One doesn't have to be a football savant to realize that the Los Angeles Rams are the best team in football right now. They were already stacked, and with the Cleveland Browns sending over Myles Garrett via last week's blockbuster June 1 trade, some fans think they might as well skip the season and just give the Rams the Lombardi trophy.
As such, it's not much of a surprise to see Sean McVay's team leading any and all power rankings after the Garrett trade. The Browns weren't getting that much love anyway, and all the recency bias and anti-Browns narratives have likely pushed them even lower.
However, ESPN's latest Football Power Index rankings might still surprise Browns fans. While the Rams are unsurprisingly sitting at the top, seeing Jesse Minter's Baltimore Ravens just two spots below feels wrong.
"FPI's preseason predictive ratings are primarily based on win totals from the betting market in conjunction with each team's schedule -- along with factors such as the difference between a team's starting and backup quarterback and a special teams rating that incorporates specific kickers," Seth Walter explained. "We use these ratings to simulate the season thousands of times, with the results forming our projections."
Cleveland landed near the bottom of ESPN's rankings while Baltimore somehow cracked the top three
For context, the Ravens are even ahead of the Seattle Seahawks, trailing only the aforementioned Rams and Buffalo Bills. The Browns, on the other hand, sit at No. 30.
Notably, this isn't the first time we've seen the 2026 Ravens near the top of the charts. Are we missing something? Because that's the very same team that just fired its head coach and couldn't get a stop to save their lives.
The Ravens have a first-year head coach with an unproven coaching staff. Of course, the same can be said of the Browns, but you don't see many pundits predicting Todd Monken to turn the franchise around overnight.
Baltimore backed out of an agreed upon trade for Maxx Crosby and replaced him with 32-year-old Trey Hendrickson, who's coming off missing 10 games and logging 4.5 sacks. Is he supposed to be the difference-making defensive stud that will put the Ravens over the top?
Of course, that doesn't mean the Ravens aren't a good team or that the Browns are on the same level; they're clearly not (for now). But to say that the Ravens are the third-best team in football is just flat-out wrong. They're not the best team in the AFC, so how are they supposed to be ahead of the reigning Super Bowl champions?
Projections are just that: A bunch of numbers on a screen or a piece of paper. And as much as ESPN wants to include math and algorithms in its process, it often boils down to the same bias and lazy narratives.
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