NFL · 2026 WIN-TOTAL BOARD

32 teams, simulated 10,000 times.

Every team's season, replayed 10,000 times off preseason Elo priors built walk-forward from every result since 1999. What you get: the mean, the honest band around it, and each team's division and playoff odds. What you don't get: a market column — there's no market anchor on this board yet, and we'd rather show the gap than fill it.

SEASON2026SIMULATIONS10,000VALIDATIONMAE 2.338 · 2015-2025UPDATED1h ago
THE BOARD'S RULER · 2015-2025
2.338 wins MAE
PRIOR-YEAR WINS
2.813
FLAT .500
2.602
WINDOW
2015-2025
BEATS BOTH
YES

Projected win totals beat both naive baselines (prior-year wins and flat .500) out-of-sample. Lower is better — the ruler is how far the projection missed actual win totals, out of sample.

THE BOARD · 32 TEAMS · SORTED BY PROJECTED WINS
TEAMPROJ WINSP10–P90 BANDDIVISIONPLAYOFFS
01Seattle Seahawks12.3101571.8%96.9%
02Houston Texans11.191466.8%89.8%
03Denver Broncos11.091375.7%89.7%
04Los Angeles Rams10.781320.5%83.8%
05Buffalo Bills10.681358.9%85.5%
06Philadelphia Eagles10.481378.7%85.2%
07New England Patriots10.381337.9%79.5%
08Detroit Lions10.381347.4%75.8%
09Jacksonville Jaguars10.181328.1%74.6%
10Baltimore Ravens10.081356.9%73.9%
11Minnesota Vikings9.871230.2%64.0%
12San Francisco 49ers9.57127.6%61.3%
13Pittsburgh Steelers8.961123.5%47.0%
14Green Bay Packers8.961113.2%42.8%
15Los Angeles Chargers8.661114.0%42.9%
16Chicago Bears8.66119.2%34.4%
17Cincinnati Bengals8.561114.9%34.5%
18Kansas City Chiefs8.361110.1%32.2%
19Tampa Bay Buccaneers8.361143.7%47.2%
20Atlanta Falcons8.051130.3%35.3%
21Indianapolis Colts7.85104.8%22.3%
22New Orleans Saints7.651019.4%23.9%
23Washington Commanders7.35109.5%17.0%
24Dallas Cowboys7.25107.9%14.3%
25Cleveland Browns7.25104.7%12.6%
26Miami Dolphins7.05102.9%11.8%
27New York Giants6.5493.9%7.2%
28Carolina Panthers6.4496.7%9.0%
29Arizona Cardinals5.5380.1%1.8%
30Tennessee Titans5.2380.3%1.5%
31New York Jets5.1370.3%1.3%
32Las Vegas Raiders4.8370.3%0.9%

PROJ WINS is the mean across the 10,000 simulations; the band is the 10th-to-90th percentile of the same distribution — the range a season lands in four times out of five, not a promise. DIVISION and PLAYOFFS are the share of simulations won. These are priors, not picks: no market anchor yet, and ratings are frozen at their preseason values until in-season re-rating ships.

THE MODEL

Walk-forward Elo, honest about what it is.

WHAT THE SIM IS

Preseason Elo built from every result since 1999 (regressed one-third toward league average each offseason), home field estimated from the last ten completed seasons. 10,000 seeded simulations of the regular season with ratings frozen at preseason priors. Validated out-of-sample: every season in the window replayed from priors only and compared to actual win totals.

THE KNOBS, STATED
SIMULATIONS
10,000 seeded runs (seed 20260907) — the board is reproducible, not re-rolled
HOME FIELD
33 Elo points — home win% 54.7% over 2016-2025 (non-neutral)
OFFSEASON
ratings regressed one-third toward 1500
STANDINGS TIES
simulated standings ties broken by Elo — real NFL tiebreakers not modeled
VALIDATION · 2015-2025 · VALIDATED

Projected win totals beat both naive baselines (prior-year wins and flat .500) out-of-sample.

Every season in the window was replayed from priors only and scored against actual win totals. Beating two naive baselines makes the board worth reading; it does not make any single number a bet — there is no market column on this page because we haven't earned one.

Same priors, weekly lens. The survivor primer.

The sim also prices every week of every team's season. The survivor primer turns that into the biggest favorite of each week — informational, with the future-value caveat attached.