The Patriots are back in the top 10 of the Week 6 NFL rankings after back-to-back wins over the Bills and Raiders. Drake Maye drove the rise, leading New England to its most points and yards in a game since 2021.
That kind of jump does not happen by accident. The Patriots scored 45 points and piled up 536 yards against the Raiders, a burst that made the rankings move feel less like a weekly reshuffle and more like proof that their offense has found real momentum.
It also lands at a moment when scoring across the league is up, with NFL teams averaging 23.3 points in 2026. In that setting, Maye’s performance stands out because it gave the Patriots something the rankings are built to reward: production that travels from one week to the next, not just one clean Sunday.
The pull of the top 10 sits right beside the bottom of the board, where the Chargers, Titans and Dolphins are all 0-5. That is the sharpest contrast in the Week 6 picture, and it is especially striking because three teams from the same conference starting 0-5 is a rare sight since the 1970 merger. Los Angeles also blew a seven-point lead with nine minutes left against the Broncos, which is the kind of collapse that keeps a team pinned in place while others move up around it.
The Packers made their own climb after entering Sunday’s matchup against Chicago as 1.5-point underdogs and then dominating the Bears to avenge last season’s wild-card loss. Jordan Love threw for 367 yards in that win, another result that helps explain why the top half of the rankings keeps shifting while the teams at the bottom keep losing ground. The Patriots are not just rising because they won twice; they are rising because their offense suddenly looks like it belongs among the league’s better teams.
The only real question left is how long the Patriots can keep forcing their way upward before the next stretch of games tests whether this is a brief run or the start of a real move. With the Jets and Dolphins in two of the next three weeks, the answer could come quickly.
