ESPN’s Computer Model Reveals The NFL’s 10 Worst Teams For 2026 — These Teams Have Zero Chance

This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.

The 2026 NFL regular season is still months away, but ESPN’s analytics department isn’t waiting to weigh in. The network’s Football Power Index, a projection-based model that simulates the rest of the season thousands of times using current rosters, results, and schedules, has already identified the 10 teams it expects to struggle most once the games begin.

Here’s the full list, according to ESPN’s FPI rankings:

1. Miami Dolphins
2. Arizona Cardinals
3. New York Jets
4. Cleveland Browns
5. Las Vegas Raiders
6. Tennessee Titans
7. Carolina Panthers
8. New Orleans Saints
9. Washington Commanders
10. New York Giants

Why ESPN’s Computer Model Is Down On These Teams

Miami’s spot atop the list lines up with a rough offseason in South Beach. The Dolphins moved on from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, taking on a massive salary-cap hit in the process, and turned to Malik Willis as their new starter heading into a full-scale rebuild. With a new general manager and head coach in place, Miami is widely viewed as one of the league’s clearest tanking candidates this year, which tracks with where ESPN’s model has them landing.

The rest of the bottom 10 reads like a familiar group of rebuilding or transitional rosters. The Jets, Browns, Raiders, and Titans have each cycled through major front-office or coaching changes recently, while the Panthers and Commanders remain works in progress despite some recent bright spots.

The Giants’ inclusion might raise the most eyebrows, given the buzz around new head coach John Harbaugh and a retooled offensive line that some analysts believe could push New York toward sleeper status rather than the basement.

What is ESPN’s FPI Model

ESPN describes it as a model built to predict how teams will perform the rest of the way, generating results from thousands of season simulations that update daily as new information comes in. That means these rankings are far from fixed, and plenty can shift before Week 1 arrives.

Some of these projections will likely look very different by September. Teams like the Giants, who some analysts already view as a sleeper playoff threat thanks to their offseason additions, illustrate how quickly preseason computer models can diverge from on-field reality. Other teams on this list, like the Dolphins, appear to be a much tougher case, with one of the league’s most disastrous offseasons working against them from the jump.

For now, ESPN’s model paints a clear picture of who it expects to be fighting for high draft positioning rather than playoff seeding in 2026. Whether the season actually plays out that way is, as always, the entire reason these games get played.