The Rams opened the season at No. 1 in the first NFL power rankings, a jump that put them ahead of every other team after a spring that changed the balance of the league. The Athletic’s Chad Graff and Josh Kendall ranked all 32 teams from first to worst, and their opening judgment was blunt: the Rams were the early benchmark.
That is why the rankings matter now. They landed as the NFL season opened, with Wednesday night bringing a Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks and the league moving straight into Week 1. For readers looking at the early shape of the season, the Rams at No. 1 is the headline, not a footnote.
The case for Los Angeles was built on more than reputation. Austin Mock’s simulation gave the Rams the most projected wins, and the offseason additions were impossible to miss: trades for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie, plus Aaron Donald returning to the Rams. The result was a team the rankings called a superteam, and the label fit the numbers as much as the roster.
The gap behind them was part of the story too. The Seattle Seahawks were No. 2, the Buffalo Bills were in the top five, and the order at the top showed how much faith the rankings placed in the Rams’ ceiling. That does not mean the rest of the board was settled. The Patriots opened with games against the Seahawks, Steelers, Jaguars and Bills, with three of those first four on the road, while the Broncos were still being measured against a season in which they reached the AFC Championship Game with a backup quarterback. Bo Nix was also coming back from a pair of offseason ankle surgeries, which only sharpened the questions around how far some of these teams could go.
The one team that makes the No. 1 slot less tidy is Seattle. The Seahawks were ranked second even after winning the Super Bowl and bringing back a very similar roster with the same coach, which is the kind of contradiction power rankings live on. That is what makes the opening list useful: it does not just crown a favorite, it shows where the arguments begin. For the Rams, the next test comes Thursday in Australia, when they are scheduled to face the San Francisco 49ers at 8:35 p.m. ET.
