures weighted equally, before injuries.

Defensive Lines

The top two hold, the Browns return, and the Lions drop out. The same four measures apply: pass rush and run stop win rates, sacks against what opponents’ lines usually allow, and run defense against what those offenses usually gain, with injuries on top.

Sack rate is sacks per opponent dropback; in parentheses, the difference from what the same opponents’ lines allowed (positive is better). YPC allowed in parentheses is the difference from what those offenses gained (negative is better). Defensive DVOA is FTN’s through Week 7, rank in parentheses (FTN); negative is better, and it rates the whole defense, not only the line.

• Seahawks: held Kansas City to 50 rushing yards and 3 points, and now first in defensive DVOA. Seattle hasn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in 36 games.
• Vikings: four sacks of Daniel Jones and the league’s highest sack rate, 10.6%. Minnesota blitzes heavily under Brian Flores, so some of that pressure is the coordinator’s.
• Browns: back in after two weeks held out. Mason Graham played Sunday, though Mike Hall Jr. was inactive again; first in run stop win rate.
• Falcons: down one. Two sacks of Brock Purdy and four takeaways, though San Francisco ran for 123.
• Texans: down one after allowing 188 rushing yards to the Giants, the most this season. Houston is 30th in success rate against the run (Bill Barnwell, ESPN).
• Chargers: held on a bye. Fourth in run stop win rate on an 0-6 team.
• Ravens: held. Trey Hendrickson had two quarterback hits and no sacks against his old team; Baltimore’s pressure has been fine, its coverage hasn’t (Solak).
• Broncos: held after three sacks and 12 quarterback hits in Arizona.
• Out: Lions. Ninth on the numbers and fourth in pass rush win rate, but one sack Sunday and 25th in defensive DVOA.
• First out: Lions, 49ers (Nick Bosa still out), Buccaneers (five sacks in Carolina; third in defensive DVOA).
• Giants: 18th on the numbers and third in pass rush win rate. Not restored on win rate alone.

All 32 teams

Ordered by the four measures weighted equally, before injuries.

Win Totals

The Giants take the NFC East from Dallas, and the Steelers move into the AFC field with the Ravens first out. The projections sum to 271 wins plus the Giants-Commanders tie, with 106 wins and that tie banked through Week 7. Kansas City, first team out in August, now shares the AFC’s best projection with Buffalo.

• AFC seeds: Chiefs and Bills, then Bengals and Jaguars; wild cards Broncos, Patriots and Steelers; first out, the Ravens or Browns.
• NFC seeds: 49ers and Vikings, then Giants and Panthers; wild cards Bears, Seahawks and Lions; first out, the Cowboys, Rams or Packers.
• Ties we could not project: Kansas City and Buffalo for the AFC’s top seed; Cincinnati and Jacksonville for third; the order of the three AFC wild cards; the Ravens and Browns for first out; San Francisco and Minnesota for the NFC’s top seed; the Bears and Seahawks for fifth; and the Cowboys, Rams and Packers for first out.

What moved:

• Up: Bengals, Steelers, Browns, Giants, Falcons, Buccaneers, Seahawks and Dolphins, +1 each.
• Down: Ravens, 49ers, Chiefs, Texans, Panthers, Jets, Raiders and Eagles, -1 each.
• Giants 9-7-1: now the NFC East winner. At 4-2-1 they are more than two games clear of Dallas and Philadelphia (Barnwell), and the Cowboys need 6-4 the rest of the way to reach 9-8.
• Ravens 9-8: two straight division losses without Lamar Jackson, and FTN still gives them the hardest remaining schedule. Buffalo is next.

Calls most likely to need moving after Week 8:

• Ravens 9-8 at the Bills (12-5).
• Vikings 13-4 at the Lions (10-7).
• Browns 9-8 at the Steelers (10-7).
• Chiefs 12-5 at the Broncos (10-7).
• Panthers 9-8 at the Packers (9-8) on Thursday, and Bears 11-6 at the Seahawks (11-6) on Monday.

Week 8 Preview

The line and the model agree on every favorite this week. We go against both twice, in two close games: the Jets and the Broncos. Houston, New Orleans, the Giants and San Francisco are on bye.

Panthers at Packers (Thursday)

Line: Packers -3.5, 48.5 · ESPN: Packers 64.7%

Key to the Game: Which bad line holds up. Green Bay ranks 31st on our offensive line list and will be without centers Sean Rhyan (ankle) and Jacob Monk (quad), per Matt LaFleur (AP). Carolina ranks 30th on our defensive list, and its own line lost Taylor Moton after Bryce Young was sacked five times. Trey Smack missed twice from 35 or closer in Detroit.

Our Pick: Packers.

Falcons at Buccaneers

Line: Buccaneers -2.5, 46.5 · ESPN: Buccaneers 69.1%

Key to the Game: Tampa Bay’s run game, 258 yards on 49 carries in Carolina, against an Atlanta front that is third in run stop win rate and fourth on our defensive list. Michael Penix Jr. has stopped turning the ball over: no interceptions against San Francisco.

Our Pick: Buccaneers.

Cardinals at Cowboys

Line: Cowboys -6.5, 54.5 · ESPN: Cowboys 78.0%

Key to the Game: Dallas’ run game after 204 yards in Philadelphia, against an Arizona defense 29th in defensive DVOA. The Cowboys’ defensive line ranks 31st, and Trey McBride caught 10 passes against Denver, but Arizona scored one touchdown in five red-zone trips.

Our Pick: Cowboys.

Ravens at Bills

Line: Bills -3.5, 53.5 · ESPN: Bills 61.4%

Key to the Game: Lamar Jackson’s ankle. He has missed three games, and Baltimore is 1-2 without him . Buffalo comes off its bye with our second-ranked offensive line, and Baltimore’s problem is coverage, not pressure (Solak).

Our Pick: Bills.

Browns at Steelers

Line: Steelers -3.5, 39.5 · ESPN: Steelers 65.7%

Key to the Game: First place in the AFC North; both teams are 5-2. Cleveland’s offensive line allows the league’s highest sack rate, 10.6%, and Deshaun Watson keeps winning late anyway. Pittsburgh has won three straight and ran for 148 in Paris.

Our Pick: Steelers.

Colts at Jaguars

Line: Jaguars -8.5, 46.5 · ESPN: Jaguars 73.3%

Key to the Game: Daniel Jones, with four touchdown passes and seven interceptions; Shane Steichen says he isn’t considering a change (AP). Jacksonville comes off its bye without left tackle Anton Harrison (Prisco).

Our Pick: Jaguars.

Raiders at Jets

Line: Raiders -1.5, 45.5 · ESPN: Raiders 52.0%

Key to the Game: Two teams on losing streaks with questions above the field. Las Vegas has allowed 30-plus points four straight weeks (AP), and Barnwell asks whether it’s time for Fernando Mendoza. The Jets have lost two straight division games under Aaron Glenn.

Our Pick: Jets. Against a narrow line and model: the Jets are at home, and the Raiders have allowed 30-plus points four straight weeks.

Vikings at Lions

Line: Lions -3.5, 46.5 · ESPN: Lions 55.2%

Key to the Game: Minnesota’s defense, first in points allowed, against Jared Goff, whose 112.5 passer rating trails only one quarterback (Solak). The Vikings’ offense has 10 touchdowns in six games, and Detroit lost two fumbles against Green Bay after one turnover all season.

Our Pick: Lions. Low confidence: at home against an offense that hasn’t scored enough to test them.

Titans at Bengals

Line: Bengals -10, 46.5 · ESPN: Bengals 86.6%

Key to the Game: Joe Burrow after a perfect second half in Baltimore, against a Tennessee defense last in defensive DVOA. Tony Pollard ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns in Tennessee’s loss to Cleveland.

Our Pick: Bengals.

Chargers at Rams

Line: Rams -6.5, 44.5 · ESPN: Rams 73.9%

Key to the Game: The Rams’ run game, first in run block win rate, against a Chargers team off its bye at 0-6. Justin Herbert leads the league with eight interceptions.

Our Pick: Rams.

Chiefs at Broncos

Line: Chiefs -1.5, 41.5 · ESPN: Chiefs 55.7%

Key to the Game: Kansas City’s offense after 3 points in Seattle. Rashee Rice could return (Solak), but the Chiefs’ tackles face a Denver rush that just had 12 quarterback hits. Denver has won three straight.

Our Pick: Broncos. Against the line and the model, both narrow: Kansas City scored 3 points without both starting tackles, and Denver’s rush just had 12 quarterback hits.

Patriots at Dolphins

Line: Patriots -7.5, 44.5 · ESPN: Patriots 79.7%

Key to the Game: Malik Willis and a Miami offense that went 3 for 3 in the red zone, against a Patriots defense Prisco says slipped in Chicago.

Our Pick: Patriots.

Eagles at Commanders (Sunday night)

Line: Commanders -5.5, 40.5 · ESPN: Commanders 64.1%

Key to the Game: Tanner McKee, on a five-game losing streak, against a Washington team off its bye and without Terry McLaurin. Philadelphia has allowed at least 375 yards in each loss (AP).

Our Pick: Commanders.

Bears at Seahawks (Monday)

Line: Seahawks -3, 46.5 · ESPN: Seahawks 54.7%

Key to the Game: Seattle’s front, first on our defensive list, against a Chicago line that just fell out of our top 8. Caleb Williams has back-to-back 300-yard games (AP); Seattle lost Rashid Shaheed (knee) and tackle Charles Cross (ankle) against Kansas City.

Our Pick: Seahawks.

Three Things Getting Little Attention

1. The run game picked the winners. The team with more rushing yards won 11 of 14 games. Five teams ran for 180 or more (Tampa Bay 258, Dallas 204, the Rams 199, the Giants 188, Cleveland 183), and all five won, all on the road. The exceptions were Atlanta, Minnesota and Cincinnati, each of which won the turnover battle instead.

2. Kickers missed everywhere. The AP recaps list 13 missed field goals across Thursday and Sunday, from Trey Smack’s two short misses in Detroit to Harrison Butker’s 45-yarder in Seattle. Two of them decided games: Spencer Shrader’s 56-yard miss set up Minnesota’s only touchdown, and Smack’s 35-yarder, tipped by D.J. Wonnum, left Green Bay tied for Detroit’s last drive.

3. Double-digit leads didn’t hold. The 49ers led Atlanta 14-3, the Titans led Cleveland 14-0, and the Ravens led Cincinnati 13-0 at halftime. All three lost. Baltimore has now blown double-digit second-half leads in consecutive weeks.

The post 2026 NFL: Week 7 Review, Week 8 Preview appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Baltimore is 0-2 in the AFC North, its first 0-2 start in the division since 2007, per Jeff Zrebiec. Pittsburgh beat New Orleans 16-10 in Paris and Cleveland won 27-24 in Tennessee. The Browns and Steelers are 5-2, the Bengals 4-2, and the Ravens are last in the division.

Lamar Jackson missed his third straight game with a high ankle sprain, and Tyler Huntley made his third straight start. The Ravens were 3 point underdogs at DraftKings Sunday morning, with a total of 46.5, and ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gave them a 34.5% chance to win. They had been 3-point favorites with a 51.5 total in our Week 7 preview; the line moved 6 points once Jackson was ruled out.

A loss to the Bengals without Jackson was expected; but it makes the Week 2 home loss to New Orleans sting that much more.

Coming off oft these back-to-back division losses, the Ravens are now staring at a trip to Buffalo followed by Jacksonville just four days later.

We have not yet reached Halloween, and the Ravens are suddenly in a pretty precarious position.

What Happened

Baltimore scored on its opening drive, four plays and 65 yards. After Josh Cuevas caught a 16-yarder and Derrick Henry gained 1, Huntley hit Zay Flowers short to the right on third-and-9, and Flowers went 48 yards for the touchdown. It was 7-0 with 13:36 left in the first quarter.

Cincinnati punted on its first three possessions, and Ryan Rehkow pinned the Ravens at their 3 and their 6. From the 6, Baltimore put together an 18-play, 78-yard drive that took 11 minutes and crossed into the second quarter. Huntley converted four third downs on it, including a 20-yarder to Flowers on third-and-13. At the Cincinnati 11, Henry was stopped for no gain on second-and-1 and again on third-and-1, Matthew Hibner false-started on fourth down, and Tyler Loop kicked a 34-yard field goal. It was 10-0.

The next drive went 82 yards in 13 plays. A low-block penalty on Boye Mafe turned a third-and-1 stop into a first down, Rashod Bateman caught 18 on third-and-16, and Flowers caught 16 on third-and-6 to the Cincinnati 13. Huntley’s third-and-3 throw to Ja’Kobi Lane from the 6 fell incomplete, and Loop kicked from 24 with 50 seconds left. It was 13-0 at the half. The Ravens had the ball for 22:20 of the first 30 minutes and outgained Cincinnati 258 yards to 59.

The Bengals opened the second half with a nine-play, 66-yard drive, and Joe Burrow found Mike Gesicki for a 6-yard touchdown. Baltimore went three-and-out: Henry lost 4, and Cashius Howell sacked Huntley on third-and-11. Dohnte Meyers returned the punt 31 yards to the Baltimore 47, and six plays later Tee Higgins scored from 13. Cincinnati led 14-13 with 4:29 left in the third.

The Ravens answered with their best second-half drive, 10 plays to the Cincinnati 12, with Bateman catching 15 and Cuevas 19. On fourth-and-2 on the first play of the fourth quarter, Huntley’s pass over the middle for Cuevas fell incomplete.

Cincinnati then scored on three straight possessions. Higgins caught a 44-yarder, K’Von Wallace was called for interference at the 8, and Samaje Perine scored from the 1 with 11:14 left. After a Baltimore punt, Burrow hit Ja’Marr Chase for 30 and Higgins for 43, and Chase scored from the 2 on third-and-goal. On the next snap, Demetrius Knight Jr. intercepted Huntley’s pass for Flowers and returned it to the Baltimore 24. Three plays later Drew Sample caught a 16-yard touchdown. It was 35-13 with 6:21 left.

Baltimore’s last real possession ended on downs at the Cincinnati 48, when Huntley was stopped for no gain on fourth-and-1 after a Dexter Lawrence II sack.

The Offense

Baltimore gained 258 yards in the first half and 101 in the second, 19 of them on the final drive down 22. It went 0 for 3 in the red zone, with two field goals and a turnover on downs. Cincinnati went 5 for 5.

Huntley completed 23 of 34 for 298 yards, 8.8 a pass, with a touchdown and an interception. He was sacked four times: 1.5 by Mafe, one each by Lawrence and Howell, and a half by Bryan Cook. A week earlier in Cleveland he had 165 yards at 5.3 a pass. He threw for 215 yards in the first half, 120 of them to Flowers, and 83 after it.

The yards came on short throws. The play-by-play logs all 23 completions as short passes, and Huntley was 0 for 5 on throws logged as deep. The 48-yard touchdown was a short pass that Flowers turned upfield.

Flowers caught 8 of 11 targets for 137 yards. Cuevas had 2 catches for 35, Bateman 2 for 33 in his return from the shoulder injury, Justice Hill 3 for 26, Lane 3 for 25 on five targets, Mark Andrews 3 for 23 and LaJohntay Wester 1 for 15.

The early downs were better than in Cleveland. Six of Baltimore’s 16 third downs needed 8 yards or more, after 11 of 16 a week ago, and it converted three of them. Overall the Ravens converted 9 of 16, plus the first down on Mafe’s penalty.

The run game was not. Baltimore ran 27 times for 83 yards, 3.1 a carry, against a Bengals front that came in allowing 5.0, 0.7 worse than its opponents usually gain, per our line rankings. Henry ran 17 times for 45 yards. He had 32 on 13 carries in the first half and 13 on four after it. Huntley ran twice on scrambles for 12 yards.

Cam Jurgens made his Ravens debut at center Vega Ioane left in the first half with a knee injury, and did not return. Emery Jones Jr. replaced him. Minter had no update on Ioane afterward, per Jonas Shaffer.

The Ravens got about as much out of Huntley today as anyone could have reasonably hoped for.

They had to settle for FG’s on their 2nd Quarter drives, but they dominated possession, and were effective on 3rd down.

13 points was never going to be enough to win, but the Ravens defense couldn’t make a stop and get the ball back to the offense in the 2nd half.

Short Yardage

Henry converted one of his four carries with 1 or 2 to go. Over the last three games he has converted 2 of 10, not counting the tying two-point run in Atlanta.

Jeff Zrebiec called it “pretty telling” that the Ravens had to drop back to pass on a must-have third-and-2, and called the decline of the short-yardage run game striking.

The Defense

For a half, the defense held Cincinnati to 59 yards on four possessions: three punts and a four-play drive that ran out the half. The Bengals converted 2 of 6 third downs.

The second half was five straight touchdown drives: 66, 47, 88, 79 and 24 yards. Cincinnati gained 298 yards after halftime, converted 4 of 5 third downs and finished 5 for 5 in the red zone. The Bengals are the 10th team in NFL history to be shut out in a first half and score 35 or more in the second, per CBS Sports research via @johnbreech.

Higgins did most of the damage. He caught 6 of 7 targets for 148 yards and a touchdown, and all four of Burrow’s completions logged as deep went to him, for 19, 19, 44 and 43 yards. The 44-yarder set up Perine’s touchdown, and the 43-yarder set up Chase’s touchdown from the 2. Chase caught 5 for 62 and a touchdown, including a 30-yarder on a short throw. That’s 11 catches for 210 yards between them.

Burrow finished 22 of 30 for 292 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. He was sacked once, by Mike Green with 31 seconds left in the first half, and hit six times. Trey Hendrickson, facing his former team, had two of the hits and no tackles.

Cincinnati ran 20 times for 73 yards, 3.7 a carry. Chase Brown had 39 yards on 11 carries.

Roquan Smith led the team with eight tackles; he was hurt on a fourth-quarter run and returned. There were no takeaways for the third time in the Ravens’ three losses.

As we said in the Offense section above, the Ravens Defense couldn’t make a stop in the 2nd half and get the ball back to the Offense.  A talented Cincinnati offense got hot in the 2nd half, and the Ravens had no answers.

Part of me wants to tip the cap to Burrow and his WR’s for how they finished; and part of thinks you have to at-least ding the Ravens Defense for their total collapse.

If you give someone like Burrow enough chances, at some point he’s going to make you pay.  That’s understood.  Giving up 5 TD’s on 5 straight possessions is a tough-watch regardless of opponent.

Penalties And Special Teams

Baltimore had 10 penalties accepted for 57 yards, a week after six for 29. Cincinnati had one, for 15.

• Offense (7): five false starts, two by Ronnie Stanley and one each by Andrews, Hibner and Roger Rosengarten; a delay of game; and a hold by Simpson that wiped out a 7-yard Huntley scramble on third-and-6.
• Defense (3): Keyon Martin’s offside on the Higgins touchdown, Kyle Hamilton’s hold that erased a 4-yard catch, and Wallace’s interference at the 8 on the Perine touchdown drive.
• Cincinnati: Mafe’s low block, which turned a third-and-1 stop into a Ravens first down.

Loop made both field goals, from 34 and 24. Ryan Eckley punted three times for a 48.3 average, none inside the 20, and Meyers’ 31-yard return set up the 47-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter. Rehkow put all four of his punts inside the 20; the Ravens started those drives at their 3, 6, 12 and 6.

LaJohntay Wester returned three kickoffs for 86 yards, the longest 38. Wallace forced a Meyers fumble on a kickoff in the second quarter, but Cincinnati recovered.

Jackson’s Availability

Jackson has now missed three straight games: Atlanta, Cleveland and Cincinnati. The Ravens are 1-2 without him. He was hurt Oct. 4 against Tennessee, when a diving defender’s shoulder landed on the inside of his left ankle as he planted his foot, per Ravens.com. He confirmed Friday that it is a high ankle sprain.

He was considered close to playing this week and is “likely to return” against Buffalo, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (@RapSheet). Jackson had publicly disputed Rapoport’s earlier description of the injury, saying his own staff told him it was a high ankle sprain.

Since he took over as the starter in Week 11 of 2018, here is how his availability has gone:

From 2019 through 2025, that’s 100 starts in 117 regular-season games. The 2021 and 2022 seasons ended with injuries in December; 2025 and now 2026 are absences during the season.

He is a two-time MVP, in 2019 and 2023. In 2024 he was the PFWA’s MVP and finished second in the AP vote to Josh Allen, 27 first-place votes to 23.

On Friday, Jackson tied his caution this time to last season, when he played hurt after the hamstring injury. “I was dumb a little bit,” he said, per Ravens.com, because he was trying to help the team without being close to his full capability.

When he plays 15 or more games, the Ravens are a contender. He’s a two-time MVP who probably should be a three-time winner. It’s understood the Ravens aren’t as good without him. And while everyone points to all of the time missed in ’21, and ’22, less credit is pointed to Jackson for staying available over ’23 and ’24.

If he plays out the remainder of this ’26 season, he will finish the year with 14 games played.
Will 14 Jackson-led games over a 17 game season be enough to reach the post-season?

Last Week’s Things To Watch

We listed seven. Here’s how each came out.

1. Jackson’s ankle. Ruled out Saturday, his third straight missed game, and Huntley made his third straight start.
2. The line. Jurgens cleared the protocol and debuted, with Ioane back at right guard until he left with the knee injury. Stanley played and had two of the five false starts.
3. Bateman’s shoulder. He played: 2 catches for 33 yards on four targets. Lane had 3 for 25 and Cuevas 2 for 35.
4. The run game. 3.1 a carry, worse than the 3.8 in Cleveland, against a front that came in allowing 5.0.
5. Chase and Higgins out of the bye. Higgins’ groin was no issue: 6 catches for 148 yards. Combined with Chase, the duo finished with 11 catches for 210 yards and two touchdowns.
6. Hendrickson. Two quarterback hits against his former team, no sacks and no tackles.
7. The fourth quarter. It never became a close finish. Cincinnati led 14-13 entering the fourth and scored 21 in it.

Takeaways

The second half. For the second straight game, the Ravens shut out their opponent in the first half, scored themselves, then went scoreless after halftime while being outscored, per @BenjaminSolak. Cleveland was 10-0 and 0-13; today was 13-0 and 0-35. In all three losses this season, Baltimore has led. It was the second straight week they blew a double-digit second-half lead, and the 10th time since the start of 2022.. Through seven games, they have outscored opponents by 65 points in first halves and been outscored by 70 in second halves.

Flowers. 8 catches for 137 yards and the 48-yard touchdown, every catch on a throw logged as short. He made people miss, and made plays in space.

The red zone. Three trips, six points. The Ravens kicked two field goals and turned it over on downs at the 12; Cincinnati scored touchdowns on all five of its trips.

Fourth-and-2 at the 12. Down 14-13 on the first play of the fourth quarter, the Ravens passed up a field goal of about 30 yards that would have put them ahead, and Huntley’s throw for Cuevas fell incomplete. Didn’t end up being the difference, but I’d just assume take the points and the lead their with my backup QB.

Minter. He said the Ravens were “not good enough” and put it on himself: “Start with me, all the way down,” per Jonas Shaffer. He also called this a big point in the season to determine what team the Ravens are going to be, per Jamison Hensley.

Week 8: Ravens At Buffalo

The Ravens play the Bills next Sunday, Nov. 1, at 1 p.m. ET at the new Highmark Stadium, on CBS. The Raves are given a 40.9% chance of winning per ESPN’s Match-Up predictor, and there is no current line.

The Bills are 5-1 and coming off their bye. Joe Brady is in his first season as head coach after Sean McDermott was fired; Buffalo went 12-5 last season. In our Week 7 rankings the Bills were third overall and fourth in DVOA, with a 12-5 projection and the AFC’s No. 2 seed.

How Buffalo got to 5-1

The last two wins were close. At the Rams in Week 5, Buffalo won 37-34 in overtime after Greg Rousseau blocked a field goal, and Josh Allen ran for 121 of his 331 total yards. In Las Vegas in Week 6 it won 33-30: Allen went 23 of 33 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, tying Jim Kelly’s franchise record of 258 touchdown passes, and James Cook ran for 95 yards and the go-ahead score with 4:43 left. It was Buffalo’s first game without a turnover after nine in the previous three weeks, per AP.

The defense is the question. Kirk Cousins threw for 313 yards against it, and Buffalo didn’t sack him.

When Buffalo has the ball

Buffalo’s offensive line was first in our rankings: third in pass block win rate at 59%, second in run block at 77%, and gaining 5.1 yards a carry, 0.9 better than its opponents allow. Spencer Brown played through his back injury in Las Vegas. Baltimore’s defensive line was seventh: 53% pass rush win rate (10th), 31% run stop (ninth), and a 7.1% sack rate.

DJ Moore (shoulder) and Ed Oliver (knee) have missed time, and Brady said the hope and intent is for both to return after the bye.

When Baltimore has the ball

Buffalo’s defensive line was 24th on the numbers: 28th in pass rush win rate at 44%, 15th in run stop at 29%, with a 4.3% sack rate, 1.4 points under what its opponents usually allow. Baltimore’s offensive line was 14th, and it has just lost Ioane to a knee injury with no update.

The Bills will be without safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, whose one-game suspension for spitting at Raiders players was upheld on appeal. Damar Hamlin and rookie Jalon Kilgore filled in after his ejection in Las Vegas, per Bills.com. Defensive back Sam Franklin Jr., a special teams captain, was also suspended for spitting and appealed. He won his appeal and his suspension was reduced to a fine.

Jackson against Buffalo

As a starter, Jackson is 2-4 against Buffalo, 0-2 in the playoffs, and the Ravens have lost three straight. In last season’s opener, Buffalo became the first team to win after trailing by 15 or more in the final four minutes, per CBS Sports. Results from Wikipedia and Fox Sports.

What comes after

Buffalo starts a run of five straight opponents that made last year’s playoffs. Jacksonville comes to Baltimore four days later, on Thursday, Nov. 5th, then the Chargers on Monday, Nov. 16th, before trips to Carolina and Houston. The bye is Week 13.

Things To Watch

1. Jackson’s return. The practice reports, and whether Rapoport’s “likely to return” holds.
2. The interior line. Ioane’s knee, and who plays next to Jurgens in his second game.
3. The second half. Two straight games without a second-half point, against a team that came back from 40-25 in the final four minutes last September.
4. Buffalo’s secondary. No Gardner-Johnson. How much do Hamlin and Kilgore play?
5. The run game. 3.1 a carry today, against a Bills front that is 24th on our numbers.
6. Moore and Oliver. Whether both are back from the bye.
7. The short week. Jacksonville is in Baltimore four days later.

I can’t get overly worked-up about losing to Burrow & the Bengals without Jackson; but it’s disappointing for the Ravens to be 4-3 all the same.

The post Bengals Blow Out Ravens In Baltimore, Ravens Travel To Buffalo Next appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Quick Hits

Texas 34, Ole Miss 27. We had Texas winning and covering, and it nearly gave all of it back. Arch Manning threw a touchdown pass and ran for his first two scores of the season, and Texas led 24-3 at halftime. Ole Miss then scored on a strip-sack recovered in the end zone on the first possession of the third quarter, and Trinidad Chambliss threw two touchdown passes to Horatio Fields to tie it early in the fourth. Raleek Brown, who finished with 157 yards, broke a 47-yard run to set up Manning’s 1-yard keeper for the lead, and Texas added a field goal. Ole Miss still recovered an onside kick, and the game ended on Jelani McDonald’s interception in the end zone. It was the second time this season Texas has had to defend a last-play pass after an onside recovery. Texas was flagged 14 times for 134 yards, both season highs. Kewan Lacy left with the same shoulder injury that kept him out of the Florida game, and Texas receiver Cam Coleman was helped off after landing on his left shoulder. We had the under. The game went over.

UCF 39, BYU 31, in double overtime. We had BYU by ten. Keyone Jenkins threw the winning 2-yard touchdown pass to Grayson Brousseau in the second overtime, and Bear Bachmeier’s fourth-down throw from the UCF 4 fell incomplete. Regulation ended strangely. UCF was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 1 with under two minutes left, forced a three-and-out, and got into field-goal range when a sack and fumble was overturned to an incomplete pass and BYU was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. BYU blocked the 47-yard try. UCF’s Will Stone recovered it, and because UCF had kicked on third down it would have had another try, but Stone’s helmet had come off, and the 10-second runoff sent the game to overtime. Jenkins, making his fifth start for the injured Alonza Barnett III, threw for 293 yards and three touchdowns. It was UCF’s first win over a top-five team. BYU had beaten Notre Dame seven days earlier.

Cincinnati 37, Texas Tech 24. Texas Tech’s first loss came in the game nobody had circled. JC French IV threw four touchdown passes and Cole Tabb ran for 173 yards, and Cincinnati ran for 252 yards against a defense that had not allowed a rushing touchdown all season. Texas Tech was flagged 12 times for 75 yards, a season high for a team that averaged 5.4 penalties a game, and turned it over three times, all of which led to points. Will Hammond lost a fumble and threw an interception. Cincinnati fans chanted Brendan Sorsby’s name; Sorsby’s transfer from Cincinnati to Texas Tech fell through after he admitted betting on college football. Joey McGuire said afterward that his team will have to win out, which is what it did a year ago after its first loss. It was Cincinnati’s first home win over a top-ten team since 2006.

Miami 52, Pittsburgh 23. We had Miami by 21 and Pitt covering. Miami won by 29 in its first game as the AP’s No. 1 team in nearly 24 years. Malachi Toney set a school record with 16 catches, for 194 yards and three touchdowns, and Darian Mensah completed 31 of 37 passes for 387 yards and four scores. Miami scored on seven of its first eight possessions and converted ten of its first 12 third downs. Toney had 159 receiving yards at halftime, the same as Pitt’s total offense. One correction to our preview: Pitt did not start Corey Dailey. Holden Geriner, who started against North Carolina in Week 6, got the job back and threw for 268 yards. Pitt has lost three straight and is 5-3.

Utah 21, Houston 13. We had Utah, and we had it by four. Utah was held scoreless in a first half for the first time in two years, and Houston led 13-0 late in the third quarter. Then Devon Dampier took over. He ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns, including a 22-yarder to get Utah on the board, and Wayshawn Parker’s 5-yard run off a direct snap gave the Utes the lead with 11:57 left. Jackson Bennee’s sack forced a Conner Weigman fumble at the Houston 9 with 2:15 left, and Dampier scored on the next play. Weigman completed 4 of 12 passes in the fourth quarter. Utah scored the last 21 points, has won 13 straight, the longest active streak in the country, and is the only unbeaten team left in the Big 12. Houston’s two losses are by two at Texas Tech and by eight at Utah.

South Carolina 27, Tennessee 24. Tennessee came from 14 down to lead 24-17, then went for it on fourth-and-1 at the South Carolina 39 with 3:35 left and was stuffed. LaNorris Sellers tied it with 1:17 left by carrying two defenders to the pylon, a touchdown upheld on review. Dylan Stewart then stripped George MacIntyre with 33 seconds left, Tomiway Durojaiye recovered, and Malik Orsan’s 48-yard field goal won it at the gun. Sellers threw for 210 yards and ran for 96. Tennessee had three touchdowns wiped out by penalties, two of them catches by Braylon Staley, and DeSean Bishop’s 130 rushing yards were wasted. It is South Carolina’s second straight win over a ranked team, after the 38-19 win at Florida two weeks ago, and Tennessee has lost a week after its biggest win of the season.

Indiana 13, Michigan 6, in overtime. Neither team scored a touchdown in regulation. Josh Hoover completed 8 of 18 passes for 81 yards, and Curt Cignetti said afterward that the staff discussed going to Grant Wilson in the second half because Hoover was not healthy. Hoover opened overtime with a 21-yard pass to Brock Schott and ran in from the 4 two plays later. Michigan started Tommy Carr over Bryce Underwood, and Carr was sacked four times, two of them leading to missed field goals, one after Michigan had reached the Indiana 1. Michigan reached the Indiana 3 in the final minute of regulation and settled for the tying field goal. In overtime, Carr’s last pass hit the ground short of the end zone. It was Indiana’s first win in Ann Arbor since 1967, and it kept Cignetti from his first two-game losing streak at Indiana.

Wisconsin 24, USC 7. USC ran 25 times for minus-17 yards, and Jayden Maiava, who came in with three interceptions on 224 throws, threw two in the first half. CBS notes the seven points were the fewest of Lincoln Riley’s career. Bryan Jackson, who transferred from USC, scored Wisconsin’s first touchdown, and Colton Joseph found Chris Brooks Jr. for a 16-yard score on fourth-and-2. Wisconsin is 5-2, and its losses are to Notre Dame and UCLA. USC is 6-2 and hosts Ohio State on Saturday.

App State 34, James Madison 31, in overtime. The last unbeaten team in the Group of Six lost on Thursday night. James London kicked four field goals, the last a 40-yarder to win it in overtime, after Morgan Suarez’s 47-yard try for James Madison hit the left upright. App State took its first lead with 6:03 left, on Henry Hasselbeck’s 4-yard touchdown pass after Colton Phares’s interception, and Camden Coleman tied it on a quarterback draw with three seconds left in regulation. CBS reports that James Madison kicked the extra point rather than going for two and the win. Running back George Pettaway left late with an apparent hamstring injury. FPI had given James Madison a 44.3 percent chance of making the playoff a week ago. It now gives the Dukes 7.5.

LSU 38, Auburn 17. Sam Leavitt completed 32 of 45 passes for a career-high 387 yards and accounted for four touchdowns, and LSU led 31-10 at halftime. Jackson Harris caught nine passes for 178 yards, one of them a 70-yard touchdown on a crossing route, and Trey’Dez Green came back from four games out with a knee sprain and caught a touchdown. Leavitt has gone two straight games without a turnover, after giving the ball away regularly through September. LSU blitzed and spied Byrum Brown, who had run for 115 yards against Georgia, and sacked him six times. It ended LSU’s eight-game losing streak on the road in the SEC.

Alabama 31, Texas A&M 20. Alabama trailed 20-17 going into the fourth quarter. Marcel Reed lost a fumble on a fourth-and-1 sneak, Keelon Russell hit Rico Scott for 38 yards, and Russell threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes to end Alabama’s two-game losing streak. Russell threw for 311 yards and three scores, and Scott caught six passes for 156. Dijon Lee Jr. returned an interception 39 yards for a touchdown. Alabama did it with a thin secondary. Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. was suspended for violating team rules, Red Morgan was ejected for targeting, and top corner Zabien Brown is out with a leg injury. Ryan Coleman-Williams missed his second straight game with a knee injury. Alabama is off, then goes to LSU.

Ohio State was off, and the news got worse. Julian Sayin is out indefinitely with an injury to his throwing arm and shoulder. Ryan Day has not given a timeline, and The Athletic reported on October 20th that Ohio State is planning for the possibility that he misses the rest of the season, including the playoff. A week ago we wrote that Sayin was expected back in weeks, which was what Day had said. That is no longer the working assumption. Freshman Luke Fahey and sophomore Tavien St. Clair split first-team snaps during the off week, and Day has not named a starter for USC.

The rest of the ranked teams, and the ones that matter. UCLA beat Michigan State 28-10 to go to 7-0. Kentucky beat Vanderbilt 34-17 and is 7-1. Minnesota beat Iowa 13-10 on a game-winning field goal, and Illinois beat Oregon 21-10, the Ducks’ third loss before November for the first time since 2018. Boise State was tied 10-10 at Washington State late in the third quarter and won 31-10. New Mexico beat North Dakota State 21-16. Arizona beat Iowa State 39-3, SMU beat Cal 59-20, Northwestern beat Rutgers 42-14 and Oklahoma State beat Colorado 57-24. Oklahoma won 23-15 at Mississippi State, where Kamario Taylor came back from his foot injury and left again in the first quarter. UTSA won 42-19 at Tulane, Toledo beat Western Michigan 45-38, Liberty won 34-6 at Kennesaw State, Memphis beat East Carolina in overtime and Wyoming beat Air Force 28-14. Virginia Tech beat Clemson for the first time since 2007, Kansas beat Baylor 25-24 on a blocked field goal, and NC State fired Dave Doeren after losing at Stanford. Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Florida, Missouri, Wake Forest, Nebraska and Oregon State were off.

Power Rankings

Georgia moves up one. The Bulldogs were off, and they move because BYU lost. ESPN’s committee projection makes the same move and argues that the 20-17 win at Alabama is better than anything Indiana or Notre Dame has. Alabama’s win over Texas A&M helped it. The home loss to Auburn looks a little worse after LSU won at Auburn by 21. FPI rates Georgia fourth. Florida is Saturday in Atlanta, and ESPN points out that the head-to-head could decide a tie between two-loss SEC teams in December.

BYU drops one. A double-overtime loss on the road to a 4-3 team, a week after the biggest win in program history, costs a spot and not more. BYU falls behind Georgia, which did not play. It stays ahead of Notre Dame because the two have the same record and BYU beat the Irish eight days ago; ESPN’s committee projection does the same. It stays ahead of Utah, as we said it would, until they play on November 7th. We will say plainly that Saturday tested that promise. BYU lost a game it should have won, and Utah beat a team with a winning record for the first time. But the two have one loss between them, BYU’s is a coin flip on the road, and the game that settles it is two weeks away. FPI has Utah 10th and BYU 15th. Arizona State comes to Provo on Saturday.

Indiana moves up one. It was the ugliest win of the week, and it moves the Hoosiers past a Texas Tech team that lost. Indiana is 7-1, its only loss is by four to Ohio State, and FPI rates it sixth. The problem is the offense. Hoover is hurt, Indiana completed one pass after halftime, and ESPN notes the Hoosiers have been a few plays from losing in three of their last four Big Ten wins. Minnesota, which just beat Iowa, is next.

Utah moves up one. The Utes beat a team with a winning record for the first time, and they did it after trailing 13-0. They pass Texas Tech. They stay behind BYU, for the reason above. ESPN points out the hole that remains: Utah’s strength of schedule is the lowest of any contender by about 60 spots. A trip to Cincinnati, which just beat Texas Tech by 13, comes before BYU.

UCLA moves up one. The Bruins are 7-0 and 5-0 in the Big Ten, alone in first place. Ty Dieffenbach made his second start, and the defense held Michigan State’s offense to ten points. ESPN notes UCLA is in the top five in its Strength of Record metric, with three road wins over power-conference teams, and its win over Wisconsin got better on Saturday. UCLA passes Texas Tech. Nevada comes to the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

Texas moves up eight. That is the biggest rise we have given a team since Florida’s ten in Week 4. Texas has three wins over teams in our Top 14: Ohio State, at Tennessee and now Ole Miss. No other team has more than two. It also has two losses, both at home by three points, to Oklahoma and Florida, and it nearly lost a 21-point lead on Saturday. CBS’s projection of the AP poll, ESPN’s committee projection and CBS’s bowl projection all have Texas tenth. We have it ninth, ahead of Tennessee, for the first time since Texas beat the Vols in Knoxville. A week ago Tennessee was 6-1 and Texas 4-2, and we ranked the better record. Now they are 6-2 and 5-2, and the head-to-head decides it. FPI rates Texas eighth. Mississippi State is next.

Why Ohio State is ahead of Texas. Texas beat Ohio State 24-23 in Austin in Week 2, after trailing 23-3. It was a one-point loss on the road. Ohio State is 6-1 and Texas is 5-2, and Ohio State has not lost since. The records are closer than they were a week ago, and Ohio State is now without Sayin. If the Buckeyes lose at USC on Saturday, both teams could have two losses, and Texas would move ahead.

Why Texas is ahead of Florida. Florida won 27-24 in Austin on October 17th, by three points. Both teams are 5-2. The result was close, so our rule allows the override, and the rest of the two résumés is why we use it. Texas has wins over Ohio State, at Tennessee and over Ole Miss, and its two losses are by three points each. Florida has wins at Texas, over Ole Miss and at Auburn, but it also lost by 28 at Missouri and by 19 at home to South Carolina.

Texas Tech drops four. The Red Raiders lost by 13 to a team that was 4-2, with 12 penalties and three turnovers. It would be a bigger drop for a team with more losses. Texas Tech is still 6-1, its only loss is to a 5-2 team, and its best win, over Houston, still holds up. It stays ahead of Tennessee, which lost to a 4-3 team on Saturday too. ESPN’s committee projection has left Texas Tech out of its twelve, and CBS’s bowl projection now sends it to the Pop-Tarts Bowl. FPI rates it 14th. Arizona, also 3-1 in the league, comes to Lubbock on Saturday.

Ole Miss drops four. The Rebels lost by seven on the road to a team ranked ahead of them, and came back from 21 down to do it. That is a good loss as losses go. But Ole Miss now has two, and it falls behind Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, which have the same number or fewer. Its wins over LSU and Missouri keep it ahead of both. Lacy is hurt again. ESPN’s committee projection has Ole Miss 11th. Auburn comes to Oxford on Saturday, and Georgia comes on November 7th.

Why Ole Miss is ahead of Florida. Florida beat Ole Miss 52-28 in Gainesville. That is a lopsided result, and our rule says we do not override a result like that on records alone. Both teams are now 5-2, so we owe an explanation. Florida also lost 45-17 at Missouri, and Missouri lost 31-3 at Ole Miss. All three teams are 5-2, and each has beaten one of the others by 24 points or more. There is no order of the three that respects all three results, so we have to break one. We keep Ole Miss ahead of Missouri and Missouri ahead of Florida, and override Florida’s win over Ole Miss, because Florida is the one with two lopsided losses. Ole Miss’s other loss is by seven at Texas. Florida’s other loss is by 19 at home to a team that is now 4-3. ESPN noted this week that some committee members might rank Florida ahead of both Texas and Ole Miss. We understand the argument. A loss by 19 at home to South Carolina is why we do not.

LSU moves up three. The Tigers played their best half of the season and won by 21 on the road. They pass Houston, Iowa and USC, which all lost. They stay behind Ole Miss and Kentucky, which beat them. ESPN’s committee projection has LSU 12th, and its analytics give LSU the second-hardest remaining schedule in the country. After the off week, LSU hosts Alabama and Texas and goes to Tennessee.

Houston drops two. The Cougars led 13-0 in Salt Lake City and lost by eight. Both of their losses are close and on the road, to teams ranked ahead of them. But they are 3-2 in the Big 12 with Utah unbeaten, and the league path is mostly gone. Ole Miss and LSU fall in and move past them. Houston is off, then hosts Cincinnati on November 7th.

Wake Forest moves up two. The Demon Deacons were off. They move because Iowa and USC lost and fell out. Wake Forest is 6-1 and 4-1 in the ACC, its only loss is to Miami, and FPI rates it 16th, the second-best team in the league. Virginia is next.

Boise State moves up two. The Broncos were tied with a 1-7 Washington State team going into the fourth quarter and then scored three touchdowns. Dylan Riley ran for 128 yards, 72 of them on one run, and Maddux Madsen is the only quarterback in the country with ten or more touchdown passes and no interceptions. Boise has won six straight and is bowl-eligible for the 29th year in a row. Its only loss was 34-27 at Oregon in Week 1. Oregon is now 4-3 and out of our ranking, and we keep Boise ahead because that was a seven-point road loss and the teams have gone in opposite directions since. Both ESPN and CBS now project Boise as the Group of Six team in the field. Texas State is next.

Missouri returns at 19. The Tigers were off. They return because Iowa and USC lost, and because of the three-way problem above: Missouri beat Florida by 28, and we rank Missouri ahead of the Gators. Missouri’s losses are at Mississippi State, by seven, and by 28 at Ole Miss. Mississippi State has since lost three straight, so the first one has gotten worse. FPI rates Missouri 28th. It goes to Arkansas on Saturday.

Florida enters at 20. The Gators were off. They have the two best wins of any team in the back half of our ranking, at Texas and over Ole Miss, along with the two worst losses. FPI rates them 17th, ahead of Houston, Boise State and Missouri. Georgia is Saturday in Atlanta, and Florida’s remaining schedule after that, Oklahoma, at Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Florida State, is a path to nine wins.

Why the rest held. Miami holds at No. 1 after the best performance of anyone at the top, and FPI gives it a 97.4 percent chance of making the playoff. Ohio State holds at No. 2. We said a week ago that if the Buckeyes lost at USC or to Oregon we would move them then. They were off, and the only team above them won. The Sayin news belongs in their playoff number, which is where we put it. Notre Dame holds at five, behind BYU on the head-to-head, and ESPN notes its opening win over Wisconsin got better on Saturday.

Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky hold at 11, 12 and 13, and that order needs explaining. Tennessee lost to a 4-3 team on a walk-off field goal and would normally drop. But Tennessee beat Alabama 26-10 in Knoxville, and Alabama beat Kentucky 45-17 in Lexington. Neither result was close, and none of the three records gives us a reason to override them. So the order holds even though Kentucky is 7-1 and the other two are 6-2. CBS’s poll projection and ESPN’s committee projection both have Kentucky ninth, and this is our biggest disagreement with both. It is also the one most likely to change on the field. Kentucky goes to Tennessee on November 7th.

Iowa and USC leave the ranking. Iowa lost 13-10 at Minnesota and has scored more than 20 points against one Big Ten team. CBS writes that the loss virtually ends the Hawkeyes’ playoff threat. USC lost 24-7 at Wisconsin with minus-17 rushing yards and has Ohio State, Indiana and UCLA still to play. Northwestern is the first team out. It is 6-1, its only loss is by six at Indiana, and FPI rates it 20th. Arizona, SMU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State, Iowa and USC are the next group.

The outside check

The real post-Week 7 AP poll came out after we published last week, and it differed from the CBS projection we used on our board in a few places. The AP had Miami first and BYU second, where the projection had them the other way around, so our board’s labels for those two were reversed. It had Notre Dame fourth and Georgia fifth, Utah tenth and UCLA ninth, Kentucky 12th and Alabama 13th, and it ranked Arizona at 25 and left Oregon out. Our board used the projection’s rankings, labeled as such.

CBS’s projection of the post-Week 8 AP poll goes Miami, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Georgia, BYU, Indiana, UCLA, Utah, Kentucky and Texas. It has Alabama 11th, Texas Tech 12th, Wake Forest 13th, Ole Miss 14th, LSU 15th, Florida 16th, Tennessee 17th, Boise State 18th, Missouri 19th and SMU 20th, with Northwestern, Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma State and Wisconsin rounding out the 25. It projects Iowa and USC out. The real poll was not out at press time.

ESPN’s committee projection goes Miami, Ohio State, Georgia, BYU, Notre Dame, Indiana, Utah, UCLA, Kentucky, Texas, Ole Miss and LSU, with LSU bumped out of the bracket by Boise State. Its byes go to Miami, Ohio State, Georgia and BYU. CBS’s bowl projection seeds Miami, Georgia, Utah and Ohio State first through fourth, then UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana, BYU, LSU, Texas and Notre Dame, with Boise State 12th. Last week we wrote that none of the three outside projections had Texas in its twelve. This week, both brackets do.

We differ from the outside view in three places. We have Kentucky 13th, where the poll projection and ESPN both have it ninth; the reason is above. We have Texas Tech tenth, where ESPN and CBS’s bowl projection both have it out of the field. And we have BYU ahead of Notre Dame, which ESPN does and the poll projection does not. Our top eight is the same as ESPN’s, in the same order.

FPI’s October 25th run has Ohio State first, then Notre Dame, Miami, Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, LSU, Texas, Ole Miss and Utah. It is lower than we are on BYU, at 15th, and UCLA, at 31st. It also has Kentucky 24th and Boise State 32nd. As we have said before, FPI rates how good a team is likely to be from here, and we give more weight to the results a team already has. SP+, updated Sunday, has Ohio State first, then Georgia, Notre Dame, LSU, Miami, Indiana, Alabama, Texas, Texas Tech and Utah. Its résumé rating, which compares each margin to what an average top-five team would be expected to do, has Miami first, then Notre Dame, Ohio State, Utah, UCLA, Georgia, Indiana, LSU, Alabama and Northwestern. The biggest disagreements with us are LSU, fourth in SP+ and 15th here; UCLA, 17th in SP+ though fifth in résumé; BYU, 13th in SP+ and 12th in résumé; and Kentucky, 32nd in SP+ and 17th in résumé. Northwestern, our first team out, is 20th in SP+ and tenth in résumé, ahead of BYU, Wake Forest and Texas.

The first College Football Playoff committee ranking comes out Tuesday, November 3rd. ESPN’s projection above is the best guide to what it will look like. Next week we will set our ranking next to the committee’s.

The Playoff Field

Each number is our estimate of a team’s chance of making the 12-team College Football Playoff, and the Change column is against August. The week-over-week moves are below.

Texas gains 20 points, to 60, the biggest gain on the board this week. It is the only team with three wins over teams in our top 14, and both bracket projections we track now have it in. FPI gives it 57.4 percent. A week ago we wrote that Texas could not lose a third game and stay in the conversation. It did not lose, and it is back in it. Utah gains 16, to 64, for the first win on its schedule over a team with a winning record, and because it is now the only unbeaten team in the Big 12. LSU also gains 16, to 40, for its best performance of the season, with Alabama and Texas both coming to Baton Rouge. Kentucky gains 14, to 48, and UCLA gains ten, to 52; both are unbeaten or one-loss teams that won while the teams around them lost. Alabama gains eight, to 58, for a win that keeps it ahead of Kentucky in the margin chain and in front of the trip to LSU. Wake Forest gains eight, to 26, without playing, as the second-best team in a league whose champion is guaranteed a spot. Georgia, Notre Dame and Indiana each gain four, and Miami two.

Texas Tech gives back 18 points, to 44. Its best path was always the Big 12 title, and it now has a league loss and a résumé ESPN has left out of the field. Tennessee gives back 16, to 28, for losing to a 4-3 team a week after beating Alabama, with Kentucky and LSU still to come. BYU gives back ten, to 56. The Notre Dame win keeps it in ESPN’s field, but it now likely has to win at Utah to get there. Houston also gives back ten, to 14. Ole Miss gives back eight, to 36, which is light for a loss because it lost to a team ranked ahead of it, on the road, after a comeback.

Ohio State gives back six, to 76, without playing. That is the Sayin news. The Buckeyes are still the second-best team in our ranking and still control their path, but they now go to USC, host Oregon and play Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan with a freshman or a sophomore at quarterback. FPI has not moved them down; it gives Ohio State 90.9 percent. ESPN says the committee will not judge the Buckeyes until it sees them without Sayin, which starts Saturday night.

Florida joins the table at 14 and Missouri at six, both from the field. Iowa, at 24 a week ago, and USC, at 18, fall into the field. The field drops from 1.54 to 1.40. It takes on Iowa and USC at much lower numbers than they had, and it loses value as Oregon, Mississippi State and Pittsburgh all lost again. It now holds Northwestern, Arizona, SMU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, USC and Oregon. The Group of Six line drops slightly, to 1.10, because the only team that could have pushed a second Group of Six bid into the conversation, an unbeaten James Madison, lost. The next section explains how the line divides.

The 19 teams in the table sum to 9.50. With the Group of Six line and the field, the total is twelve.

The Group of Six Race

One playoff spot goes to the highest-ranked conference champion outside the power conferences, and a week ago it had no clear favorite. It has one now. James Madison lost on Thursday, Boise State won on Saturday, and ESPN’s committee projection, CBS’s bowl projection and FPI all now put Boise State in the field.

Records against ranked teams count teams ranked when the game was played. FPI ranks are from its October 25th run, and each playoff number is FPI’s estimate of that team’s chance of making the 12-team field. SP+ and résumé SP+ ranks are from Bill Connelly’s October 25th update.

Who is best. FPI’s answer has not changed. It rates Boise State about three and a half points better than New Mexico on a neutral field and about six better than James Madison. A week ago SP+ went the other way, with James Madison 28th, New Mexico 30th and Boise 37th. SP+ now has James Madison 29th and Boise State 30th, both at 10.9, with New Mexico down to 37th. Its résumé rating has Boise first in the group, 19th, just ahead of New Mexico at 20th. Boise also has the best results in the group: its only loss is by seven at Oregon, and it has won six straight, including at Fresno State and by 25 over Western Michigan.

Who is likeliest to get the spot. Boise State, and it is no longer close. FPI gives the Broncos a 47.6 percent chance of making the playoff, more than twice anyone else in the group. The case is the schedule as much as the team. Boise has the best win available to it still ahead, Oregon State on the blue turf on November 14th, and a Pac-12 title would come with a résumé no other Group of Six champion can match. The one thing that could change it is that game. Oregon State is also 3-0 in the league.

Who else. New Mexico is 6-1 and alone in first in the Mountain West at 3-0 after beating North Dakota State, and FPI gives it a 69.8 percent chance of winning the league. Its only loss is 14-6 at Oklahoma. UTSA is 7-1, 4-0 in the American and has won five straight, and FPI gives it a 16.0 percent chance of making the playoff, the third-best in the group, almost entirely on its record. Its only loss is to Texas. James Madison is 7-1 and still leads the Sun Belt East at 4-1, but it has not played a ranked team, and now it does not have an unbeaten record to stand on. Liberty is 6-1 and level with Jacksonville State at 3-0 in Conference USA.

We now put Boise State’s share of our 1.10 at about 0.55, roughly half. New Mexico is about 0.20, UTSA about 0.12, James Madison and Oregon State about 0.08 each, and the rest about 0.07. A week ago it was about 0.40 for James Madison and 0.36 for Boise. This week Texas State goes to Boise on Saturday night, Oregon State plays at Fresno State, New Mexico goes to San José State, and James Madison hosts Troy on Thursday. UTSA is off.

Conference Projections

Each number is our estimate of a team’s chance of winning its conference.

ACC. Miami 75 (up 2), Wake Forest 11, SMU 7 (up 1), Virginia Tech 4, Pitt 1 (down 1), Duke 1, field 1 (down 2). Miami is 5-0 in the league and gets North Carolina on Saturday. SMU is 4-1 after a 39-point win over Cal. Pitt has lost three straight. The field shrinks because North Carolina lost at home to Syracuse and Clemson lost to Virginia Tech. Wake Forest was off. FPI has Miami at 82.1 percent, Wake Forest at 10.4 and SMU at 5.9.

SEC. Georgia 40, Kentucky 15 (up 5), Alabama 12 (up 3), Ole Miss 8 (down 5), LSU 7 (up 2), Texas 6 (up 2), Tennessee 5 (down 7), Florida 2, Missouri 2, field 3. Kentucky is 5-1 in the league and Georgia 4-1, and those are the only two teams with one league loss. Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, Tennessee and Florida all have two. Kentucky’s number trails Georgia’s by this much because Kentucky still goes to Tennessee and Missouri and hosts Florida, and because Alabama holds the tiebreaker over it. Tennessee loses the most because it lost to a 4-3 team and still has Kentucky and LSU to play. FPI has Georgia at 46.6 percent, Alabama at 15.9, LSU at 9.9, Texas at 7.3 and Kentucky at 6.9.

Big Ten. Ohio State 44 (down 6), Indiana 26 (up 4), UCLA 16 (up 4), Wisconsin 3 (up 2), Northwestern 2 (new), Iowa 2 (down 3), Oregon 1 (down 3), USC 1 (down 2), Nebraska 1, field 4 (up 2). Ohio State is 4-0 and still holds the tiebreaker over Indiana, but it loses six points for the same reason it loses them in the playoff table. UCLA is 5-0, the only unbeaten team in the league, and its schedule does not include Ohio State or Indiana. Northwestern comes out of the field at 3-1. The field grows because Minnesota beat Iowa and Illinois beat Oregon. FPI has Ohio State at 59.1 percent, Indiana at 32.2 and UCLA at 5.1.

Big 12. Utah 40 (up 13), BYU 23 (down 4), Texas Tech 20 (down 11), Arizona 6 (up 4), Houston 4 (down 4), Oklahoma State 3 (up 2), Baylor 1 (down 1), field 3 (up 1). Utah is 4-0 and alone in first. BYU, Texas Tech, Arizona and Oklahoma State are all 3-1. Texas Tech loses more than BYU because BYU still controls a path through Salt Lake City and Texas Tech, which plays neither BYU nor Utah, now needs help. Arizona goes to Lubbock on Saturday. Cincinnati, in the field, gets Utah on Saturday and Houston after that. FPI has Utah at 34.7 percent, BYU at 22.0, Texas Tech at 17.6 and Arizona at 10.2.

Pac-12. Boise State 68 (up 4), Oregon State 20, Fresno State 4 (down 3), Texas State 4 (up 2), Washington State 1 (down 3), San Diego State 1, Utah State 1, Colorado State 1. Boise State and Oregon State are both 3-0, and Oregon State was off. Fresno State has lost two straight. Washington State is 0-4. FPI has Boise State at 64.5 percent and Oregon State at 29.5.

Conference Overviews

The order holds for an eighth week: the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC, the Pac-12, the American, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt and the MAC. FPI’s October 25th run has ten SEC teams in its top 25, six from the Big Ten, five from the Big 12 and three from the ACC, plus Notre Dame. That is one fewer Big Ten team than a week ago, after Iowa and USC lost. SP+’s top 25 has eight Big Ten teams, seven from the SEC, six from the Big 12 and three from the ACC, plus Notre Dame. Kentucky, 32nd, is not in it.

The SEC has two teams with one league loss and five with two. Kentucky is 5-1 and Georgia 4-1. Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, Tennessee and Florida all have two, and Texas and Missouri are 2-2. ESPN’s committee projection has five SEC teams in its twelve and none in its top two. Saturday reshuffled the middle again: Texas beat Ole Miss, South Carolina beat Tennessee for its second straight win over a ranked team, and LSU and Alabama both won after losing streaks. Texas A&M is 1-4 in the league a year after reaching the playoff. Georgia and Florida meet in Atlanta on Saturday. Alabama, LSU, Kentucky and Tennessee are all off, and they play each other in some combination on November 7th.

The Big Ten has one unbeaten team, UCLA, and Ohio State is 4-0 behind it. Indiana is 4-1. Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin are all 3-1, and Minnesota now has wins over Iowa and Michigan in the same season for the first time since 2014. Wisconsin beat USC and has a path to the title game that runs through Iowa, Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue and Minnesota. Oregon, a preseason No. 2 team, is 4-3 after losing 21-10 at Illinois, and CBS calls its season a failure. Michigan is 1-3 in the league, Penn State 0-4 and Michigan State 0-5. Ohio State plays at USC on Saturday night.

The Big 12 went from three unbeaten teams to one. Utah is 4-0, and BYU, Texas Tech, Arizona and Oklahoma State are all 3-1. CBS’s view is that the league wasted its chance at three playoff teams in one afternoon, and ESPN says the runner-up’s case is now harder to make. Cincinnati, 5-2, beat Texas Tech and gets Utah and Houston next, and CBS calls it the league’s agent of chaos. Arizona has won five straight and goes to Texas Tech. Baylor’s loss to Kansas ended a 14-game winning streak in the series, and CBS writes that Dave Aranda’s tenure is over in all but name.

The ACC has Miami and then a three-way race for the other spot in the title game. Miami is 5-0, and SMU and Wake Forest are 4-1 and play each other in November. Virginia Tech is 3-2 after beating Clemson for the first time since 2007, and CBS notes James Franklin has the Hokies bowl-eligible in his first season. NC State fired Dave Doeren after losing at Stanford, which is 4-4. North Carolina lost at home to Syracuse, Duke won 19-16 at Virginia on a trick-play touchdown pass with 1:14 left, and Pitt has lost three straight. Florida State is 1-3 in the league and hosts Clemson on Saturday.

The Pac-12 is still the best of the group. Its average team rates higher in FPI than any league below it, at about 2.6 points below average to the American’s 6.1. Its median team is now essentially tied with the American’s, about four points below average in each. FPI has Boise State 32nd and Oregon State 49th, and no other league in the group has two teams in the top 50. Three of its eight teams are now below 100th, up from two. Boise State and Oregon State are both 3-0 and meet on November 14th. SP+ differs on one point: it also has two Mountain West teams in its top 50, New Mexico 37th and North Dakota State 42nd, to go with Boise State 30th and Oregon State 50th. It puts four Pac-12 teams below 100th.

The American has UTSA at 4-0 and North Texas at 3-0, with Army 4-1 and Memphis 3-1. UTSA is 7-1 after winning at Tulane, and FPI gives it a 16.0 percent chance of making the playoff, the best in the league by a wide margin. FPI still makes North Texas a slight favorite to win the league, at 35.0 percent to UTSA’s 32.7. Memphis needed overtime to beat East Carolina on Thursday. The league still has no team in FPI’s top 50, and five of its 14 teams are below 100th. UTSA is off this week.

The Mountain West has New Mexico alone at 3-0 after its 21-16 win over North Dakota State, and FPI gives the Lobos a 69.8 percent chance of winning the league. Wyoming is 4-1 after beating Air Force 28-14, which ended Air Force’s four-game winning streak. North Dakota State and Air Force are both 3-2. New Mexico is 41st in FPI and the next team in the league is North Dakota State at 71st. Half of the league’s ten teams are below 100th. New Mexico goes to San José State on Saturday.

The Sun Belt lost its playoff candidate on Thursday night. James Madison still leads the East at 4-1, and FPI gives it an 84.9 percent chance of winning the division, but its playoff chance fell from 44.3 percent to 7.5. Louisiana Tech leads the West at 3-0. The next Sun Belt team in FPI after James Madison is Louisiana Tech, at 77th, and six of the league’s 14 teams are below 100th. App State, which beat James Madison, is 2-1 and goes to Georgia Southern. James Madison hosts Troy on Thursday.

The MAC is still last by a wide margin. Ohio is alone at 4-0, with Toledo, Western Michigan, Buffalo and Miami (Ohio) all 3-1 behind it. Toledo beat Western Michigan 45-38, and FPI now rates Toledo the best team in the league, at 79th, and makes it a slight favorite to win the league over Western Michigan, 35.4 percent to 35.1. Ten of the 13 teams are below 100th in FPI, and no MAC team has as much as a 1 percent chance of making the playoff.

The Week 9 Board

All times Eastern. All games are Saturday, October 31st. Kickoff times and sites are from CBS’s schedule. Spreads and totals are from DraftKings, and percentages are from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor; each percentage is the favorite’s chance of winning. Notre Dame and Navy play at Gillette Stadium, with Navy as the designated home team, and Florida and Georgia play at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Rankings are CBS’s projection of the post-Week 8 AP poll; the real poll was not out at press time. The market and the Match-Up Predictor have the same favorite in all six games. The biggest gap in degree is in Los Angeles, where ESPN gives Ohio State an 82.8 percent chance of winning a game the market makes a seven-point spread. A seven-point favorite usually wins about seven times in ten. That gap is most likely the market pricing Sayin’s absence more heavily than the model does. SP+ has the same favorite in all six. Its ratings make Notre Dame about 27 points better on a neutral field, Texas Tech about five at home, Ole Miss about 11, Georgia about 16 and a half, Ohio State about 12 and Miami about 18 and a half. It is below the line only on Notre Dame and Ole Miss, and like FPI, it rates Ohio State well above seven, from ratings built almost entirely on games Sayin started.

Predictions

Notre Dame 42, Navy 10. ESPN gives Notre Dame a 98.7 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about 34 points on a neutral field. SP+ makes it about 27. The line is 30.5. Navy is 2-5 and has lost two straight, and Notre Dame’s defense allows 13.4 points a game, which ESPN calls by far the best of the one-loss teams it compared. The worry with a number this big is the clock: Navy runs it, and a game with fewer possessions is harder to win by five touchdowns. Notre Dame has also not played since losing at BYU. We think Notre Dame wins easily and just gets there. Notre Dame wins and covers. Under.

What it means. Notre Dame has no conference title game, so its margin for error is Miami on November 7th and SMU on November 21st. Losing this game would end any argument for a bye and probably for the field. CBS’s bowl projection already has the Irish as the last team in. Winning it changes nothing, which is the point.

Texas Tech 28, Arizona 24. ESPN gives Texas Tech a 67.1 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about six points in Lubbock. SP+ makes it about five. The line is 4.5. These are two teams going opposite ways. Arizona has won five straight, Noah Fifita has thrown for at least 275 yards and two touchdowns in five straight games, and the defense held Iowa State to 1.7 yards a carry. Its only loss is in overtime at BYU. Texas Tech just gave up 252 rushing yards at Cincinnati, committed 12 penalties and turned it over three times. We expect Texas Tech to win at home, because the Red Raiders were 18-2 since the start of last season before Saturday and their defense is still the best Arizona will have seen. Both models have Texas Tech covering, SP+ by less than a point. We do not think it is by more than four. Texas Tech wins, Arizona covers. Under.

What it means. Both teams are 3-1 in the Big 12, a game behind Utah. The loser has two league losses with Utah, BYU and Oklahoma State all ahead of it, and for Texas Tech that would end the title-game path and the playoff with it. McGuire said after the loss that his team has to win out. A Texas Tech win keeps that possible, with Oklahoma State in Stillwater on November 14th the next hard game. An Arizona win would make the Wildcats the most likely Big 12 team to face Utah or BYU in Arlington, and would put a third team in the conversation for a second bid.

Ole Miss 34, Auburn 23. ESPN gives Ole Miss a 74.9 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about nine points in Oxford. SP+ makes it about 11. The line is 11.5, so the market is more confident than both of these. Auburn beat Georgia two weeks ago and then lost by 21 at LSU, where Byrum Brown was sacked six times and the Tigers never got their running game started. Ole Miss has a defense ESPN describes as the weak point of the team, with 70 missed tackles this season, and it played without Kewan Lacy for most of Saturday. Chambliss brought Ole Miss back from 21 down in Austin. We think he is enough at home, and that Auburn scores enough to stay inside the number. Ole Miss wins, Auburn covers. Over.

What it means. Ole Miss is 3-2 in the SEC, and a third loss would end its playoff case. ESPN calls the November 7th game against Georgia the Rebels’ last chance at a ranked opponent, and a loss before it would leave them needing to win that one. For Auburn, this is the fourth ranked opponent in a row, and a loss would drop it to 4-4.

Georgia 31, Florida 20. ESPN gives Georgia an 82.1 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about 12 points on a neutral field. SP+ makes it about 16 and a half. The line is 10.5. Georgia has had two weeks to recover from the Auburn loss, and Gunner Stockton, KJ Bolden and Nate Frazier all had two weeks to heal. Florida has had the same two weeks. It is the only team to have beaten both Texas and Ole Miss, and the defense that was last in the SEC when it went to Austin sacked Arch Manning five times. The thing to watch during the week is Florida’s quarterback. Aaron Philo was hurt against Texas, and Tramell Jones Jr. won that game in relief. Georgia scored 20 at Alabama and 24 at home against Auburn, its last two games. We think Georgia’s defense keeps Florida from making this a shootout, and that Georgia is the better team by more than ten. Georgia wins and covers. Under.

What it means. Georgia is 4-1 in the SEC and Kentucky is 5-1. A Georgia win keeps them the only two one-loss teams in the league, ahead of the November 7th trip to Ole Miss. A loss would give Georgia two league losses, put it in the pile with Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, Tennessee and Florida, and leave Kentucky alone in first. ESPN points out that the head-to-head here could be what separates two-loss teams in the committee’s meeting room. In the playoff, Georgia can absorb a loss more easily than most, because of the Alabama win. It would still cost it a bye.

Florida has already beaten two teams that were in the top ten when it played them. A win would give the Gators wins over Texas, Ole Miss and Georgia, the best three-win set in the country, with Oklahoma, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Florida State left. They would move into our playoff table well above 14. A loss leaves them at 5-3 with their best case already made.

Ohio State 23, USC 17. ESPN gives Ohio State an 82.8 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about 13 points in Los Angeles. SP+ makes it about 12. The line is seven. Both models have Ohio State covering, but both are built almost entirely on games Sayin started. Ohio State has not named a starter, and its freshman, Luke Fahey, has thrown two meaningful passes this season, both incomplete at Indiana. What Ohio State has is a defense allowing 13.4 points a game, fifth in the country according to SB Nation’s Land-Grant Holy Land, against a USC offense that just ran for minus-17 yards and turned it over twice in the first half. USC’s scoring defense ranks 80th, which is the opening for whoever starts. We think the Buckeyes win the way they won at Iowa and Indiana, with defense and Jeremiah Smith. We do not think a young quarterback on the road at night wins by more than a touchdown. Ohio State wins, USC covers. Under.

What it means. This is the first time the committee sees Ohio State without Sayin, and it comes three days before the first ranking. A win, by any margin, keeps the Buckeyes 5-0 in the league with Oregon coming to Columbus. We said a week ago that if Ohio State lost one of these two games, we would move it then, and we will. A loss would also drop the Buckeyes into a tie with Indiana in the loss column, though they hold the tiebreaker, and would leave UCLA alone in first. For USC, already out of our ranking, a third loss would end its playoff hopes two weeks before it goes to Indiana.

Miami 38, North Carolina 17. ESPN gives Miami an 89.8 percent chance of winning, and FPI’s ratings make it about 18 points in Chapel Hill. SP+ makes it about 18 and a half. The line is 16.5. North Carolina is 4-3 and lost at home to Syracuse on Saturday, and CBS writes that it is fighting for bowl eligibility. Billy Edwards Jr. has played well at home this year, and Bill Belichick has won as a road underdog more than once. But Miami has scored at least 41 points in five games, Mensah and Toney are the best quarterback-receiver pair in the country, and North Carolina has not shown it can stop either. We think Miami wins comfortably and scores enough to get the game over the total. Miami wins and covers. Over.

What it means. Miami’s playoff spot does not depend on this game. ESPN’s point is that the Hurricanes would get in as ACC champions even if they lose at Notre Dame. What this game decides is whether Miami goes to South Bend unbeaten. A loss would put Miami in the loss column with SMU and Wake Forest, and it would make the November 7th game a playoff elimination game for both teams instead of a seeding game. That is two straight road games for Miami, and ESPN expects Notre Dame to be the last ranked team the Hurricanes see before the ACC title game.

That is six favorites straight up, three favorites and three underdogs against the number, and four unders.

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It is also the matchup our playoff preview pointed toward. Both teams earned byes with bottom-half payrolls, top-four farm systems and run prevention that ranked among the best in the field. And Birdland has a rooting interest on both sides: DL Hall pitches out of Milwaukee’s bullpen, while Bryan Baker, Tyler Wells, Jorge Mateo, and Cedric Mullins are with Tampa Bay.

How they got here

Rays: 7-2 this postseason. Tampa Bay swept the Yankees in the Division Series, allowing just 12 hits in three games, and Bryan Baker saved all three. Victor Mesa Jr.’s two-run homer in Game 3 at Yankee Stadium sent them on. The ALCS was harder. Cleveland won Game 1 7-3 and Game 3 3-2 at Progressive Field, and the Rays’ bats were quiet through three games. Then Tampa Bay won both remaining games in Cleveland and closed it out 7-3 at the Trop on Monday. Freddy Peralta won two games and was named ALCS MVP, and Junior Caminero’s first career postseason homer, a two-run shot off the foul pole against Cade Smith, broke Game 6 open (Yahoo Sports).

Brewers: 7-1 this postseason. Milwaukee beat San Diego in four Division Series games. Jackson Chourio became the franchise’s career leader in postseason RBIs at 22, and Garrett Mitchell robbed Manny Machado of a tying homer in the eighth inning of the clincher. Then came the rematch with the Dodgers, who had swept the Brewers in last year’s NLCS. Milwaukee returned the favor, rallying from 4-0 down in Game 4 to win 6-4 at Dodger Stadium. It was the first time the Dodgers had been swept in a best-of-seven since the 1966 World Series against the Orioles. Jake Bauers drove in six runs and was named NLCS MVP (FOX6).

How our bracket held up

That’s eight of 10 series winners, including all four Wild Card Series and the White Sox upset. The miss was the AL: we trusted the Yankees’ rotation over the Rays, and Tampa Bay swept them. Our champion is still standing.

Why these two

Three weeks ago we wrote that October can’t be bought, at least not the easy way. This World Series is the proof. Tampa Bay opened the season with a $90 million payroll and Milwaukee with $125 million, according to USA Today’s Opening Day figures, both less than the Orioles’ $170 million. They eliminated the Yankees ($301 million) and the Dodgers ($322 million) along the way.

What they have instead is the formula the preview’s numbers kept pointing to:

• Run prevention. Milwaukee allowed 3.81 runs per game and Tampa Bay 4.01, both well under the 4.48 MLB average, with ERA+ marks of 120 and 115.
• Farm systems that feed the big-league roster. Across the last four MLB Pipeline rankings, the Rays’ average rank was 2.75 and the Brewers’ 10.5, two of the four best in the field. Milwaukee’s rotation is built around homegrown arms in Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson, and Tampa Bay’s lineup around Caminero.
• Contact over slug. Neither lineup hits for big power. The Brewers hit the fewest homers in MLB and the Rays slugged .402, right at league average. Both get on base, put the ball in play and run.
• The toughest schedules. Each came out of the best division in its league. The AL East went .558 against everyone else, the NL Central .538.

The preview also flagged a warning on Tampa Bay: its league-best defensive efficiency masked below-average fielding by other measures. The metrics still disagree. The Rays’ infield ranks second in MLB in defensive runs saved (+58) but 27th in outs above average (-30), largely because of Taylor Walls and Junior Caminero, who was -14 OAA in April and May and +4 since. The simplest number favors Tampa Bay: it allowed an MLB-low .213 average on ground balls. The Brewers’ infield is +36 DRS, +8 OAA and .227 on grounders (CBS Sports).

The connections

These two front offices know each other well. Rasmussen debuted with the Brewers and was the headliner in the trade that sent Willy Adames to Milwaukee. Peralta pitched eight seasons for Milwaukee. NLCS MVP Jake Bauers began his career as a Rays prospect, and Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold spent nine seasons in Tampa Bay’s front office (MLB.com). Even the managers fit the theme: Kevin Cash is the longest-tenured manager in baseball and led the Rays to the 2020 World Series, while Pat Murphy has won Manager of the Year in both of his full seasons and has already outmaneuvered Craig Stammen and Dave Roberts this month.

Tale of the tape

On paper, Milwaukee has the edge almost everywhere that counts. It scored nearly 100 more runs, allowed fewer, and its run differential per game was more than twice Tampa Bay’s, even after adjusting for schedule. The NL also won the interleague series 381-334 this year, which suggests the Brewers’ numbers came against tougher competition. The biggest single gap may be on the bases: both teams run equally well, but the Brewers allowed 60 fewer steals, and runners succeeded 85% of the time against Rays catcher Liam Hicks. Tampa Bay’s counters are a deeper farm system, the best ground-ball defense in baseball and a rotation that has been the best of the postseason (Baseball-Reference, CBS Sports).

Tampa Bay Rays

The rotation has been the best of the postseason. Drew Rasmussen leads all playoff pitchers with 21 innings and a 1.29 ERA, starting with eight scoreless, 10-strikeout innings against the Yankees in which he carried a no-hitter into the eighth (ESPN). After pitching Game 5 of the ALCS, he lines up for Game 2, which likely puts All-Star Nick Martinez (3.10 ERA in 180 innings) opposite Misiorowski in Game 1 and ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta in Game 3 at the Trop. Peralta is the series’ best storyline: he spent eight seasons in Milwaukee (70-42, 3.59 ERA), was traded to the Mets last winter, struggled there, and was flipped to Tampa Bay at the deadline. He has allowed two runs in 16⅔ postseason innings, according to Yahoo Sports. Shane McClanahan (forearm) is out for the year.

The staff also has a trick no one else is using. The Rays throw more offspeed pitches than any team (21.8%) and throw them to same-handed hitters at 28.6%, against a league average of about 11%, holding hitters to a .211 wOBA on those pitches (DRaysBay).

The bullpen is thinner than it looks. Closer Bryan Baker is 5-for-5 in saves with seven scoreless innings, but his fastball has dropped from 96.3 mph in the regular season to 93.4 in the ALCS (CBS Sports). The bridge to him has been shaky: Ian Seymour walked in a run and hit a batter with the bases loaded in Game 6. Cam Booser, Kevin Kelly and ex-Oriole Tyler Wells, who struck out the side in ALCS Game 3, are the setup men, and hard-throwing rookie Brody Hopkins is an unused wild card.

The lineup wins with pressure, not power. Tampa Bay has hit only six homers this postseason. It struck out less than any team during the season, led MLB in bunt hits (49) and sacrifice bunts (45), and Chandler Simpson led baseball with 42 infield hits. Yandy Díaz has more hits than anyone this October and added a two-run homer in the clincher. Richie Palacios is 8-for-22. Caminero, though, is hitting .233/.303/.333 with one homer, even if he has hit several balls 110 mph or harder.

The concern: Velocity. The Rays had the second-lowest OPS in MLB on fastballs of 98 mph or harder, and Milwaukee’s average fastball this postseason is 98.3 mph. Jonathan Aranda hit .091 against those pitches during the season. Add the preview’s finding that Tampa Bay was one of the six weakest lineups against lefties, and Aaron Ashby and DL Hall look like problems.

Milwaukee Brewers

The ace is the question. Jacob Misiorowski finished the regular season atop the leaderboards in ERA (1.80), WHIP (0.80) and strikeouts (252), but he hasn’t lasted five innings in either postseason start. His swinging-strike rate has fallen from 19.1% to 11.5%, his spin rate is down, and he has thrown 183 innings in his first full big-league season (ESPN). He’ll have 11 days off before Game 1, which may help. Logan Henderson, whom Milwaukee refused to trade in the Skubal talks, follows him, then Robert Gasser, who was sharp in NLCS Game 3. Game 4 projects as a bullpen game. Brandon Woodruff, out since July 4 with a shoulder injury, has thrown a high-intensity bullpen session and could be added to the roster (Brew Crew Ball).

The bullpen has carried them. Every one of Milwaukee’s seven postseason wins has been credited to a reliever. Since the LCS began in 1969, no team has reached the World Series without a starter getting a win. The top four of Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and ex-Oriole DL Hall have a 0.61 ERA in 29⅔ innings. Ashby has been historic: 12⅓ scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts, including the final three innings of the pennant clincher (Brew Crew Ball).

The lineup grinds, and now it slugs. The Brewers had the lowest chase rate in baseball, drew the second-most walks and hit .276 with runners in scoring position, best in the majors. After tying for the second-fewest homers in the regular season, they have hit 10 in eight playoff games (MLB.com). William Contreras has three of them and a 1.157 OPS, best of any LCS hitter. Bauers was the NLCS MVP after a 12-pitch walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto and an 11th-pitch homer off Blake Snell. Brice Turang broke out against the Dodgers, and Garrett Mitchell has been the October surprise. Jackson Chourio has delivered big hits but is batting .171.

The concern: Innings. If Misiorowski and Henderson can’t get 15 outs apiece, the bullpen will again carry most of the load. Milwaukee has already won six games it trailed, a record for the first eight games of a postseason, but even the best bullpens wear down. Uribe struggled in his last NLCS outing after pitching in each of the first seven games.

Keys to the series

1. Strike-throwers vs. the most patient lineup in baseball. The Rays had the lowest walk rate in MLB and the second-highest first-pitch strike rate, and the Brewers had the lowest chase rate and swung less than any team. Whichever side bends first in long counts likely wins the close games.
2. High-leverage moments. During the season, the Rays were baseball’s best high-leverage pitching staff, and the Brewers were the best high-leverage hitting team (ESPN). With postseason teams averaging just 3.5 runs a game, those are the at-bats that will decide it.
3. The bridge to Baker. Milwaukee’s bullpen is deeper. If the Brewers can reach Tampa Bay’s middle relief, or Baker’s fading fastball, they have the edge late.
4. Small ball and the running game. These were the two best bunting and infield-hit teams in baseball. Milwaukee’s young infield, especially rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt, will be tested, while the Brewers should run freely on Rays catchers.
5. The middle games at the Trop. Games 3, 4 and 5 are in St. Petersburg, where the Rays went 55-26. Tampa Bay needs to leave Milwaukee with at least one win to make that count, likely with Martinez or Rasmussen.

Schedule, TV and odds

Milwaukee has home-field advantage after finishing with the best record in baseball. Every game starts at 8 p.m. ET on FOX and streams on FOX ONE (MLB.com).

*If necessary

The books and the models like Milwaukee. FanDuel has the Brewers at -172 to win the series and the Rays at +148, which works out to roughly a 63% to 40% split before the sportsbook’s margin. ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle, whose 10,000-simulation model we cited in the playoff preview, is a little closer at 59% to 41% (ESPN). Four of CBS Sports’ five experts picked Milwaukee, two in six games and two in seven, with Kate Feldman taking the Rays in seven (CBS Sports).

The MVP board leans Milwaukee too. William Contreras (+600) and Jackson Chourio (+650) are the favorites, followed by Junior Caminero (+850), Yandy Díaz and Brice Turang (+950 each), and Jacob Misiorowski and Jake Bauers (+1000). Freddy Peralta, the ALCS MVP, is a long shot at +3000, and Aaron Ashby, despite his historic run, is +4500 (FanDuel). For perspective, both teams were long shots last winter, when DraftKings opened the Brewers at +2000 and the Rays at +5000 (CBS Sports). Odds are as of Oct. 20 and will move.

Our pick: Brewers in 6

We picked Milwaukee to win it all on Sept. 28th, and nothing since has changed our mind. The Brewers have the better run differential, home field, a lineup that has found its power, and a bullpen that just shut down the Dodgers for four straight games. They came out of the stronger league and the deeper division, and the schedule adjustment barely dented their numbers.

The case for Tampa Bay is real, and it starts where Milwaukee is weakest. The Rays’ rotation has been the best of the postseason, while Misiorowski and Henderson have yet to work deep into games. Peralta and Rasmussen both know this Brewers organization from the inside, and three games at the Trop give Tampa Bay a genuine edge in the middle of the series. As our preview’s series math showed, even a team that wins 60% of its games against an opponent takes a best-of-seven only about 71% of the time, and this one is closer than that.

So: Brewers in 6. Milwaukee wins Games 1 and 2 at home, the Rays take two of three at the Trop with Peralta leading the way, and the Brewers’ bullpen closes it out back at American Family Field. One way or the other, a franchise gets its first title, and the two cheapest roads to October end in the same place.

The post 2026 World Series Preview: Rays vs. Brewers appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

The 49ers are 6-0 after holding off Washington on Monday night, and the Chiefs and Vikings are the only other unbeaten teams. Seven underdogs won outright, including Arizona at 12.5 points in Los Angeles and Tennessee at 7 in Indianapolis, for the Titans’ first win. Jalen Hurts is expected to miss the rest of the season with blood clots in his lungs, and the Colts fired general manager Chris Ballard.

FTN’s defensive DVOA returns to the defensive line table this week. The quarterback list returns after Week 8.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Week 6 Recap

Seven of 14 games went to the underdog outright, including Arizona at 12.5 points and Tennessee at 7.

Lines are the ones we published before each game.

Broncos 17, Seahawks 14 (OT, Thursday)

Box score · Line: Seahawks -3, 40.5 · Our pick: Seahawks

Expected: Both teams were on a short week. Seattle’s backfield had been fumbling, and Charbonnet was out. Denver was without Surtain and, we expected, Riley Moss.

What decided it: Denver’s pass rush, and Seattle’s quarterback giving the ball away. The Broncos sacked Sam Darnold five times and hit him 17 times, and forced three turnovers. Ja’Quan McMillian intercepted Darnold on Seattle’s first overtime possession, and Wil Lutz kicked the 53-yard winner. Seattle’s one fumble came from a receiver, not the backfield: Nik Bonitto punched the ball from Rashid Shaheed. Denver won with 168 yards to Seattle’s 353; Bo Nix went 17 of 27 for 107. Seattle scored the last 11 points of regulation and tied it on Jason Myers’ 34-yarder with 3 seconds left. Denver played without Surtain and safety Talanoa Hufanga, both inactive; Moss was not among the inactives.

Texans 34, Jaguars 31 (London)

Box score · Line: Jaguars -3, 42.5 · Our pick: Jaguars

Expected: Jacksonville’s red zone after 0 for 3 against the Eagles, against DeMeco Ryans’ defense; Anton Harrison’s knee; Marvin Harrison Jr.’s Houston debut; David Montgomery’s groin.

What decided it: Jacksonville fixed its red zone, and Ryans’ defense still didn’t hold. Trevor Lawrence threw four touchdown passes, and Houston allowed 30 points for the third time this season in Ryans’ first game back calling the defense. The Texans didn’t sack Lawrence once. C.J. Stroud threw three touchdowns, two to Foster Moreau. A too-many-men penalty on a Houston punt, Jacksonville’s third straight week of costly flags, kept one scoring drive alive. Travis Hunter caught a touchdown and intercepted Stroud in the end zone, setting up Cam Little’s 60-yard tying field goal. Stroud answered with a drive to Ka’imi Fairbairn’s 49-yarder at the gun. Harrison caught three passes for 34 yards. With Montgomery inactive, Woody Marks ran for 56.

Bears 31, Falcons 23

Box score · Line: Bears -3, 49.5 · Our pick: Bears

Expected: Caleb Williams’ return and Michael Penix Jr.’s ribs; Atlanta’s run defense after Baltimore ran for 208. Flips if Williams sits or Penix plays.

What decided it: Williams. Penix played, so half our condition came true, but Williams more than offset it. He completed his first 12 passes and finished 30 of 36 for 305 yards, and Chicago held the ball for more than 40 minutes. Kyler Gordon, activated from the physically unable to perform list the day before, had three sacks and two forced fumbles, the last ending Atlanta’s comeback with 2:54 left. Rookie Zachariah Branch lost two fumbles on returns. Chicago led 31-7 before Penix’s late touchdowns. The Bears overcame 12 penalties for 133 yards.

Browns 13, Ravens 10

Box score · Line: Ravens -4.5, 40.5 · Our pick: Ravens

Expected: Lamar Jackson’s ankle; Cam Jurgens’ debut at center against Verse and possibly Mason Graham; Cleveland’s eight sacks allowed, Howard and Concepcion.

What decided it: Jackson didn’t play, and neither did Jurgens; Vega Ioane started at center for a third straight week. Baltimore led 10-0 in the first quarter on Tyler Huntley’s fourth-down touchdown pass to rookie tight end Josh Cuevas and a Tyler Loop field goal, then didn’t score again. Cleveland held Derrick Henry to 58 yards on 17 carries, and Carson Schwesinger forced his fumble at the Baltimore 35 with 12:45 left; Audric Estime scored the tying touchdown four minutes later. After going 1 for 9 on third down through three quarters, the Browns converted 5 of 8 in the fourth, and Andre Szmyt won it from 37 yards at the gun, after a Ravens block of his earlier try was wiped out by an offside penalty. Huntley finished 19 of 31 for 165 yards. Baltimore sacked Deshaun Watson five times, with Trey Hendrickson back from finger surgery, and the teams finished two yards apart, 237 to 235. (Our full review)

Titans 26, Colts 20

Box score · Line: Colts -7, 44.5 · Our pick: Colts

Expected: A Titans offense averaging 10.4 points against a Colts offense that settles for field goals.

What decided it: Both halves of that came true, and the Colts still lost. Indianapolis outgained Tennessee 232-64 in the first half but led only 13-0 after two field goals. The Titans’ offense scored one touchdown; defense and special teams did the rest. Jeffery Simmons forced a fumble on the first play of the second half. Chimere Dike’s 58-yard punt return set up the tying score, and Oluwafemi Oladejo returned a blocked punt for the lead. Joey Slye kicked four field goals. Daniel Jones threw two interceptions in scoring position. It was Robert Saleh’s first win in Tennessee, and the Colts fired general manager Chris Ballard on Monday.

Patriots 26, Jets 19

Box score · Line: Patriots -7, 43.5 · Our pick: Patriots

Expected: Bailey and the eight-sack front against a line possibly without Will Campbell; A.J. Brown’s possible return; New England’s thin cornerbacks.

What decided it: The Jets’ pass rush didn’t show up, and their offense stalled near the goal line. A week after eight sacks, New York had none, even as New England lost Morgan Moses, Alijah Vera-Tucker and Ben Brown to injuries during the game. Christian Gonzalez returned at cornerback, and the Patriots held the Jets to 0 for 3 in the red zone. Charles Woods intercepted Geno Smith in the fourth quarter, Smith’s first of the season. Drake Maye threw three touchdown passes. Brown’s return was rough: three catches for 27 yards on 10 targets, with three drops.

Saints 34, Giants 27

Box score · Line: Giants -1.5, 45.5 · Our pick: Giants

Expected: A Giants run defense allowing 5.19 a carry against a Saints offense held to 142 yards; New York’s kicking; Tyler Shough’s hand.

What decided it: One kickoff return. The Giants led 10-0 late in the first half. After Daniel Carlson’s 58-yard field goal, Isaiah Stalbird forced Charlie Jones to fumble the kickoff, and New Orleans scored 34 straight points. Martin Emerson intercepted Jameis Winston twice, and Winston was benched for J.J. McCarthy, whose fourth-down throw into the end zone fell incomplete in the final seconds. Shough threw three touchdown passes and ran for another; he says his broken hand affects only handoffs. Cam Skattebo didn’t get a carry, and the Giants’ backs totaled 34 yards. The model was right.

Panthers 25, Eagles 14

Box score · Line: Eagles -1.5, 41.5 · Our pick: Panthers

Expected: Carolina’s passing offense against an Eagles defense that fades late, behind an offense with the most three-and-outs; Ekwonu and Moton back.

What decided it: Both held, and Jalen Hurts’ absence made it easier. Philadelphia had 37 yards in the first quarter and punted on its first five drives, then was shut out in the third quarter; it has six third-quarter points all season. Carolina pulled away in the second half. Bryce Young threw for 281 yards and two touchdowns to Tommy Tremble, and Chuba Hubbard ran for 120, including a 19-yard run on fourth-and-1. Tanner McKee went 26 of 45 for 215 yards. Carolina won despite a franchise-record 13 penalties for 149 yards.

Steelers 26, Buccaneers 19 (OT)

Box score · Line: Steelers -3, 40.5 · Our pick: Steelers

Expected: Irving and a 241-yard run game against Pittsburgh’s run defense; Mayfield not back before Week 7.

What decided it: Pittsburgh took away the run, and Tampa Bay’s rookie quarterback couldn’t make up for it. With no ground game, Jalon Daniels dropped back about 50 times in his third start, went 22 of 43 for 164 yards and was sacked six times. His two fourth-quarter interceptions set up field goals as Pittsburgh came back from 16-3. Aaron Rodgers, sacked five times through three quarters, led four fourth-quarter scoring drives and threw the winner to rookie Germie Bernard with 3:15 left in overtime. That touchdown tied him with Peyton Manning for third all time. Jalen Ramsey’s fourth-down sack ended it.

Cardinals 18, Rams 16

Box score · Line: Rams -12.5, 52.5 · Our pick: Rams

Expected: Arizona’s league-worst 8.5 net yards per pass allowed; the Rams’ kicking.

What decided it: The Rams’ kicking, though not the way we expected. New kicker Blake Grupe hurt his knee making a tackle on a first-quarter kickoff, which left the Rams going for two (they failed) and their punter kicking an extra point. The pass defense we worried about held Los Angeles to 286 yards, much of it by attacking the left side with Alaric Jackson suspended. The Rams didn’t sack Jacoby Brissett on 35 dropbacks and failed twice on fourth down. Matthew Stafford’s touchdown with 47 seconds left put them ahead. A long completion and an unnecessary-roughness penalty set up Chad Ryland’s sixth field goal at the gun.

Chiefs 22, Chargers 6

Box score · Line: Chiefs -8.5, 42.5 · Our pick: Chiefs

Expected: A pass rush that pressures without finishing, against four rookie linemen; Herbert’s turnovers.

What decided it: Kenneth Walker ran for 128 yards and two touchdowns. The Chargers, without Joe Alt, Kayode Awosika and Tre’ Harris, managed two field goals and 259 yards and lost Ladd McConkey to a concussion. Justin Herbert threw his league-leading eighth interception. The Kansas City pass rush finally finished, with four sacks to end a three-game sackless streak. Harrison Butker missed an extra point and a field goal. The Chiefs are 5-0; the Chargers are 0-6 heading into their bye.

Bills 33, Raiders 30

Box score · Line: Bills -6, 52.5 · Our pick: Bills

Expected: A Raiders run game held to 38 yards in New England; Buffalo’s thin cornerbacks; Spencer Brown’s back.

What decided it: Both concerns showed up, and Buffalo’s offense covered for them. Ashton Jeanty ran 10 times for 22 yards, but Kirk Cousins threw for 313 against the Bills’ secondary, and Las Vegas tied it at 23 with 8:07 left. Buffalo answered with a 66-yard drive capped by James Cook’s 3-yard run. Cook ran for 95 yards without a fumble, and the Bills had their first turnover-free game in a month. Josh Allen’s shovel pass to Keon Coleman tied Jim Kelly’s franchise touchdown record. The Raiders scored touchdowns on two of five red-zone trips.

Packers 23, Cowboys 13

Box score · Line: Packers -1.5, 52.5 · Our pick: Packers

Expected: Love’s deep ball against a Dallas defense allowing 72.3% completions and last against the run; no Parsons; Lamb’s quadriceps.

What decided it: Third downs, and Dak Prescott’s interceptions. Green Bay came in last in third-down conversions and Dallas last in third-down defense; the Packers converted nine of their first 10. Evan Williams and rookie Brandon Cisse intercepted Prescott on consecutive possessions inside the Green Bay 30, the second when Lamb slipped. Green Bay led 17-0 at half. Jordan Love threw for 276 yards and ran for a touchdown, and receivers dropped three more potential scores. The line was right.

49ers 23, Commanders 17 (Monday)

Box score · Line: 49ers -7.5, 50.5 · Our pick: 49ers

Expected: Daniels’ scrambling against the defense that sacked Darnold five times; Washington’s second-half defense; Deebo Samuel’s hamstring.

What decided it: San Francisco’s first half, and Washington’s second-half defense, which held this time. The 49ers scored touchdowns on their first two drives, led 20-3 at half and outgained Washington 303-90 before the break. Brock Purdy went 21 of 29 for 264 yards, with a touchdown to George Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey ran for two. After halftime San Francisco managed three first downs and 72 yards, and Jayden Daniels threw two touchdown passes to make it 23-17. Malik Mustapha broke up a fourth-down pass to Treylon Burks near the goal line with 1:54 left, and Washington’s last drive ended with an intentional grounding and a sack. Purdy passed 1,500 attempts and became the highest-rated passer in NFL history. With Deebo Samuel out, Mike Evans caught three passes for 94 yards before leaving with Achilles tendinitis; Terry McLaurin was carted off with a knee injury.

Power Rankings

The top two hold. The biggest moves are the Rams (down 6) and the Falcons (down 5), and the Browns (up 5). Our line rankings count here: both Rams lines rank in our top 11, which keeps a 2-4 team at 14, while both Packers lines rank in the bottom four, which holds a 4-2 team behind them.

DVOA is FTN’s total DVOA through Week 6. Outside rankings: ESPN, NFL.com and Pete Prisco, CBS Sports.

1. 49ers (1). 6-0, first in all four lists, and Brock Purdy is now the highest-rated passer in NFL history. They were held to 72 yards after halftime Monday, and Mike Evans left with Achilles tendinitis.
2. Chiefs (2). Kenneth Walker ran for 128 yards and the pass rush finally finished, with four sacks. Our second offensive line, but both starting tackles are hurt going to Seattle.
3. Bills (4). Up one. Seven scores on nine full drives in Las Vegas and their first turnover-free game in a month, behind our top offensive line. The defense has allowed 64 points in two weeks (Prisco).
4. Vikings (7). Up three on a bye at 5-0, now sixth in DVOA. Second on our defensive line list, 21st on offense.
5. Jaguars (3). Down two after losing in London. Still third in DVOA, but penalties have now cost them three touchdowns this season (Michael DiRocco, ESPN).
6. Patriots (9). Up three after a third straight win, but they finished Sunday without three offensive linemen and play Thursday in Chicago.
7. Broncos (11). Up four. Five sacks and three takeaways beat Seattle, and the offense is 31st on third down (ESPN).
8. Seahawks (5). Down three after a second loss in five days. Our top defensive line, but Sam Darnold has thrown seven interceptions in four games (Brady Henderson, ESPN).
9. Bears (13). Up four. Caleb Williams went 30 of 36 in his return, and Kyler Gordon had three sacks off the physically unable to perform list.
10. Ravens (6). Down four. Ten points in Cleveland without Lamar Jackson, and FTN gives them the hardest remaining schedule in the league.
11. Bengals (12). Up one on a bye. Fifth in DVOA and fifth on our offensive line list.
12. Lions (10). Down two on a bye, with both lines in our top 11. The defense is still the problem: 25th in defensive DVOA.
13. Panthers (16). Up three. Bryce Young and Chuba Hubbard beat a Hurts-less Eagles team, and Carolina is seventh in DVOA, though its defensive line is 30th.
14. Rams (8). Down six after losing at home to Arizona as 12.5-point favorites. Both lines rank in our top 11, which keeps them here, but Davante Adams is expected to miss 6 to 10 weeks (Prisco) and their new kicker hurt his knee.
15. Packers (17). Up two after a third straight win, allowing 14 points or fewer in each. Both lines rank in the bottom four, which holds them behind the Rams.
16. Texans (20). Up four. C.J. Stroud’s London drive kept them alive at 2-4; ninth in DVOA and fourth on our defensive line list.
17. Steelers (14). Down three despite winning: Aaron Rodgers was sacked five times in three quarters in Tampa before his late rally.
18. Browns (23). Up five. First place in the AFC North at 4-2 on Deshaun Watson’s fourth game-winning drive, behind our last-ranked offensive line.
19. Raiders (19). Held after a third straight loss. The line is back in our top 8; the run game isn’t.
20. Falcons (15). Down five. Down 31-7 at home to Chicago, with two lost return fumbles; third on our defensive line list.
21. Cowboys (18). Down three. Two more Dak Prescott interceptions, and the worst rushing start since 1989 (Todd Archer, ESPN).
22. Giants (21). Down one after blowing a 10-0 lead. John Harbaugh hasn’t named a starter between Jameis Winston and J.J. McCarthy.
23. Jets (26). Up three, mostly as others fell. Zero sacks a week after eight, and 0 for 3 in the red zone.
24. Buccaneers (25). Up one after another one-score loss, their fifth. Sixteenth in DVOA.
25. Eagles (22). Down three. Jalen Hurts is out for the season, and they have lost four straight.
26. Cardinals (29). Up three. Six Chad Ryland field goals beat the Rams in Los Angeles.
27. Saints (27). Held. Won in New York but nearly gave back a 24-point lead.
28. Colts (24). Down four. Lost at home to the winless Titans, and the general manager was fired Monday. Their defensive line ranks last.
29. Commanders (28). Down one. Came back to within six in San Francisco after trailing 20-3, and lost Terry McLaurin to what they fear is a significant knee injury.
30. Titans (31). Up one with their first win: six sacks, three takeaways and two special teams scores.
31. Chargers (30). Down one. 0-6 into the bye, with Justin Herbert’s league-high eighth interception.
32. Dolphins (32). Held. Bye, and still winless.

Offensive Lines

The Bills hold No. 1, the Chiefs pass the 49ers, and the Raiders return. The Lions drop out after their bye, and the Patriots are held out again, now for more than one injury. Each line is judged on the season: ESPN’s pass and run block win rates, sacks allowed and rushing, both measured against what its opponents’ defenses usually allow, and injuries that change who is available. Win rates don’t capture penalties.

Win rates are ESPN’s through Week 6, rank in parentheses (ESPN). Sack rate is sacks per dropback; the figure in parentheses is the difference from what the same opponents’ defenses averaged (negative is better). YPC in parentheses is the difference from what those defenses allowed (positive is better). Opponent averages are from CBS Sports team stats and the Week 6 box scores, and include each opponent’s game against that team.

• Bills: second in run block win rate and third in pass block, and the second-best run game against expectation. Spencer Brown played through his back in Las Vegas.
• Chiefs: up one, with the best yards per carry in the league and a sack rate two points under what their opponents allow. Both starting tackles are the worry: Josh Simmons has a bulging disk and Jaylon Moore left Sunday with a concussion, and Andy Reid suggested Simmons won’t be ready for Seattle (Nate Taylor, ESPN).
• 49ers: second in pass block win rate and a 2.8% sack rate; down one only because Kansas City ran for 150 on Sunday.
• Rams: held, though Arizona went after backup left tackle David Quessenberry with Alaric Jackson suspended.
• Bengals: first in run block win rate, but 3.6 yards a carry is barely above what their opponents allow.
• Raiders: back in. First in pass block win rate with a low sack rate, but still 3.0 yards a carry, nearly a yard below expectation. Caleb Rogers replaced Jackson Powers-Johnson at right guard (Ryan McFadden, ESPN).
• Bears: down two after four sacks allowed in Atlanta; right guard Jonah Jackson left with a hip injury.
• Steelers: down one after five sacks allowed in Tampa.
• Out: Lions. Eleventh on the numbers, on bye.
• Held out by injury: Patriots, fifth on the numbers. Morgan Moses, Alijah Vera-Tucker and Ben Brown all left Sunday, after Mike Onwenu and Greg Van Roten went to injured reserve and with Will Campbell’s knee; New England has started three line combinations in six games and is likely to start a fourth Thursday (Mike Reiss, ESPN).
• First out: Patriots, Colts, Lions.
• Charting against results: Cowboys (2.8% sack rate, but 31st in run block win rate) and Browns (last; a 12.1% sack rate, the worst in the league).
• Watch in Week 7: the Chiefs’ tackles against Seattle’s front, first on our defensive list; the Patriots’ line on a short week; the length of Jackson’s suspension.

All 32 teams

Ordered by the four measures weighted equally, before injuries.

Defensive Lines

The top two hold, the Falcons climb, the Ravens return and the 49ers drop out. The same four measures apply: pass rush and run stop win rates, sacks against what opponents’ lines usually allow, and run defense against what those offenses usually gain, with injuries on top. FTN’s defensive DVOA is back in the table.

Sack rate is sacks per opponent dropback; in parentheses, the difference from what the same opponents’ lines allowed (positive is better). YPC allowed in parentheses is the difference from what those offenses gained (negative is better). Defensive DVOA is FTN’s through Week 6, rank in parentheses (FTN); negative is better, and it rates the whole defense, not only the line.

• Seahawks: first in pass rush win rate and a sack rate 2.5 points above expectation. The offense, not the front, lost in Denver.
• Vikings: bye. Minnesota blitzes on 68% of dropbacks, so some of its pressure is the coordinator’s.
• Falcons: up two, second in run stop win rate. Linebackers Kendal Daniels (neck) and Divine Deablo (arm) were hurt Sunday; neither is a lineman, but both play behind this front.
• Texans: down one after London, where they didn’t sack Trevor Lawrence (Lindsay Jones, the Ringer).
• Lions: bye; third in pass rush win rate. Detroit’s poor defensive DVOA is the secondary, not the front.
• Chargers: held. Third in run stop win rate on an 0-6 team; Bud Dupree (neck) was inactive.
• Ravens: back in, tenth and ninth in the win rates and above expectation on sacks.
• Broncos: held after five sacks and 17 quarterback hits Thursday (AP), without Pat Surtain II behind them.
• Out: 49ers. Tenth on the numbers, with Nick Bosa still out.
• Held out by injury: Browns, fifth on the numbers. Mason Graham has missed two straight games and Mike Hall Jr. was inactive again, though Maliek Collins has a sack in three straight (Daniel Oyefusi, ESPN).
• First out: Browns, 49ers, Rams (Myles Garrett still on injured reserve, and Kobie Turner and Poona Ford hurt Sunday).
• Giants: 27th on the numbers. Not restored on win rate alone.

All 32 teams

Ordered by the four measures weighted equally, before injuries.

Win Totals

The Bears move into the NFC field outright and the Rams drop to first out; the Ravens no longer win the AFC North alone. Dallas keeps the NFC East at 9-8. The projections sum to 271 wins plus the Giants-Commanders tie, with 92 wins and that tie banked through Week 6. Kansas City, first team out in August, is still the AFC’s No. 1 seed.

• AFC seeds: Chiefs, Bills, Jaguars, then the AFC North winner; wild cards Patriots, Broncos and the AFC North runner-up; first out, the Steelers or Texans.
• NFC seeds: 49ers, Vikings, Panthers, Cowboys; wild cards Bears, then the Lions and Seahawks; first out, the Rams or Packers.
• Ties we could not project: Baltimore and Cincinnati for the North; the order of the three AFC wild cards; the Lions and Seahawks for the sixth and seventh seeds; the Steelers and Texans, and the Rams and Packers, for first out.

What moved:

• Up: Texans +2 (two straight division wins, ninth in DVOA and fifth in FTN’s DAVE); Bears, Packers, Browns, Titans, Saints and Cardinals +1.
• Down: Eagles -1 (Jalen Hurts out for the season); Rams -1 (Davante Adams expected out 6 to 10 weeks, per Prisco); Ravens, Jaguars, Seahawks, Colts, Falcons and Chargers -1.
• Cowboys 9-8: held, and still the NFC East winner. ESPN’s Football Power Index makes Dallas a 66.9% favorite for the division at 2-4 (Ben Solak, ESPN).
• Ravens 10-7: depends on Lamar Jackson’s ankle, against the toughest remaining schedule by DVOA (FTN).

Calls most likely to need moving after Week 7:

• Bears 11-6 against the Patriots (10-7) on Thursday.
• Ravens 10-7 against the Bengals (10-7), with Jackson’s status unsettled.
• Seahawks 10-7 against the Chiefs on Sunday night.
• Lions 10-7 against the Packers (9-8).
• Browns 8-9 at Tennessee, and Rams 9-8 at Las Vegas (8-9).

Week 7 Preview

The line and the model split on three games; we take the line twice (Browns, Ravens) and the model once (Chiefs). Jacksonville, Buffalo, the Chargers and Washington are on bye.

Patriots at Bears (Thursday)

Line: Bears -3, 50.5 · ESPN: Bears 58.9%

Key to the Game: New England’s offensive line on a short week. Morgan Moses, Alijah Vera-Tucker and Ben Brown all left Sunday’s win with injuries, and Romeo Doubs left with a shoulder injury. Chicago’s defense just got Kyler Gordon back, and his nickel blitz produced three sacks in 16 snaps. On the other side, Caleb Williams is 54 of 60 on throws of 10 or fewer air yards this season (the Ringer), against a Patriots secondary with Christian Gonzalez back.

Our Pick: Bears.

Steelers vs. Saints (Paris)

Line: Steelers -3, 44.5 · ESPN: Steelers 60.1%

Key to the Game: Whether New Orleans can play four quarters. The Saints scored on five straight possessions against the Giants, then nearly gave back a 24-point lead. Pittsburgh is without receivers Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson, so Aaron Rodgers is leaning on DK Metcalf and rookie Germie Bernard. Tyler Shough is playing through a broken nonthrowing hand, and right guard Cesar Ruiz left Sunday with a knee injury.

Our Pick: Steelers.

49ers at Falcons

Line: 49ers -4.5, 50.5 · ESPN: 49ers 79.4%

Key to the Game: Atlanta’s front against a 49ers team coming off Monday night. Michael Penix Jr. was pressured on 46% of his dropbacks against Chicago, and the Falcons lost linebackers Kendal Daniels (neck) and Divine Deablo (arm) during the game. San Francisco is thin at receiver: Mike Evans left Monday with Achilles tendinitis, with Deebo Samuel and Christian Kirk already out (CBS Sports). The model is far more confident than the line, giving San Francisco about what it gave New England at -7 last week.

Our Pick: 49ers.

Browns at Titans

Line: Browns -1.5, 38.5 · ESPN: Titans 50.0%

Key to the Game: Tennessee’s defense against a Browns offense that wins late. The Titans had six sacks and three takeaways against Indianapolis, and Jeffery Simmons forced a fumble and had two sacks. Cleveland scored 13 points against Baltimore and won on Deshaun Watson’s fourth game-winning drive of the season. Mason Graham has missed two games; Maliek Collins has a sack in three straight.

Our Pick: Browns. The line over the model: ESPN calls it a coin flip, and Tennessee’s offense scored one touchdown last week.

Colts at Vikings

Line: Vikings -5.5, 41.5 · ESPN: Vikings 64.9%

Key to the Game: Daniel Jones’ turnovers. He is tied for the league lead with nine (ESPN), and two came in scoring position against Tennessee. Minnesota comes off its bye at 5-0, with a defense that blitzes on 68% of dropbacks. The Colts lost Sauce Gardner to a calf injury, played without Tyler Warren and fired their general manager on Monday.

Our Pick: Vikings.

Dolphins at Jets

Line: Jets -4.5, 38.5 · ESPN: Jets 65.5%

Key to the Game: The Jets’ red zone. New York went 0 for 3 inside the 20 against New England and has 112 points in six games. Miami is 0-5 and comes off its bye. A week after eight sacks, the Jets’ pass rush had none.

Our Pick: Jets.

Buccaneers at Panthers

Line: Panthers -3, 44.5 · ESPN: Panthers 63.2%

Key to the Game: Tampa Bay’s run game, which ranks 26th in success rate (the Ringer), against a Carolina offense that ran for 120 with Chuba Hubbard. Without a ground game, Jalon Daniels dropped back about 50 times in Tampa. Baker Mayfield’s thumb is the question to watch. Carolina needs to cut its 13 penalties, and Jaelan Phillips aggravated a hamstring injury.

Our Pick: Panthers.

Bengals at Ravens

Line: Ravens -3, 51.5 · ESPN: Bengals 54.3%

Key to the Game: Lamar Jackson’s ankle. Without him, Baltimore scored 10 points in Cleveland, and Tyler Huntley went 13 of 24 for 107 yards over the last three quarters. Cincinnati comes off its bye, and Derrick Henry has fumbled four times since the start of last season (ESPN).

Our Pick: Ravens. The line over the model: the pick assumes Jackson plays, and flips to Cincinnati if he sits.

Giants at Texans

Line: Texans -10, 42.5 · ESPN: Texans 84.7%

Key to the Game: The Giants’ quarterback. John Harbaugh hasn’t said whether Jameis Winston or J.J. McCarthy starts after McCarthy threw for 243 yards in the fourth quarter. The Giants have fumbled in every game. C.J. Stroud now has Marvin Harrison Jr. alongside Jaylin Noel and Nico Collins, against a Giants secondary that lost Greg Newsome to a concussion.

Our Pick: Texans.

Broncos at Cardinals

Line: Broncos -4.5, 43.5 · ESPN: Broncos 69.8%

Key to the Game: Denver’s offense. The Broncos rank 26th in scoring and 31st on third down, and went 3 of 26 on third down across their last two games (ESPN). Arizona leads the league with seven fourth-down stops and just held the Rams to 286 yards. Jeremiyah Love (ankle) is the Arizona injury to watch.

Our Pick: Broncos. Denver’s defense has carried an offense that can’t move the ball, and Arizona’s defense just showed it can.

Packers at Lions

Line: Lions -3, 52.5 · ESPN: Lions 59.2%

Key to the Game: Detroit’s defense, worst in the league in EPA per drive allowed (the Ringer), against a Packers offense that dropped three potential touchdowns Sunday. Josh Jacobs comes off the commissioner’s exempt list. Green Bay has allowed 14 points or fewer in three straight games, and Detroit comes off its bye.

Our Pick: Lions. We are taking the home team off a bye, not a judgment that Detroit’s defense has been fixed.

Rams at Raiders

Line: Rams -5.5, 47.5 · ESPN: Rams 66.5%

Key to the Game: The Rams’ kicking again. Blake Grupe hurt his knee in his debut, five days after Harrison Mevis was cut. Their pass rush converts pressure into sacks at the second-worst rate in the league (Bill Barnwell, ESPN). Davante Adams is expected to miss 6 to 10 weeks (Pete Prisco, CBS Sports). Ashton Jeanty has been held under 3.0 yards a carry in four of six games.

Our Pick: Rams.

Chiefs at Seahawks

Line: Seahawks -2.5, 42.5 · ESPN: Chiefs 52.2%

Key to the Game: Seattle’s protection. Denver hit Sam Darnold 17 times and sacked him five times, and Mike Macdonald said afterward his quarterback is getting hit far too often. Kansas City may start two undrafted rookie tackles, with Josh Simmons and Jaylon Moore hurt (Nate Taylor, ESPN), against the front that tops our defensive line list. Kansas City’s pass rush ended its sackless streak with four against the Chargers, and Kenneth Walker leads the league in rushing. Seattle has had 10 days since Thursday.

Our Pick: Chiefs. The model over the line: Kansas City is 5-0 and Seattle has lost two straight, though Seattle’s defensive line was first on our list last week.

Cowboys at Eagles (Monday)

Line: Cowboys -4.5, 44.5 · ESPN: Cowboys 68.8%

Key to the Game: Tanner McKee. With Jalen Hurts expected to miss the season, McKee was pressured on more than 40% of his dropbacks against Carolina. The Eagles have scored six third-quarter points all season. Dallas needs Dak Prescott to stop throwing interceptions: two more Sunday, after two in the second half of Week 5.

Our Pick: Cowboys.

Three Things Getting Little Attention

1. Backups went 0-4. Four backup quarterbacks started Sunday, and all four lost (the Ringer): Jalon Daniels in Tampa Bay, Tanner McKee in Philadelphia, Tyler Huntley in Baltimore and Jameis Winston for the Giants. Winston was the only one benched. With Hurts out for the season, Mayfield’s thumb unresolved and Jackson’s ankle still a question, at least three of those teams could start backups again in Week 7.

2. Penalties piled up on the winners. Carolina was flagged 13 times for 149 yards, a franchise record, and still won by 11. Chicago won through 12 penalties for 133 yards. Green Bay and Dallas combined for 22. Jacksonville’s too-many-men penalty on a punt extended a Houston touchdown drive, its third straight week of costly flags.

3. Winning without the offense. Arizona beat the Rams without a touchdown, on six Chad Ryland field goals. Tennessee’s offense scored one touchdown in a 26-point game. Denver won with 168 yards, its first win under 175 yards since 1983 (CBS Sports). All three leaned on defenses that forced turnovers or fourth-down stops.

The post 2026 NFL: Week 6 Review, Week 7 Preview appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Banner is 41, a Brooklyn native, and he has spent 18 seasons in baseball operations. He was the Cubs’ Assistant General Manager, a job he’d held since 2024 after running their Player Development department from late 2021 through 2023 and arriving in Chicago as Vice President of Special Projects in December 2020.

Before that, two years with the Mets as Executive Director of Player Development. Before that, eleven years with the Red Sox – a fellow in 2007 who became a Player Development Assistant, then Amateur Scouting Coordinator, then Assistant Director of Player Personnel, then Vice President of Player Personnel, overseeing professional scouting in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Mexico. Boston won the World Series in 2007, 2013 and 2018. He was there for all three.

He played four years of outfield at Amherst, captained the team in 2007, and got into the game because his college coach knew Ben Cherington, who had played for the same coach eleven years earlier.

That’s a real resume. But the more interesting thing about Monday’s announcement is the job description.

Read The Title Carefully

From the Orioles’ statement, Banner will “lead the organization’s player development, coaching and performance efforts, while also partnering with Elias on strategy, staffing, and talent acquisition.”

Player development. Coaching. Performance. Those are his. Strategy and acquisition he shares.

Now put that next to the rest of what’s happened in that building over the last six weeks.

Matt Blood is gone. The Vice President of Player and Staff Development, a longtime and well-regarded executive, mutually parted ways with the organization in September.

Sig Mejdal has been moved. Elias’s first hire after leaving Houston, the Assistant General Manager who built the analytics department, is no longer overseeing it. He’ll now oversee “the research of emerging technologies and innovative practices across baseball operations,” which is a real job and also not the job he had.

And now a General Manager has been hired whose primary portfolio is player development.

Mike Elias has looked at an organization that went 79-82 after finishing last in 2025, and he has concluded that the thing that broke is the machine that was supposed to turn prospects into major leaguers.

He’s right.

The Evidence Was On The Field All Year

Baltimore hit the ball harder than the league average in 2026. Team exit velocity of 89.9 mph against an MLB mark of 88.8. A hard-hit rate of 42.6% against 38.6%. A barrel rate of 8.7% against 7.7%.

Their expected wOBA was .323. Their actual wOBA was .313.

They hit it harder than almost anybody and scored less than they should have. Meanwhile Colton Cowser, Coby Mayo, Samuel Basallo, Jackson Holliday and Dylan Beavers – four first-round picks and the best catching prospect in baseball – produced exactly zero seasons of a 110 wRC+ between them.

At some point that stops being five separate coincidences and starts being an organizational result.

The Orioles had the No. 1 farm system in baseball four years running through the 2023 preseason. Eight Top 100 prospects that spring. Six were position players. Gunnar Henderson became a star. Jordan Westburg became a very good player when healthy. Joey Ortiz is in Milwaukee. The rest are 24 to 26 years old and still being described in terms of what they might become.

The rebuilding playbook worked right up until the part where the players were supposed to turn into a winning team. That’s the gap Banner has been hired to close, and the Orioles are telling you so in the press release.

And there’s a more specific version of the mandate, which came out of our playoff preview and is worth putting in front of him on day one.

Of those eight Top 100 prospects in 2023, only two were pitchers: Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall. Both have been traded. Hall threw a 1.91 ERA out of Milwaukee’s bullpen this year. Tyler Wells had a 1.50 ERA for Tampa Bay after the deadline. Cedric Mullins started in center for the Rays because of his glove, and Adley Rutschman was the best defensive catcher in the field.

Every team that earned a bye got there by keeping runs off the board, and they did it with arms they grew. Cleveland’s 2023 Top 100 group had Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee and Daniel Espino; the Guardians turned that into a 109 ERA+. Milwaukee took Jacob Misiorowski in the second round in 2022 and he posted a 1.80 ERA this year.

Baltimore’s system is back to No. 7, and for the first time in this era three of its four Top 100 prospects are pitchers: Anthony Eyanson, Joseph Dzierwa and Caden Hunter.

That’s the job. Not “improve player development” in the abstract. Turn those three into Orioles starters rather than trade chips, and don’t repeat what happened with Rodriguez and Hall.

What He Actually Brings

Two things, and the second one is less obvious than the first.

The Player Development background is the headline. He ran the Mets’ farm system and the Cubs’ farm system, and he came up inside a Red Sox organization that was an early adopter of things that are now standard. Jon Meoli wrote this week about interviewing Xander Bogaerts in Frederick years ago and being told the kid had to finish his vision training first – a crude laptop program where a dot crossed a strike zone and hitters had a fraction of a second to react. That was Boston in the early 2010s, pushing at the edges while traditional coaches ran everything else.

Banner’s own description of the work is worth reading, because it isn’t what you’d expect from an analytics hire: “I don’t think you want to move to any one side. I think we do try to stay grounded in the evidence, but at the end of the day, they’re human beings. There needs to be a human touch, a care, a belief in each other and a culture created.”

He’s also said, in a long Executive Access Q&A with MLB.com, that 2021 was the year he stopped believing he could just look at a player and know. That’s a useful instinct in a front office that’s been accused of the opposite problem.

But the credential that actually matters is Pete Crow-Armstrong, and it isn’t for the reason you’d assume.

Banner is credited with the Cubs’ acquisition of Crow-Armstrong from the Mets in the 2021 Javier Báez deal, and Crow-Armstrong is the likely National League MVP. Fine. Plenty of executives have a trade on their ledger.

The relevant part is what happened next. Crow-Armstrong arrived in Chicago as a prospect and got better — through the exact player development department Banner was running in 2022 and 2023. A kid came in with a grade on him and left as the best player in his league.

That is precisely the thing Baltimore has not been able to do. The Orioles have been excellent at acquiring prospects and have spent two seasons watching them arrive at 24 and 25 and hover. If you’re looking for the single data point that justifies this hire, it isn’t the Báez trade. It’s that one of the best players in baseball was developed on his watch.

Now the part that complicates it. During Banner’s time in Chicago, the Cubs did something Baltimore has never done: they spent their system. Fifteen players traded away who now appear on other organizations’ Top 30 lists, a farm ranking that fell from eighth to 28th in eighteen months, and a playoff berth at the end of it.

I’ve argued all fall that the criticism of Elias is no longer about talent evaluation but about conviction – an executive who accumulates and doesn’t convert. So on its face, hiring from an organization that converted is exactly right.

Except look at what the conversion actually bought. The Cubs got swept out of the Wild Card round. Two games, and then the winter. That is the entire return on eighteen months of selling the farm.

They weren’t alone in it. When we previewed the playoff field, the four worst farm systems in it belonged to the Yankees at 27th, the Cubs at 28th, Houston at 29th and San Diego at 30th. All four had made October. None of them reached a Championship Series. Houston is the loudest version: 29th on five straight lists, $246 million in payroll, a division won at 81-81, and then a home sweep at the hands of a White Sox club that spent less than half as much.

The four teams that earned first-round byes — the Rays, Guardians, Brewers and Dodgers — had the four best average farm rankings in the entire field. They turned out to be, exactly, the four teams that played in a Championship Series. Three of them got there on bottom-four payrolls: Cleveland at $70 million, Tampa Bay at $90 million, Milwaukee at $125 million.

Spending the farm buys a seat in the tournament. It does not buy a run through it.

So Baltimore has hired a development executive from a club that won by trading away its development. Both things are on his resume – a player he developed into a star, and a system he watched get spent. Only one of those models was still playing in the second week of October. Which one walked through the door with him is the question, and the answer probably depends less on Banner than on the man he reports to.

What It Says About Elias

Elias was promoted to President of Baseball Operations before the 2025 season, quietly, with no announcement. He’s been carrying both titles ever since, and he said in September that he wanted help:

“We have a small operation. It has been. I’ve seen in some metrics it’s like 29th in the league in terms of size in baseball operations… And there’s parts of our baseball operation that I think I could use some different voices and ideas in more than others.”

Then the tell: “I don’t know that I want to get into it here on the stage, but you’ll probably be able to see as these hires come in where we’re looking for some impact.”

We can see. He told us where to look and then looked there.

I wrote a piece on August 3rd under the headline “Yeah, Time For Elias To Go.” I took the headline back in “The Winter Ahead” and said the critique of the process still stood.

Ownership has now given its own answer, and it’s neither of mine. They didn’t fire him and they didn’t simply back him. They made his department bigger and handed a third of it to somebody else.

I’d note two things about that. The first is that it’s genuinely to Elias’s credit. Handing the Player Development department to an outside hire with his own resume and his own constituency is not the move of a man protecting his territory. He identified the weakness as his own and gave it away.

The second is that it’s a hedge, and everybody involved knows it. Elias has had eight years. The farm is loaded again, the books are the cleanest in the sport, and the team has finished under .500 twice in a row after an AL East title in 2023. If 2027 goes badly, there is now an experienced, well-regarded executive sitting one chair over who was a finalist for the A’s top job this month and who interviewed for other lead roles.

That’s not a prediction. It’s just how front offices work. You could argue that Elias is placing a potential scapegoat in-front of him, but I don’t think that argument has a lot of merit.
If things don’t improve for the O’s in ’27, Banner won’t be out the door before Elias.

What It Says About Rubenstein

David Rubenstein and Michael Arougheti authorized a franchise-record $170 million payroll last winter – 16th in baseball, ahead of Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, the White Sox and Cleveland, three of which earned first-round byes this month – and got a losing season out of it.

Their response was not to fire the President of Baseball Operations. It was to make his department bigger.

Elias said the owners “are looking to build” and have been “very supportive.” Meoli’s point this week is the right one: Banner’s job isn’t only development, it’s capital allocation. The Red Sox teams he came up in didn’t just carry high payrolls, they pressed advantages wherever the rules let them — most famously by blowing past everyone on draft bonuses before the pool system existed.

That specific lever is gone. But the question of where else to deploy Rubenstein’s money, beyond the major league roster, is exactly the kind of thing a 29th-ranked baseball operations department has never been able to ask.

What It Means For The Two Offseason Plans

We laid out two versions of this winter a few weeks ago. Option 1 runs the group back — re-sign Rogers, add a catcher who plays, find Mayo at-bats in right field. Option 2 is the wholesale one – Rogers walks, Holliday and Beavers go out in a package for a controllable arm, Varsho in center, Basallo catching 110 games.

The Banner hire doesn’t pick between them. But it bears on both.

Go back to the “Best Case, Worst Case, Likely” exercise. Basallo at 3.0-3.5 wins. Cowser at 2.5-3.0. Westburg at 2.5-3.0. Holliday at 2.0-2.5. Mayo at 1.5-2.0. Beavers at 1.0-1.5. Add Alonso and a Henderson bounce-back and the position group lands somewhere in the low twenties, which I called sufficient rather than good.

Every one of those likely cases is a development assumption. The best cases – Basallo as a 5-win All-Star catcher, Cowser as a 4.5-win center fielder – are the difference between 87 wins and 92. I wrote at the time that you can’t build a 95 win team by waiting for four of them to hit their ceiling simultaneously.

Banner’s actual job is to make that less true.

Which creates one real tension with Option 2. That plan trades Holliday and Beavers. You could reasonably argue the Orioles just hired the person whose entire brief is figuring out why those two haven’t developed fully, and that selling both in his first winter is the organization answering a question before its new answer-finder has unpacked.

I don’t think that should stop a good trade. But if Baltimore is going to move young position players in December, somebody should at least ask the new guy first.

Does This Put Seiya Suzuki In Play?

It’s an obvious immediate question.

Suzuki is a free agent after five years with the Cubs, which means Banner was in that building for every one of them. And it isn’t only the Chicago overlap. Banner’s last two years in Boston, 2017 and 2018, were spent overseeing professional scouting in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Mexico – which is to say he was working that market while Suzuki was establishing himself with Hiroshima. He scouted the player before the Cubs signed him and then watched him for five seasons from inside the front office.

That’s an unusual amount of proprietary information about one free agent.

Suzuki is coming off of a 4.6 fWAR season, and he’s an exceptional fielder.

Both of our offseason plans said every available dollar goes to run prevention and none of it goes to more offense. Suzuki is the rare player who doesn’t force that choice – he’s a run-prevention signing that happens to carry a 134 wRC+.

He’s also right-handed, which addresses the structural hole in both plans. Cowser bats left-handed and struggles against lefties. Beavers bats left-handed. Basallo bats left-handed. Henderson bats left-handed. In Option 2, Varsho bats left-handed too. CBS made the point this fall that there are shockingly few quality right-handed hitters in the game right now. The Orioles need one badly.

Where he’d play is clean. Put Suzuki in left, keep Cowser in center, leave Mayo in right. That swaps out Beavers and his -9 Outs Above Average for one of the best corner-outfield gloves in the sport and a middle-of-the-order bat, and it does it without disturbing the Mayo-to-right-field plan which I think will get consideration from the O’s.

A 134 wRC+ with Gold Glove defense in a corner is a $25-28 million a year player, even at 32. And the qualifying offer figure for this winter came in at $23.15 million. Suzuki will get one, is expected to reject it, and whoever signs him forfeits a pick.

Our Option 1 budget was $66 million total: Mize at $18M, Rogers at $21M, Jeffers at $19M, Robert at $6M, a depth outfielder at $2M. Suzuki at $26 million costs you roughly the catcher and the fourth outfielder. For a team whose catching spot donated a lineup slot twice a week last season, that’s a genuinely hard trade, and I’d probably still take Jeffers.

Which means Suzuki is a $200-million-payroll conversation. He’s not an alternative to one item on the list. He’s an argument for the list getting longer.

Now, does Banner’s presence change the odds? At the margin maybe.

What the connection buys is the stuff you can’t scout – makeup, work habits, how he responds to coaching, medical history that never makes a report. In the room, when somebody asks whether the age 33 and age 34 years are going to hold up, Baltimore now has a first-hand voice instead of a folder. That’s worth something real.

What it doesn’t buy is a discount. Banner’s portfolio is player development, coaching and performance; he partners on acquisition. Elias runs acquisition. Familiarity has never once won a bidding war.

And it cuts both ways, which people forget. Banner may know exactly why the Cubs let him walk to free agency instead of extending him. The most valuable thing that relationship produces might be Banner telling Elias not to.

My read: Suzuki is a legitimate fit on the merits and would make the Orioles meaningfully better. Whether Banner knows him is close to irrelevant to whether they sign him. Whether David Rubenstein will go past $200 million is the only question that matters.

The Caution

This is a process hire. It does not add a win in 2027.

The actual list is still sitting there, and it’s still Elias’s to execute. The Orioles need a starting pitcher at the top of the rotation – and as we worked through in the playoff preview, a team that’s 60% to win a given game still takes a best-of-three only about 65% of the time. You’d need something like a best-of-75 to be 80% sure the better club advances. An ace is the closest thing to cheating those odds, because he pitches twice in a short series. Baltimore’s four most-used starters finished between 3.56 and 4.12. That’s innings, not an edge.

They also need to decide what to do about Trevor Rogers before the December 1st lockout. They need a catcher who can take 50 to 70 starts without being an automatic out. They need outfield defense. They need to settle on Gunnar Henderson, who has two years of control left.

None of that gets easier because a General Manager was hired in October. Front Office moves are the most applaudable thing an organization can do in an offseason, because nobody can tell you for two or three years whether they worked.

But this one is aimed at the right target. The Orioles did not get worse because they ran out of talent. They got worse because the talent stopped getting better, and they have just spent six weeks restructuring the department responsible for that.

One last note worth recording. With Houston’s firing of Dana Brown, Jared Banner is the only Black General Manager in Major League Baseball. He’s talked publicly about wanting young African Americans to follow the path he took – keep learning, keep meeting people, keep growing the network. He’ll have a platform here to do something about it.

Welcome to Baltimore. The work starts immediately, and the hard part isn’t the part he was hired to fix.

The post The Orioles Hired A General Manager. Look At What He’s Being Asked To Fix. appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.