Week 2 Power Rankings

The 49ers stay on top, with the Chiefs creeping closer, and a distinct second tier forming just below

The Week 2 power rankings combine the initial, Week 1 power rankings I released and the evidence from four quarters of football for each team. The key in updating the rankings is knowing when to not overreact (Bengals losing at home to one of the worst teams last year) and when to be aggressively moving assumptions (the Packers without Jordan Love and potentially starting Malik Willis).

For more info you can find the archive of previous Power Rankings posts, including the initial offseason rankings that detail much of the methodology of coming up with the Week 1 rankings.

In this post, I’m going to walk through how my team-strength model views every team offensively and defensively going into Week 2, plus comparisons of my numbers to those derived by looking out over the next two weeks on the betting markets.

TEAM OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE STRENGTH

*Downloadable power ratings/rankings available in the paid subscriber Google sheet.

The defensive and offensive strength numbers above are estimated for how much each unit would contribute to point differential against an average team on a neutral field. I’m cheating a bit by drawing the tiering lines (which give 60% weight to offense and 40% to defense) to include the Kansas City Chiefs with the San Francisco 49ers, when they’re actually closer to the second tier teams in overall strength. I think the Chiefs will continue to close the gap with the 49ers over time, but it’s a little too early to assume their offense is completely fixed from the 2023 regular season struggle. Another elite performance or two against elite defenses and the Chiefs will be right there with the 49ers.