NFL Power Rankings: The July Board
Training camp is almost here. Here’s who we’d bet on before anyone pulls a hamstring.
July is the only month every fanbase is undefeated, every rookie is a future Hall of Famer, and every coach swears “we’re just taking it one day at a time.”
Training camps open in three weeks.
The regular season kicks off September 10.
Until then, all we have are rosters, quarterbacks, coaching staffs, and enough optimism to power an ESPN debate show.
Here’s our preseason Top 10.
🐏 1. Los Angeles Rams
If you’re building the perfect contender in a lab, it probably looks a lot like this.
Matthew Stafford just won MVP, Sean McVay is still one of football’s offensive wizards, and then the Rams casually added Myles Garrett to an already dangerous defense.
Did they have a perfect draft?
Not really.
Do we care?
Not even a little.
This roster has elite coaching, an elite quarterback, an elite pass rusher, and exactly one thing fueling everyone inside the building:
They were one game short.
That’s terrifying.
🐴 2. Denver Broncos
Denver’s entire season comes down to one sentence:
If Bo Nix doesn’t break his ankle, they might already own the Lombardi Trophy.
Now he returns healthy to Sean Payton, alongside one of the nastiest defenses in football.
The NFL even handed them the Week 1 revenge script:
📺 Monday Night Football.
📍 Arrowhead.
🍿 September 14.
The league loves drama.
This one practically wrote itself.
🏆 3. Seattle Seahawks
Yes…
The defending Super Bowl champions are third.
Before Seattle fans start throwing fish at us, hear us out.
Sam Darnold won a ring.
Kenneth Walker III won Super Bowl MVP.
The Seahawks dominated February.
But championships don’t freeze everyone else in time.
While Seattle mostly stood still this offseason, the Rams loaded up and Denver got healthier.
Winning one Super Bowl is hard.
Winning another when everyone circles your logo every Sunday?
That’s even harder.
🐦⬛ 4. Baltimore Ravens
This roster screams No. 1 seed.
Lamar Jackson is healthy.
Trey Hendrickson joins the pass rush.
Justin Madubuike is back.
Then reality shows up.
John Harbaugh is gone.
Lamar still doesn’t have his extension.
Ownership keeps talking about that $74.5 million cap number like it’s a ticking clock.
This could end with home-field advantage.
Or a Netflix documentary.
We’re honestly not sure which.
🇺🇸 5. New England Patriots
History says Super Bowl losers usually slide backward.
Young franchise quarterbacks usually don’t.
Drake Maye finished last season flirting with the MVP conversation, and the smoke surrounding A.J. Brown refuses to disappear.
If that trade somehow happens…
Move New England into the top three and pretend this paragraph never existed.
🦬 6. Buffalo Bills
Josh Allen.
A quietly rebuilt defense.
Absolutely zero national hype.
Which is somehow when Buffalo becomes the most dangerous version of itself.
Of course…
January still exists.
Until the Bills prove otherwise, both realities can be true at the same time.
🔴 7. Kansas City Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes tore his knee in December.
Normally that’s enough to bury a team.
Not Kansas City.
The injury avoided nerve, artery, and meniscus damage, putting his recovery almost perfectly on track for Week 1.
He practiced in OTAs.
He says he’ll have no restrictions.
The NFL clearly believes him too.
A 6-11 team somehow landed six primetime games.
The warning signs still exist.
No playoffs.
Kelce flirting with retirement.
Andy Reid turns 68.
The cap situation isn’t exactly pretty.
But betting against Patrick Mahomes has been a losing business since 2017.
⚡ 8. Los Angeles Chargers
The Chargers ended Kansas City’s season…
…and Mahomes’ knee.
Justin Herbert somehow survived being pressured on 43.3% of his dropbacks behind what occasionally resembled an offensive line assembled during a fire drill.
So what did LA do?
They fixed it.
Rashawn Slater returns.
Joe Alt returns.
Tyler Biadasz arrives.
Four draft picks went toward the offensive line.
Mike McDaniel comes in to rebuild Herbert’s mechanics around quicker decisions.
The excuses are officially gone.
The roster is playoff-ready.
Now Herbert has to prove he is too.
🧀 9. Green Bay Packers
Green Bay has quietly become one of football’s safest bets.
Detroit is retooling.
Minnesota is gambling on Kyler Murray.
The Packers’ floor is another playoff appearance.
The ceiling?
Whether January finally starts treating them as well as September does.
🌉 10. San Francisco 49ers
Kyle Shanahan’s offense is still one of football’s safest investments.
The scheme creates open receivers.
The defense flies around.
The floor remains incredibly high.
Yes, the playoff heartbreaks keep piling up.
But we’re not kicking a consistently elite football team out of the Top 10 because they keep coming up one game short.
😴 Sleepers: 11 & 12
🔵 New York Giants
Nobody in East Rutherford wants to say it out loud.
We’ll do it for them.
John Harbaugh inherits Jaxson Dart, Malik Nabers, Cam Skattebo, Abdul Carter, and the most exciting young core the Giants have assembled in years.
Brian Burns called offseason hype fool’s gold.
Maybe.
But this version comes with a Super Bowl-winning coach.
That’s different.
🐆 Jacksonville Jaguars
The Trevor Lawrence we saw after his brutal first half looked like an entirely different quarterback.
Now Travis Hunter returns.
Most of the roster returns.
If September Trevor looks like November Trevor…
Jacksonville won’t stay outside the Top 10 for long.
🦁 The Detroit Question
Has the window finally closed?
The pessimists have plenty to work with.
They missed the playoffs after going 15-2.
The defense regressed.
The offensive line ranked 31st in pass-block win rate.
They’re projected to be over the cap entering camp.
None of that is ideal.
But here’s what keeps Detroit interesting:
They still finished third in DVOA.
That’s elite.
Usually when the process stays elite and the record collapses, the record is the lie—not the roster.
New offensive coordinator Drew Petzing brings a pass-heavy system tailor-made for Jared Goff, and Detroit’s biggest weakness—the interior offensive line—is one of the easiest premium positions to rebuild through the draft.
The Lions may not be dead.
They might just be one healthy September away from reminding everyone why they were everyone’s Super Bowl pick a year ago.
🔮 Final Thoughts
July power rankings are part football analysis, part educated guessing, and part convincing ourselves every roster looks amazing before the injury report shows up.
The Rams own the crown—for now.
Seattle owns the trophy.
Kansas City still has Patrick Mahomes.
And somewhere, a fanbase ranked 22nd is already planning the parade.
Football is almost back.
Clear your Sundays.
— The Bandicoots 🏈🔥