The most watchable NFL teams so far this season
The Titans are 1-7 and they've been one of the better teams in the league to watch. The Jaguars are 6-2 and four of their six wins were by 23 points or more. If you get one window on a Sunday and have to choose a game, the standings won't tell you which one is going to come down to the last drive.
So I counted. The Lineup Is ranks every NFL game every week, and after the final whistle each game either cleared our bar for worth watching or it didn't. For each team I took every finished regular-season game since the opener and worked out how many of them cleared it.
The window is the season opener, Patriots at Seahawks on September 9, through Monday night on November 9, 2026. That's nine weeks and 136 finished games. 69 of them cleared the bar, about half.
All 32 teams, ranked
Ranked by share of games that cleared the bar, with ties broken by count. Teams have played eight or nine games depending on byes.
| Rank | Team | Games | Worth watching | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giants | 8 | 7 | 88% |
| 2 | Lions | 8 | 6 | 75% |
| 2 | Saints | 8 | 6 | 75% |
| 4 | Broncos | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| 4 | Browns | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| 6 | 49ers | 8 | 5 | 63% |
| 6 | Bengals | 8 | 5 | 63% |
| 6 | Bills | 8 | 5 | 63% |
| 6 | Titans | 8 | 5 | 63% |
| 10 | Bears | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 10 | Colts | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 10 | Eagles | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 10 | Raiders | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 10 | Seahawks | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 15 | Commanders | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| 15 | Panthers | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| 15 | Steelers | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| 15 | Texans | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| 15 | Vikings | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| 20 | Buccaneers | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 20 | Cardinals | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 20 | Cowboys | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 20 | Jets | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 20 | Rams | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 20 | Ravens | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 26 | Chiefs | 8 | 3 | 38% |
| 26 | Jaguars | 8 | 3 | 38% |
| 28 | Falcons | 9 | 3 | 33% |
| 28 | Packers | 9 | 3 | 33% |
| 28 | Patriots | 9 | 3 | 33% |
| 31 | Chargers | 8 | 2 | 25% |
| 32 | Dolphins | 8 | 1 | 13% |
Ratings here use our scoring as of November 12, which gives regular-season overtime and early upset leads less weight than it used to. Twelve of the 136 went to overtime.
The top of the list
Giants: 7 of 8
The Giants are 5-2-1, and the only game of theirs that didn't clear was a 28-6 loss to the Rams. Everything else had something in it. On October 11 they were down 27-13 in Washington with 11 minutes left. Jameis Winston threw two touchdowns in the fourth, the last one to Malik Nabers with 1:43 to go, and nobody scored in overtime: 27-27. Two weeks later they won 27-21 in overtime in Houston on a 30-yard run by Devin Singletary. Even the loss to New Orleans made it: down 34-10, the Giants scored 17 straight and ran out of time.
Lions and Saints: 6 of 8 each
These two opened the season against each other and set the tone for both. Detroit led 21-0. Tyler Shough threw for 410 yards, the Saints tied it 24-24 and sent it to overtime, and after the Lions scored a touchdown, New Orleans answered with one of its own and went for two to win it. It failed. Lions 31, Saints 30. Detroit is 6-2 and five of its eight games finished within a touchdown, including 20-17 over Green Bay and 19-15 over Minnesota.
The Saints are only 3-5, which is the point. They won 24-17 in Baltimore, built that 34-10 lead in New York and held on, and beat Cleveland 23-22 in overtime on Sunday when the Browns scored a touchdown with a minute left in the extra period and missed the two-point try. Two of the Saints' overtime games this season ended on a failed two-pointer.
Broncos and Browns: 6 of 9 each
Denver is 7-2 and wins late. The Broncos beat Seattle 17-14 in overtime on a 53-yard Wil Lutz field goal after the Seahawks tied it with three seconds left. On November 1 they were down 24-13 to Kansas City in the fourth and won 28-24 on Jonah Coleman's touchdown run with 1:56 left. They also beat the Rams 30-26 and Carolina 26-21.
Cleveland has the most coin-flip games in the league: five of its nine were decided by three points or fewer. Andre Szmyt beat Pittsburgh 27-24 with a 56-yard field goal with 10 seconds left, and the Browns also won 21-18 over Carolina, 13-10 over Baltimore and 27-24 in Tennessee.
The bottom of the list
Dolphins: 1 of 8
Miami is 1-7, and its one game on the list was a 31-24 loss to Cincinnati where the Dolphins came back from 18 down to make it a one-score game late. Their one win, 28-25 over the Jets, didn't clear. Close isn't enough on its own: a tight game between two struggling teams has to do more to earn a spot.
Chargers: 2 of 8
The Chargers are 0-8 and only two of their losses were within a touchdown. The pair that cleared were a 26-14 loss to the Raiders and a 23-17 loss to Denver.
Falcons, Packers and Patriots: 3 of 9 each
Atlanta's average margin is over 15 points a game. It lost 34-3 to Carolina and 16-0 in Tampa, and beat New Orleans 45-24. The Packers are 6-3 but win by a lot: 31-7 over Chicago, 45-27 in New England. Their three that cleared were all within eight, including a 20-17 overtime win over the Jets. The Patriots are 5-4 with wins of 20-3 and 45-17 and losses of 35-6 and 45-27. Their best game was 29-26 in Buffalo, won on Drake Maye's touchdown pass to Efton Chism III with 1:50 left.
Surprises
The Titans are 1-7 and tied for sixth. Tennessee lost to the Eagles by four, the Giants by five, the Ravens by six, the Browns by three, and Cincinnati 43-36 in overtime after taking a 36-29 lead with under four minutes left. A bad record full of late finishes makes for good Sundays.
Winning big makes for dull TV. The Jaguars and Chiefs are both 6-2 and both near the bottom. Jacksonville beat New England 35-6, Indianapolis 42-7 and Baltimore 33-10, and its average margin is the widest in the league. Kansas City's wins over the Broncos, Dolphins, Chargers and Jets were all by 14 or more.
The 49ers are the exception. San Francisco is 7-1 and still made it five times out of eight. Its three blowouts didn't count. A 32-29 win in Seattle, 36-30 over Arizona, a 24-14 win over Denver and a 29-20 loss in Atlanta, the 49ers' only defeat, all did.
Our take
A table like this looks backward. What matters on Sunday is which of the afternoon games is going to be good. The Lineup Is ranks every NFL game on 11 factors, from Rankings and Close game to Playoff race and Rivalry, and keeps rescoring while games are on, so a 1 p.m. game that turns into a shootout moves up while it's happening. Your teams always show up whatever their score, and alerts tell you when a game gets good. As the season gets into December, the playoff picture starts to matter more, and here's how that works. This week's games are at thelineup.is/tonight/nfl.
The Lineup Is is an iPhone app that ranks every game by whether it's worth watching and tells you when one gets good.
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