Absolutely nobody asked for it, but ESPN analyst Seth Walder released his latest “FPI” rankings and projections for the 2026 NFL season on Wednesday, and fans of the New England Patriots are in for a real treat.
There is a lot to unpack here, but the most egregious discrepancy involves the top two teams in the AFC East. ESPN has been known to glaze the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen, but we’re approaching uncomfortable levels here, guys.
Walder’s rankings — published on June 3, after the Patriots’ trade with the Eagles for wide receiver A.J. Brown was finalized — have New England at No. 14. The Patriots are ranked behind two of the teams it beat in the 2025 playoffs, the Texans (13th) and Chargers (7th), as well as multiple teams it beat on the road during the regular season in the Bengals (12th) and Ravens (3rd).
The Patriots, of course, also went into Buffalo in Week 5 last year, made a major statement, and went on to win the AFC East title. None of that appears to factor into Walder’s algorithm, though. We’re talking about the Bills here — the No. 2 team in ESPN’s new FPI rankings.
ESPN's Football Power Index is out!
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) June 3, 2026
The Rams are No. 1, the Seahawks are No. 4 and the Patriots are...No. 14!
Projections, most likely Super Bowl matchups and more in today's story: https://t.co/a3gvnREcZ3 pic.twitter.com/cUwrQBBGkw
The Bills apparently “gained” 4.0 points over the last week after doing absolutely nothing. The Patriots gained 1.4 points after adding one of the most dominant receivers in football. Maybe it was Buffalo's addition of someone named Mac Dalena after the draft that earned them all those extra points?
It’s getting to the point where Patriots fans can’t even be mad. All they can really do is laugh, and Bills fans should be doing the exact same thing. Walder’s take on the AFC East discrepancy is Looney Tunes-level delusion.
“So where does all of this leave New England in 2026? Still as a long-shot contender," he wrote. "The Patriots have a 6.7% and 2.7% chance to get back to, and win, the Super Bowl, respectively. That puts them on par with Denver and Houston.
"And the Patriots are decent underdogs to the Bills in the AFC East. Buffalo has a 67.6% chance to win the division, while the Patriots have a 30.6% shot.”
ESPN's latest AFC East projection is impossible to take seriously
Walder actually doubled down by picking the Bills to face the Rams in the Super Bowl, but let’s not spend much time on that. We can’t expect ESPN’s algorithm to actually watch football games. Clearly, it’s never watched Allen and the Bills play in the playoffs. It’s definitely not accounting for first-year head coach Joe Brady — a major wild-card this year, by the way.
This is obviously all based on data points related to the schedule, which has quickly become an exhausting topic in New England. The Patriots played a fourth-place schedule in 2025, and this year will be playing all three AFC division winners, along with Seattle and Chicago of the NFC. The Bills did their usual thing of reaching the playoffs with a first-place schedule last year before losing in the playoffs. They’ll dodge some of the heavyweights that are on the Patriots’ slate this year, and they have arguably the best quarterback on the planet. Giving them an edge over New England based on that alone is more than fair.
But giving Buffalo a more than 50 percent chance of winning the AFC East is objectively ridiculous. The Bills and Patriots played two extremely competitive, back-and-forth games in 2025. It took a super-human second half from Allen to erase a 21-0 deficit in Foxboro and avoid a sweep.
The real-life edge between these teams is razor-thin, but we're clearly not living in reality in ESPN's world. Can we just give the Bills a slight edge in the AFC East based on their easy schedule (have fun having that line shoved in your face all year, Bills fans) without going overboard for once?
In the context of actual football, as in the coaching and the rosters, Patriots fans can make an easy argument that they have the better situation right now. New England improved this offseason after aggressively addressing the offensive line and adding Brown and Romeo Doubs to the wide receiver room. It’s also easy to like the Bills’ additions of D.J. Moore and Bradley Chubb, but we're talking about two evenly-matched teams with marginal differences here.
How is this Bills team going to look after promoting Brady from offensive coordinator to head coach shortly after firing Sean McDermott? How will the defense fare with first-year DC Jim Leonhard, after it was McDermott, with his savvy use of Cover-6 zone coverages, who was the first to truly stymie Maye and the Patriots’ high-powered passing attack late in the 2025 regular season?
Hey, according to ESPN, if you're a good team with an easy schedule, you're going to the Super Bowl, especially if you're the Bills. Apologies for the sarcasm, but Patriots fans know exactly how this movie ends.
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