NFL Week 6 Predictions, Rankings, and Tips: The Weekly Rundown

Here’s a rapid-fire list of weekly highlights from the vast array of NFL content we publish on TeamRankings. We’ll also share some predictions and picks for Week 6 and beyond.


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NFL Week 6 Power Rankings Update

Current NFL rankings

  • Our New Ratings are out of Beta! About three and a half years ago, we began developing a new set of predictive ratings. These “New Ratings” improve upon the original ratings system that served as the foundation of this site way back in the early 2000’s — primarily by getting much better at making early season predictions, but in other ways too. This week, we began shifting the entire site to focus on these new ratings, and eventually, we’re going to phase the old ratings out altogether. You can read more information, if you’re curious, in the new ratings announcement we published this week.
  • The see-saw at #1 tilts again. Both Seattle and Denver increased their ratings with wins this week, but Denver’s 21-point shellacking of Arizona, despite an 0-2 turnover margin, was more impressive. As a result, Denver now reigns supreme at the top of our predictive ratings, edging the #2 Seahawks by the slimmest of margins.

  • San Francisco desperately clinging to #3. The rest of the Week 5 results have led to a cluster of five teams, all rated within one point of one another, who make up the top tier of challengers to Seattle and Denver. #3 San Francisco is ever so tenuously leading that pack right now, but the Niners’ rating decreased for the fourth straight week after a 5-point home win over Kansas City. That margin of victory was less than our ratings expected.
  • The rest of the top challengers. #4 San Diego, #5 Green Bay, #6 New England, and #7 Cincinnati round out that cluster of teams, with #8 Indianapolis and #9 Baltimore following close behind them. The Chargers and Green Bay both had high impact wins with their blowouts of the Jets and Vikings, respectively. A lot of people seemed to think that a Packers blowout of the Vikings was a given once Christian Ponder was announced as Minnesota’s starting QB, but that’s hogwash. Green Bay only moved from about a 7.5-point favorite to a 9.5-point favorite in Vegas on game day, and the Pack won by 32 points.
  • New England’s win not a huge shock. Since New England was already benefitting from a high preseason rating, the big win over Cincinnati didn’t make a gigantic impact on the Pats’ rating. In fact, our ratings expected New England to win that game, although just barely. (Vegas favored Cincinnati.) But a blowout was obviously still a solid result.
  • Still some uncertainty about San Diego. It’s worth noting that about the only thing holding San Diego back from being #1 in our rankings right now is the fact that their hot start has been much better than expected, based on our preseason expectations. With a puny sample size of five games, it would be foolish to discount the possibility that the Chargers have simply had lots of things go right for them so far, that may not necessarily go right for them over the next 11 games. But if they keep outperforming expectations, the Chargers have a lot of space to keep rising in the ratings.
  • But the Chargers are #1 by some measures. With that said, it’s interesting to look at our Last 5 Ratings, where the influence of our preseason expectations is much reduced in favor of evaluating game results and schedule strength over the last five games. The top five teams in those rankings are currently: #1 San Diego, #2 Seattle, #3 Denver, #4 Indianapolis, #5 Baltimore. The biggest surprise is probably #6 Kansas City, a team that has played some great teams very close so far, but still gets held back a bit in our main ratings early in the season (currently #17) because of relatively low initial expectations. In addition, reducing the impact of preseason ratings drops the Patriots all the way to #15, San Francisco plummets to #18, and New Orleans is virtually off the map at #24.
  • Computer still isn’t buying Dallas or Philadelphia. Despite 4-1 records, both #14 Dallas and #15 Philadelphia continue to trail the league’s top teams by a considerable margin in our ratings. Week 5 results that lagged expectations (an OT win vs. Houston for Dallas and a 6-point win over the Rams for Philly, both home games) didn’t help either team’s case.
  • Giants outperform again. The Giants notched their third straight better-than-expectations win and are now up to #10 in the rankings, just one spot below where they started the season.
  • Where records and ratings contradict. We currently see #12 New Orleans (2-3) and #17 Kansas City (2-3) as being above average teams, despite having losing records. On the flip side, we see #20 Pittsburgh (3-2) and #22 Buffalo (3-2) as below average teams, despite having winning records. The Bills’ road upset of Detroit was a good result, though, and boosted their rating by 0.7 points.
  • Jaguars back in familiar territory. Anybody remember when Jacksonville was up 17-0 at Philadelphia at halftime in Week 1? What a difference five weeks makes. The Jaguars now rate as 12.4 points worse than the average NFL team, which is atrocious. (To put that in perspective, if the goal of the NFL was to come in last place and not first, Jacksonville would look significantly more dominant than Seattle or Denver does in the current system.) On the bright side, the Jags’ 17-9 home loss vs. Pittsburgh actually increased their rating by 0.1 points. Celebrate the little things, Jags fans.

NFL Week 6 Season Projections Update

Current NFL season projections

  • Teams with the highest NFL champion odds. The seven most likely 2015 Super Bowl champions are currently Seattle (20%, up from 18% last week), Denver (19%, up from 16%), San Diego (7%, up from 5%), Green Bay (7%), Cincinnati (6%, crashing down from 12% last week), New England (6%, up from 4%), and San Francisco (5%, even with last week). Despite being the #2 team in our rankings, the Seahawks have the highest Super Bowl win odds, thanks in part to ratings drops for Arizona (now 4% to win it all) and San Francisco, plus only having to face Denver or San Diego in playoffs, but not both.
  • AFC division winner projections. Our current projected division winners in the AFC are New England (57% AFC East, vs. 50% last week, given a big win but still tied with Buffalo in the standings), Cincinnati (53% AFC North, vs 64% last week, with a big loss offset somewhat by a Baltimore loss and a low rating for Pittsburgh), new favorite Indianapolis (55% AFC South, up from 44% last week, thanks to a win, a high rating, and a Houston loss), and Denver (63% AFC West, vs. 61% last week, as the division becomes more of a two-horse race — see next bullet).
  • Other AFC division winner threats. Outside of the current favorites, Houston is the biggest division winner challenger, with 42% odds to win the AFC South. With Jacksonville effectively out of contention, the Titans’ epic meltdown against Cleveland makes that division even more of a two-pony race, and Tennessee is getting dangerously close to “it will take a miracle to win the division” status itself. A similar thing is happening in the AFC West with Kansas City and Oakland; even though they came close to a victory, the Chiefs’ loss in Week 5 meant that both Denver and San Diego (now 33% to win the AFC West) increased their division winner odds, at KC’s expense. At this point, the Chiefs may well end up being a decent team that could win another division, but can’t stack up in the AFC West.
  • NFC division winner projections. Our current projected division winners in the NFC are Dallas (37% NFC East, up from 36% last week, after wins by all of the division’s top three teams), new favorite Green Bay (58% NFC North, rocketing up from 34% last week thanks to a blowout division win over Minnesota plus losses by Detroit and Chicago), new favorite Carolina (42% NFC South, thanks to a win, an Atlanta loss, and a falling rating for New Orleans), and Seattle (63% NFC West, vs. 53% last week, thanks to a win and a big Arizona loss).
  • Other NFC division winner threats. Thanks to a strong rating, we now see the NY Giants (33% to win the NFC East) as the biggest threat to Dallas, but Philly is right there too (30%), so it’s anybody’s division to win — well, outside of Washington, which only has a 1-in-50 chance at this point. Detroit (30% to win NFC North) is still very much in the hunt, too. However, the loss to Green Bay was a high-leverage game for the Vikings, and their division winner odds took a big blow as a result (down to just 6% now, equal to Chicago). Both New Orleans and Atlanta are nipping at Carolina’s heels, given that they’re both only one game back of the Panthers, but now it looks even more like Arizona and San Francisco will battle for the NFC Wild Card, perhaps with Detroit, unless Seattle slips up in the NFC West.
  • You can probably count these teams out of the playoffs. Our season simulations currently give seven teams less than a 10% chance of making the playoffs, up from six last week. Jacksonville and Oakland have now been pretty much eliminated from contention; both have less than a 1 in 1000 chance to make the postseason. In addition, Tampa Bay, St. Louis, Washington, and the NY Jets are all now under 2% to make it, after all four teams lost in Week 5. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the newest addition to this dubious list: the Tennessee Titans. Being two games behind the division leaders plus having the NFL’s fifth-worst predictive rating doesn’t bode well, and the Titans’ odds to make the postseason are now down to just over 4%.

NFL Week 6 Pick’em Pools Update

Week 6 NFL pick’em pool picks

  • Undone by a historical meltdown. For the first time in four weeks, the performance of our game winner picks differed from the public (i.e. the ESPN user consensus picks), and unfortunately we were the losers, going 11-4 vs. the public’s 12-3 performance. The difference maker was the the Tennessee/Cleveland game, where we sided with the Titans in a minor upset, and the public took Cleveland. Alas, we were undone by the greatest road comeback win in NFL history. Sigh. To add insult to injury, we also had the Patriots over Cincinnati in an upset earlier in the week when the Pats were a 1-point underdog, but a line change to +2.5 moved our prediction to barely favor the Bengals as our final pick, so both we and the public officially got that one wrong.
  • Favorites run riot. With the exception of Detroit, all the field-goal-or-better favorites won in Week 5, which generally spells bad news for underrated picks (defined as teams with the biggest difference between win odds and public picking percentage). The five most underrated picks in our Week 5 Pick’em Data Grid (the NY Jets, Baltimore, Jacksonville, St. Louis, and Minnesota) all lost. Our pick’em advice last week was to pick Tennessee over Cleveland (which, somewhat unbelievably, didn’t work out) and to strongly consider the Patriots over Cincinnati in weekly prize pools (which worked out very well).
  • Week 6 strategy for season prize pools. For Week 6, your best strategy in NFL pick’em pools that only have season prizes is to remain conservative and not go too crazy picking upsets. It’s slim pickings in terms of value this week, though. You’ll get a slight edge in most pools by taking Cleveland over Pittsburgh, as the Browns are the less popular pick, but the current Vegas favorite.
  • Week 6 strategy for weekly prize pools. Pools that only offer weekly prizes call for a different strategy, one that needs to give much more weight to how your opponents are likely to pick this week. In addition to the Browns, Minnesota over Detroit look like a solid pick for these pools. Minnesota is the #1 underrated pick this week, coming off an embarrassing Thursday night blowout at Green Bay, and it looks like starting QB Teddy Bridgewater will be back. It’s a bit of a risk, but the Vikings have about 45% odds to win, and are only about 20% picked right now.
  • Week 6 strategy for YOUR pool. Just remember, the optimal strategy for your specific pool, including how many favorites vs. upsets you should pick this week, depends on a lot of factors: the number of entries in your pool, the rules, the scoring system, the payout structure. That’s why we developed our Football Pick’em Pools product to apply our analytics to your specific pool.

NFL Week 6 Survivor Pools Update

Week 6 NFL survivor pool picks

  • Saints’ OT win avoids a major shakeup. In general, the big favorites and popular survivor picks all won last week, with the exception of Detroit, whose upset loss to the Bills knocked out about 11% of Week 5 Survivor pool entries. The most popular pick, New Orleans, was picked by about 30% of entries, and just barely survived the Bucs in OT.
  • We avoided New Orleans and Green Bay. The best pick for maximizing your odds to win a Survivor pool (assuming you only have one entry) was Philadelphia last week, thanks to decent win odds, relatively low popularity, and relatively low future value. Since we had already used Philly in some of our pick strategies, we also recommended Dallas, and (for small pools only) Seattle. All those picks ended up surviving, and we kept Green Bay in our quiver for later use. The Saints losing would have been quite nice, and it almost happened, but we got lucky with Dallas too.
  • Don’t pick this team in Week 6! For the second week in a row, public picks are very spread out across many teams. That changes optimal survivor pick strategy quite a bit. There aren’t really any popular picks this week where we’d pound the table with a STAY AWAY! recommendation. At the same time, if you’ve only got one or a few picks in a larger survivor pool, avoiding Denver will increase your expected winnings.

NFL Week 6 Betting Picks & Game Predictions Update

Week 6 NFL game winner picks | Spread picks | Most likely upsets

  • Bad week for playable betting picks. Our performance on lower-confidence spread picks, which we mentioned last week, finally improved, but our higher confidence betting picks had a poor Week 5. Spread picks against Sunday lines went 6-7-2 overall, but playable picks were 3-5. Similarly, over/under picks went 7-8 overall but playable picks laid a goose egg at 0-6 (ouch). In addition, New England +126 was the sole winner of six underdog plays that were our 2-star money line value picks. All in all, a pretty brutal week.
  • Season performance update. That performance means our playable rated spread picks are now 23-19 for the year, while playable over/under picks have dipped into the red at 15-18. (In comparison, low confidence totals picks are now 26-16 on the year.) Money line value picks remain profitable at +1.6 units if you are flat-betting.
  • Game winner picks still lagging the public. As mentioned in the pick’em section above, we fell an additional game behind the public picking game winners, thanks to Tennessee’s epic meltdown. We’re having some pretty bad luck so far this season picking close games against the public, but that’s going to happen sometimes. There’s a lot of football left to play, so hopefully that will change soon enough. As of now we’re lagging the ESPN user consensus this season in terms of game winner accuracy by four games.
  • Fewer upsets than expected, for the third week in a row. Overall, out of the 11 Week 5 games listed on our Most Likely Upsets page, we expected 3-4 upsets to happen based on our win odds. Only one happened, New England over Cincinnati, our third most likely minor upset. And for the first time this season, our most likely upset in games where the Vegas spread was at least three points (which was Baltimore over Indianapolis when we published this article last week, but it changed to Atlanta over the New York Giants by Sunday) didn’t win.
  • Week 6 playable NFL betting picks. As of posting time, we had 7 playable spread picks, 4 playable totals picks, and one two-star money line value pick for NFL Week 6, which is a more selective number of playable picks than last week.
  • Don’t call them the Week 6 locks of the week. The top confidence game winner picks from our models are currently Seattle at home over Dallas (79%), Denver on the road over the NY Jets (76%), and San Diego on the road over Oakland (72%).
  • Most likely Week 6 upsets. The most likely upset of the week according to our models is currently Minnesota over Detroit, with a 52% chance of happening (the Vikings are underdogs in Vegas right now, but our models like them slightly better). The most likely upset of a Vegas favorite of more than three points is currently Miami over Green Bay, with a 38% chance of happening.

One-Day Fantasy Challenge Update

Enter Our Week 6 NFL contest | Current season standings

  • We won one! The TeamRankings Nerds (teamrankings) scored our first ever first-place finish, out of 170 entrants this past week, in our weekly NFL contest on FanDuel. We edged second place finisher stalemated by just over three points using this lineup. Although our 145.34 was the lowest weekly winning score of the season so far, we seem to have come out of the gate with some quite good beginner’s luck here. That’s a first, second, and fifth place finish for us in five weeks — and four cashes in five tries — playing one entry each week in our contest.
  • So did lots of you. Of course, a top-five finish is worth the same as a 100th place finish in our contest, thanks to the 50/50 prize structure, so 99 other TeamRankings users also doubled their money last week. With the overlay, 59% of all entries won cash. Also, we’re going to give the weekly $249 Football Season Pass winner’s prize to second place finisher stalemated this week, since, well, we already get free access to TeamRankings.com premium content!
  • The strategy we used to win. If you’d like to read more about the strategy we used in Week 5, here’s some data analysis we did on FanDuel scoring trends by position that shows why it’s worthwhile to pay up for consistent-performing positions like QB’s and RB’s, if you’re playing in 50/50 leagues or heads-up against another player.
  • Come play with us! We want you to get in on all the Week 6 action with us. Another 100 entries will win cash this week, and this is your chance to beat the TR Nerds. Claim your spot now in our weekly tournament.