Updated Tuesday 27 October 2026, after every Week 7 game. Seven weeks are complete, and the seeding below is the bracket as the NFL would draw it today.
The line that matters most this week: Carolina holds the NFC’s fourth seed on a 22% chance of reaching January. The Panthers are 3-3 after a 43-13 home defeat to Tampa Bay and lead the NFC South because nobody else in it has a winning record. Our model rates them the weakest qualifier in either conference. The next lowest is Cleveland, which holds the AFC’s third seed at 5-2 on 24%.
The NFC North oddity is now three weeks old. All four NFC North teams hold a seed again: Minnesota first at 6-0, and Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay filling every wild card. Seattle is the first team out on 75%, a higher figure than five of the seven teams inside.
Minnesota is the only unbeaten team left after San Francisco lost in Atlanta, and Kansas City holds the AFC’s top seed at 5-1 on the tiebreaker over Buffalo. Below is the picture as it stands under NFL rules, then what our model thinks it will look like in January.
AFC playoff picture
BYE first seed, the only team with a first-round bye. DIV leading its division. WC holding a wild card place. OUT first team outside the seven. Points +/- is points scored minus points conceded, the NFL’s deepest tiebreaker and the best early read on a team. Signal playoff odds is our model’s chance of that team reaching the postseason.
NFC playoff picture
BYE first seed, the only team with a first-round bye. DIV leading its division. WC holding a wild card place. OUT first team outside the seven. Points +/- is points scored minus points conceded, the NFL’s deepest tiebreaker and the best early read on a team. Signal playoff odds is our model’s chance of that team reaching the postseason.
The two rules that decide the bracket
Fourteen teams reach the postseason, seven from each conference. The four division winners take seeds one through four by record. The three best remaining teams take five, six and seven as wild cards.
Two consequences drive every argument in December.
- A division winner outranks every wild card. A 9-8 division champion hosts an 11-6 wild card. That is why Atlanta sit fourth at 0-1 and Chicago fifth at 1-0.
- Only the number one seed gets a bye. Seeds two through seven all play on wild card weekend, which makes the gap between first and second the most valuable single place in the bracket.
What the model says, and where it disagrees
The table above is the bracket as the NFL would seed it today. The one below is our model’s probability of each team actually reaching the postseason, from simulating the rest of the season many thousands of times. Reading them side by side is the point of this page.
The disagreement is sharpest at the bottom of each bracket. Carolina leads the NFC South and holds the fourth seed on 22%, the lowest figure of any qualifying team in either conference, at 3-3 with a points differential of minus 7 and 23rd in our NFL power rankings. Seattle is the first NFC team out on 75%, rated above Carolina, Green Bay on 36%, Chicago on 65%, the Giants on 69% and Detroit on 72%. Only Minnesota and San Francisco rate higher among the seven.
In the AFC, Cleveland holds the third seed on 24% at 5-2 with a differential of minus 13, while Cincinnati, seventh on the tiebreaks at 4-2, is rated at 90%. New England is the first team out on 76%, level with Pittsburgh inside the bracket, and Baltimore has slipped to ninth on 36% after losing at home to the Bengals.
None of this means the seeding is wrong. It means a division title is worth a great deal in January and very little as a measure of quality in October, and the two tables above are measuring different things on purpose.
Division by division
AFC East. Buffalo leads at 5-1 after a bye and is first in our power rankings, on 99%. New England is 4-3 and the first team out on 76% after losing in Chicago. The Jets are 2-5, and Miami is 1-5 with its first win of the season, 28-25 at the Jets.
AFC North. Cleveland and Pittsburgh are both 5-2, Cincinnati is 4-2 and Baltimore 4-3, and three of the four are inside the bracket today: Cleveland third, Pittsburgh sixth, Cincinnati seventh. The model’s order is almost the reverse: Cincinnati 90%, Pittsburgh 76%, Baltimore 36%, Cleveland 24%.
AFC South. Jacksonville is 4-2 after a bye with plus 50, the best differential in the AFC, on 97%. Indianapolis and Houston are both 2-5, and the Titans are 1-6.
AFC West. Kansas City is 5-1 and holds the top seed despite scoring three points in Seattle, on 91%. Denver is 5-2 and fifth on 95%, a higher figure than the Chiefs. Las Vegas has lost four straight to fall to 3-4, and the Chargers are 0-6.
NFC East. The New York Giants lead at 4-2-1, the only division leader carrying a tie, on 69% after winning in Houston. Dallas is 3-4 after beating Philadelphia on Monday night, the Eagles are 2-5 on a five-game losing run, and Washington is 1-4-1.
NFC North. Every team in it holds a seed for a third straight week. No other division has more than three. Minnesota is 6-0 on 99%, and Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay take the three wild cards. The model prefers Detroit of the three on 72%, against Chicago’s 65% and Green Bay’s 36%.
NFC South. Carolina leads at 3-3 and holds the fourth seed on 22%. Atlanta is 3-4 after beating San Francisco, and Tampa Bay and New Orleans are both 2-5.
NFC West. San Francisco is 6-1 with plus 58, the best differential in the league, and holds the second seed on 96%. Seattle is 4-3 and the first team out on 75%. The Rams are 3-4 on 43%, and Arizona is 2-5 with minus 66, the worst differential in the league, on 0%.
How seeding ties are broken
When two teams finish level, the order runs like this.
- Head to head. If they played, the winner goes ahead. This settles more ties than everything below it combined.
- Division record for teams in the same division, or conference record for a wild card tie.
- Record in common games.
- Strength of victory, then strength of schedule.
Two practical consequences. A sweep of a division rival in October decides seeding in January, which is why divisional games carry more weight than the schedule suggests. And the deeper tiebreakers almost never get used, so if you are trying to work out who holds a place, start with head to head and stop early.
What is still to play this week
Week 8 runs from Thursday night to Monday night, and fourteen games are scheduled because Houston, New Orleans, the New York Giants and San Francisco are on bye. The clocks go back on Sunday, so the kickoffs below are Eastern Standard Time from Sunday onward.
Carolina at Green Bay opens it on Thursday night at 8:15pm ET, the NFC’s fourth seed at its seventh. Cleveland at Pittsburgh on Sunday puts the AFC’s third seed at its sixth, both 5-2 in the AFC North. Minnesota at Detroit sends the NFC’s top seed to its sixth, and Kansas City at Denver (4:25pm ET) does the same in the AFC: the top seed at the fifth, both from the AFC West.
Baltimore at Buffalo takes the AFC’s ninth team to its second seed, Philadelphia at Washington fills Sunday night (8:20pm ET), and Chicago at Seattle closes the week on Monday at 8:15pm ET, the NFC’s fifth seed at the first team out.
Elsewhere, Indianapolis at Jacksonville and Tennessee at Cincinnati send 2-5 and 1-6 sides to teams inside the AFC bracket, Atlanta at Tampa Bay is second against third in the NFC South, and the Chargers at the Rams (4:05pm ET) is the Los Angeles meeting. Kickoffs are 1:00pm ET unless stated, and our NFL injury report carries every filed designation for these games from Friday afternoon. For the model’s call on all fourteen, see our NFL picks.
Following the race from Canada
Kickoffs across our coverage are Eastern. A 1:00pm ET Sunday game is 10:00am in Vancouver and 2:00pm in Halifax, and the late window at 4:25pm ET is the one most Canadian viewers get on national broadcast.
Week by week, our NFL power rankings carry the model’s read on all 32 teams with the reasoning behind every move. Game-by-game calls sit on the NFL picks page, season-long markets are on the NFL futures page, and how the NFL works explains the structure from the ground up. The Signal methodology sets out the model in full.
This page is rebuilt every Tuesday, once the Monday night game completes the week. The official NFL standings are the authority on records and clinching.
As of 27 October 2026, the AFC places are held by Kansas City, Buffalo, Cleveland and Jacksonville as division leaders, with Denver, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati in the wild card spots. In the NFC it is Minnesota, San Francisco, the New York Giants and Carolina leading their divisions, with Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay holding the wild cards. New England and Seattle are the first teams out.
Fourteen teams qualify, seven per conference. Kansas City holds the AFC number one seed and the conference’s only first-round bye, at 5-1 on the tiebreaker over Buffalo, and Minnesota holds the NFC’s at 6-0. Carolina holds the NFC fourth seed on a 22% model chance, because a division leader is always seeded above a wild card. New England and Seattle are the first teams out of their conferences on current tiebreaks.
Our model’s most likely qualifiers are Buffalo and Minnesota at 99%, Jacksonville at 97%, San Francisco at 96% and Denver at 95%. The widest gap between the seeding and the model is Carolina, which holds the NFC’s fourth seed on a 22% chance, while Seattle sits outside the seven on 75%.
Nobody, and nobody can be this early. Mathematical elimination does not begin until around Week 10, and the first teams out are usually decided in December. Arizona, Miami, Tennessee, the Los Angeles Chargers and the New York Jets carry the lowest chance in our model at 0%, which reflects their form rather than any arithmetic that has already closed.
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