The first Sunday of the 2026 NFL season didn’t exactly ease anyone in. It came out swinging. Week 1 delivered the kind of chaos and fireworks that make opening weekend feel like a holiday, and the numbers backed it up: this was the highest-scoring opening weekend since the 1970 merger, with both teams combining for more than 50 points per game.
That’s the backdrop for the first Week 2 power rankings, where the challenge is sorting out what was real and what was just opening-week noise. Some teams came out looking like they’re already in trouble. Others, at least for one week, looked a lot better than expected.
At the bottom, the Cleveland Browns are still stuck in last. Their Week 1 showing against the Jacksonville Jaguars was as ugly as it gets.
The Browns were beaten badly and never looked organized. Denzel Boston and KC Concepcion at least managed to make a few plays, but there wasn’t much else to point to.
The numbers tell the story. Cleveland went 1-of-8 on third down, failed on both red zone trips, committed 11 penalties and lost the turnover battle 0-2.
It started with an interception on the opening drive and never really improved from there. After all the offseason concern around this group, Week 1 made those worries look justified, and they already seem like a team staring at the #1 overall pick in next year’s draft.
Just ahead of them are the Tennessee Titans, another team that left Week 1 with more questions than answers. The biggest one is Cam Ward.
After the preseason concerns, his performance against the New York Jets did little to quiet anything. Ward averaged 4.4 yards per attempt, finishing with 140 yards on 32 throws, and he was sacked three times.
But this wasn’t just on the quarterback. Tennessee couldn’t get anything going on the ground, couldn’t stretch drives, and never got close to finding an offensive rhythm.
The Titans finished with fewer than 200 total yards, averaged a miserable 4.0 yards per play and had six of their 10 possessions end after five plays or fewer. It was the kind of offensive outing that leaves a lot of fixing to be done.
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Robert Salehs first game as Titans head coach ended with a familiar kind of frustration, as Tennessee fell 23-10 to the Jets in Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season. The bigger concern for the Titans was not just the scoreboard, but the way the offense repeatedly stalled in favorable field position, forcing punts inside Jets territory and leaving the team without much to show for those chances.
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