ESPN’s Football Power Index did not need much time to redraw the NFL’s early-season map.
After one Sunday of 2026 action, the computer has Miami at the bottom of the league, with Cleveland right behind it. Tennessee, Las Vegas and the Jets round out ESPN’s five worst teams after Week 1. The board updates daily, and the opening weekend gave it plenty of fresh evidence to chew on.
The results were ugly in a hurry. Jacksonville rolled past Cleveland 34-10.
Las Vegas beat Miami 27-13. The Jets went on the road and handled Tennessee 23-10.
Those games fed straight into the model, and the rankings moved accordingly.
Miami owns the lowest mark at minus 7.5. The Dolphins dropped their opener in Las Vegas and still look like a rebuild on both sides of the ball.
Cleveland is next at minus 7.1, and the Browns’ offense was graded as the weakest unit in the entire index. Tennessee comes in at 30th at minus 5.4 after its home loss to New York.
Then come the two teams that won and still landed in the basement. Las Vegas sits 29th at minus 3.6 after beating Miami, while the Jets are 28th at minus 3.2 despite winning in Nashville. The model still sees thin rosters and hard remaining slates, so those victories were not enough to lift either team out of the bottom five.
That group lines up with an earlier ESPN FPI forecast that had already singled out Miami, Cleveland and the Jets as long-term trouble spots. One Sunday did not change that picture. It sharpened it.
The top of the board shifted too. San Francisco jumped to No. 1 after beating Los Angeles 27-7 in Melbourne, and that same FPI Super Bowl shift knocked the Rams from first to sixth in one night.
The gap between the 49ers and the league’s weakest teams is already massive. San Francisco rates plus 5.6, while Miami sits at minus 7.5, a spread of more than 13 points against an average opponent on a neutral field.
Cleveland’s offense is especially hard to ignore. Its expected points rating is minus 6.2, and few NFL units open a season that far underwater.
Some of these teams were already showing up on disaster lists before Week 1. Miami’s quarterback change, Cleveland’s stalled offense and Tennessee’s early hole all fit that pattern.
The computer isn’t creating new problems. It’s putting numbers to the same ones that showed up on the field.
The index will move again after Monday night and throughout the season. For now, ESPN’s model says five teams are well below average, and three of them took double-digit losses on Sunday.
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