Week 6 Drive Report: The 2-3 Rams Are No. 1
The Rams lost a 37-34 shootout to Buffalo and jumped to No. 1 anyway. Plus Chicago's five-turnover afternoon in Green Bay, New England's six-touchdown day, and why the unbeaten 49ers slid to No. 9.
By Advanced Football StatsPublished
Ratings entering Week 6 of the 2026 season, built from every drive through the previous week's games, compared with the ratings entering Week 5.
Our new No. 1 team is 2-3. Yes, really. The Rams scored touchdowns on 5 of their 10 drives against Buffalo, never turned the ball over, and still lost a 37-34 shootout. Our model judges teams by how their drives end, not by the final score, and drives like that are hard to ignore: the Rams leapt from No. 11 to No. 1 and now win 65.3% of their simulated games against the rest of the league. They top our combined drive efficiency ratings too, at +0.302, with an offense and a defense that both rank fourth.
Power rankings: biggest movers
Power rank orders teams by their simulated win rate against the rest of the league.
| Team | Rank | Change | Sim. win rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riser | Carolina Panthers | 3 (was 15) | +12 | 48.7% → 60.0% |
| Riser | Green Bay Packers | 14 (was 25) | +11 | 40.0% → 49.3% |
| Riser | Los Angeles Rams | 1 (was 11) | +10 | 53.3% → 65.3% |
| Faller | Washington Commanders | 32 (was 20) | −12 | 44.0% → 34.7% |
| Faller | New Orleans Saints | 27 (was 18) | −9 | 46.0% → 39.3% |
| Faller | San Francisco 49ers | 9 (was 2) | −7 | 66.0% → 52.7% |
A word of caution before anyone prints the banners. Each win rate comes from 150 simulated games, so a few points either way is noise. Carolina climbed 12 spots without playing at all; the Panthers were on a bye and the teams around them slipped, and they're only 10th in combined efficiency. The Rams deserve the same grain of salt: one huge week on top of a 2-3 start, not a coronation.
San Francisco is the flip side. The 49ers are 5-0, but Sunday's 32-29 win in Seattle was a grind: 17 yards a drive, five punts, and a lot of help from four Seattle turnovers. Only four of their 13 drives ended in points. Unbeaten teams don't usually look like that on paper, and our power rankings noticed, dropping them from No. 2 to No. 9. Don't worry too much, Niners fans: they're still No. 2 in combined drive efficiency, and at 92% they have the best playoff chance in the NFC.
At the bottom, Washington landed at No. 32 after a 27-27 tie with the Giants that featured six Commanders punts in 13 drives.
Offense: drive efficiency movers
The offensive rating is the team's effect on how drives end in our drive model. Higher is better.
| Team | Rank | Change | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riser | New England Patriots | 5 (was 12) | +7 | +0.056 → +0.180 |
| Riser | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 24 (was 29) | +5 | −0.177 → −0.133 |
| Riser | Pittsburgh Steelers | 21 (was 24) | +3 | −0.124 → −0.074 |
| Faller | Cleveland Browns | 26 (was 22) | −4 | −0.084 → −0.170 |
| Faller | San Francisco 49ers | 6 (was 3) | −3 | +0.271 → +0.179 |
| Faller | Denver Broncos | 28 (was 25) | −3 | −0.155 → −0.198 |
New England put on a clinic. In a 45-17 rout of Las Vegas, the Patriots scored touchdowns on 6 of 11 drives (tied with Detroit for the week's best) and led every offense with 49 yards a drive. Their offense vaulted from No. 12 to No. 5, and their playoff chance jumped from 58% to 81%. Cleveland went the other way after managing just 12 points against the Jets.
Defense: drive efficiency movers
The defensive rating measures how a defense changes opponents' drive outcomes. Higher is better.
| Team | Rank | Change | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riser | New York Jets | 8 (was 16) | +8 | +0.004 → +0.047 |
| Riser | Cleveland Browns | 14 (was 22) | +8 | −0.012 → +0.006 |
| Riser | Jacksonville Jaguars | 19 (was 24) | +5 | −0.023 → −0.008 |
| Faller | Las Vegas Raiders | 30 (was 19) | −11 | −0.005 → −0.063 |
| Faller | Tennessee Titans | 16 (was 11) | −5 | +0.015 → +0.004 |
| Faller | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 10 (was 5) | −5 | +0.040 → +0.038 |
The Jets' defense climbed eight spots by holding Cleveland to 12 points. The Raiders felt the other end of New England's big day: six touchdowns allowed sent their defense tumbling from No. 19 to No. 30. One note: defensive ratings move less than offensive ones (most of these changes are a few hundredths), so the ranks swing more than the numbers behind them.
Playoff chances: biggest swings
Each team's chance to make the playoffs from our full-season simulation, which plays out the rest of the schedule and applies the NFL's tiebreakers.
| Team | Record | Playoff chance | Change (pts) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up | New England Patriots | 3-2 | 58% → 81% | +23 |
| Up | Minnesota Vikings | 5-0 | 52% → 71% | +19 |
| Up | Detroit Lions | 3-2 | 42% → 58% | +16 |
| Down | Chicago Bears | 3-2 | 87% → 61% | −25 |
| Down | Las Vegas Raiders | 3-2 | 69% → 49% | −20 |
| Down | Cleveland Browns | 3-2 | 47% → 32% | −15 |
The NFC North just got crowded. Chicago walked into Lambeau with an 87% playoff chance and walked out with 61% after a 31-7 loss: three interceptions, two fumbles and a turnover on downs in 12 drives. Green Bay's chance nearly doubled, from 16% to 31%. Unbeaten Minnesota climbed to 71%, and Detroit's 45-21 romp in Arizona pushed the Lions to 58%. Our simulations now hand the division to Minnesota 39% of the time, with Chicago and Detroit at 26% each. Four teams, one crown.
In the AFC, one afternoon in Foxborough cost the Raiders 20 points of playoff chance, and Cleveland's loss to the Jets cost 15. Curious how Sunday could shake things up for your team? Pick the winners in our playoff scenario planner and watch the odds move.
How our forecasts did
Week 5 humbled us. Our forecasts picked the winner in 7 of 14 games (Washington and the Giants tied), and our Brier score, which grades how close each probability was, came in at 0.252. Lower is better, and 0.250 is what you'd get by calling every game 50-50, so this was a coin-flip week. The miss that stung most is the one that shook up the NFC North: we gave Chicago a 71% chance in Green Bay, and the Packers won 31-7. The rest of the week was full of near toss-ups. In eight games our favorite was at 56% or less, and five of our seven misses came in those games.
Zoom out and the picture is better. Through two weeks of forecasts we're 19 for 30 (63%) with a Brier score of 0.231, after a strong Week 4 (12 of 16, 0.213). Thirty games is a small sample, so treat these as early numbers.
Starting this week, every forecast goes into our public prediction log before kickoff, in a record that can't be edited, so you can grade us game by game. (Weeks 4 and 5 were published on our game pages before kickoff, before the log existed.)
Top 5 in combined drive efficiency entering Week 6
| Rank | Team | Record | Combined efficiency | Offense rank | Defense rank | Ball security rank | Takeaways rank | Playoff chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Angeles Rams | 2-3 | +0.302 | 4 | 4 | 21 | 13 | 54% |
| 2 | San Francisco 49ers | 5-0 | +0.292 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 16 | 92% |
| 3 | Buffalo Bills | 4-1 | +0.268 | 1 | 30 | 16 | 32 | 87% |
| 4 | New England Patriots | 3-2 | +0.264 | 7 | 3 | 24 | 24 | 81% |
| 5 | Chicago Bears | 3-2 | +0.210 | 5 | 18 | 31 | 27 | 61% |
How these numbers work
Ratings come from our Bayesian drive-survival model, which estimates how each offense and defense changes the way drives end. Combined efficiency adds the drive-ending and turnover ratings of the offense and the defense (0 = league average); the offense and defense ranks are by each side's combined rating. Ball security and takeaways are the turnover parts on their own: how rarely an offense gives the ball away, and how often a defense takes it. Ranks run from 1 (best) to 32; tied values share a rank. Read the methodology for details.
Full tables: power rankings, combined drive efficiency, offensive drive efficiency and defensive drive efficiency, plus every team's playoff chances.