Week 5 NFL Power Rankings

The Buffalo Bills stay on top, the Kansas City Chiefs are on the rise and the Baltimore Ravens tumble

The Week 5 power rankings combine the initial, Week 1 power rankings I released and the evidence from four weeks of NFL football. The key in updating the rankings is knowing when to not overreact (Lions taking a shellacking in Green Bay) and when to be aggressively moving assumptions (maybe the Colts offense will be functional with a real NFL quarterback). Right now, the rankings incorporate roughly 60/40 mix of team strength based on this and last season’s performance.

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

In this post, I’m going to walk through how my team-strength model views every team offensively and defensively for their 2025 performance going into Week 5, 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 Indianapolis Colts sit atop of the adjusted efficiency tiers, even after suffering a loss to the Los Angeles Rams in Week 4. The Rams were a quality opponent, the Colts were on the road and their first three wins were so dominant that they still have the best team-level average efficiencies. The overall power rankings still give strong weight to our pre-season expectations for all team, so the Colts won’t be that close to the top.

The rest of the top-tier of the NFL based on 2025 performance includes the Rams Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs moved up the most on the week, with a crushing victory against the previously highly rated Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens defense has been a huge liability this year, more evidence that you never fully know when a formerly top defensive unit can take a hit, or a previously poor defense step up.

There is a broad mash of teams in the second tier of 2025 performance, with the Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots the most surprising. These teams both finished the 2024 season at 4-13, and are now a combined 5-3 this year. Second-year quarterback Drake Maye has made the biggest leap of the 2024 class this year, currently ranked third in EPA per play, only trailing Jordan Love and Josh Allen.

Surprising teams in the third tier of the NFL by 2025 performance have to be the Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens. The Eagles are more shocking to see this low, as they’ve started the year 4-0. Starting with simple stats, the Eagles have a +20 point differential this year, which is only tied for 10th highest. Every win has been by less than one-score, and they’ve been heavily reliant on more fluky special teams value (two blocks for touchdowns). The Eagles offense hasn’t been bad, but their rankings are fairly mediocre: 18th in EPA per play, 22nd in EPA per dropback, 20th in success rate and 29th in yards per play. The Eagles defense has been a bit better, but still ranks outside the top-10 in those same categories. The Ravens defense is in the bottom-5 by nearly every metric, and they’ve been good-not-great offensively.

UNEXPECTED POINTS VERSUS THE MARKET

** These are Tuesday morning numbers on the betting markets from inpredictable, which often firm up during the week.