Through Monday of week 7, the 2026 regular season is 107 games deep — 39% of a 272-game schedule. That is 18,738 plays pooled across 32 teams, or roughly 585 per club. For comparison, a full 2025 team-season averaged more than a thousand offensive plays alone. So before we rank anyone, a reminder: on offense Miami has run 335 plays this year, Chicago has run 497, and the gap between them is almost a full game's worth of snaps. The sample is uneven, it is small, and it has not seen most teams' hard stretches yet.

That is the frame for everything below. This is a survey of what seven weeks of 2026 does and does not license us to believe, not a power ranking.

Table of Contents

1. How little data we actually have
2. What we think we know (six takeaways)
3. The three biggest movers against their 2025 selves
4. A "believe it or not yet" pass

1. How little data we actually have

The hardest thing to see in a seven-week sample is schedule. Opponents faced so far are not evenly weighted. Averaging each team's opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play — a stable prior-season proxy for strength of schedule — Washington has already faced opponents averaging +0.0517 (toughest in the league), while Miami has faced −0.0617 (easiest by a wide margin). That is a 0.11-EPA/play gap in opposing offenses between the two extremes, larger than the gap between the 2025 No. 1 and No. 15 offenses. Nothing you read below is opponent-adjusted. Keep that number in mind.

2. What we think we know

Takeaway 1: Dallas's defense is a problem that has lasted three seasons, not seven weeks

Dallas's defense is allowing +0.1384 EPA/play through 433 defensive plays in 2026, worst in the league. It would be easy to dismiss that as a sample fluke if it were new. It is not. The Cowboys' defensive EPA/play since 2022: −0.0882, −0.0843, +0.0830, +0.1674, +0.1384. That is three straight seasons of league-worst-level pass defense (pass-EPA allowed: +0.0299 in 2024, +0.2206 in 2025, +0.2616 in 2026). This is the clearest "signal, not sample" finding in the league. A single bad month would not survive three sample sizes above a thousand plays. The 2026 number is directly on the 2025 trajectory, and the pass number has gotten worse at every mile marker.

Takeaway 2: The Vikings defense leads the league through seven weeks, but on 338 plays and a middling schedule

Minnesota's defensive EPA/play of −0.1891 is the best in the NFL through week 7. The caveat: it is also built on the fewest defensive plays of any team, 338, because they have only played six games and have forced short possessions. Their opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play averages +0.0252, slightly above league average, so the schedule has not been a cakewalk — but it also has not been a gauntlet. Last year Minnesota's defense was already strong: −0.1012 EPA/play on 1,016 plays, fifth in the league by this metric. The 2026 number is a step up from that, but a six-game, 338-play step. "Minnesota's defense is good" is well-supported by last year. "Minnesota has the best defense in football" is a seven-week claim on the smallest denominator.

Takeaway 3: Buffalo's offense is pacing even its own 2025, which was second in the league

Buffalo leads the NFL in offensive EPA/play at +0.2037 on 354 plays. In 2025 Buffalo was second at +0.1376 on 1,203 plays, trailing only the Rams. The pass EPA has moved from +0.1636 (2025) to +0.2472 (2026). The run EPA has moved from +0.1098 to +0.1555. Those are both improvements across every split, from a sample that was already excellent. Opponent-adjustment caveat: Buffalo's opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play averages +0.0060 — league-average, essentially. Nothing in the schedule explains the jump.

Takeaway 4: Philadelphia's offense is in free fall by every lagging measure

The 2025 Eagles were 15th in offensive EPA/play at +0.0213 on 1,067 plays — mediocre, but not broken. Through seven weeks of 2026 they are last at −0.1164 on 410 plays, with pass EPA at −0.1219 (also last among the four worst passing offenses: PHI, LAC, TEN, TB). The multi-year arc: Eagles offensive EPA/play went +0.1207 (2022) → +0.0438 (2023) → +0.1188 (2024) → +0.0213 (2025) → −0.1164 (2026). That is not a single-season blip. Two straight seasons of decline, now a seven-week continuation of the slide. Their defense remains strong (−0.1041 in 2024, −0.0700 in 2025, +0.1120 in 2026 — hmm, that one may be sample).

Takeaway 5: The Chargers' offense has collapsed below any 2025 team

LAC is at −0.2248 EPA/play, 370 plays, worst in the league. Their 2025 full-season number was −0.0354 — bad, but not historic. Their pass EPA is −0.2677, their run EPA is −0.1738; the collapse is both phases. For scale, the worst 2025 offense (LV) finished at −0.2151 across 941 plays. The 2026 Chargers are, through seven weeks, running worse than the full-season 2025 Raiders. Their opponent-faced strength is roughly league average (+0.0026). This is a real signal in the sense that it is big, but it is also a 370-play sample, so some regression toward their 2025 number is the base-rate expectation.

Takeaway 6: Jacksonville's offense has jumped two full tiers

The Jaguars are third in offensive EPA/play at +0.1553 on 355 plays, after finishing 15th in 2025 (+0.0313, 1,128 plays). Their 2025 pass EPA was +0.0575; 2026 is +0.2752. The schedule has, if anything, hurt them: their opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play averages −0.0143, modestly below league average — so the defenses they have faced are not notably weak. The three-year arc is more jagged than Philadelphia's: 2023 +0.0440, 2024 −0.0703, 2025 +0.0313, 2026 +0.1553. One of those four seasons is the full-sample truth; it is more likely one of the three with ~1,100 plays than the one with 355.

3. The three biggest movers against 2025

Baltimore's defense: a −0.0700 unit is giving up +0.1120 so far

Baltimore's defense allowed −0.0700 EPA/play on 1,121 plays in 2025 (sixth best). Through seven weeks of 2026 it is +0.1120 on 423 plays (fifth worst). Pass EPA allowed has gone from −0.1048 to +0.1510. That is a 0.26-EPA/play swing against pass plays — massive by any standard. The 2025 and 2026 samples are both large enough to be meaningful (over 400 plays each), but 2025 is nearly three times bigger. Baltimore's opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play averages −0.0427, i.e. they have faced below-average offenses, which makes the drop look worse, not better.

Jacksonville's offense: the biggest positive EPA/play jump in the league

JAX's offense went from +0.0313 on 1,128 plays (2025) to +0.1553 on 355 plays (2026) — a 0.124 EPA/play rise. No other team's offense has moved by more against its 2025 baseline. The 2025 baseline is the larger, more trustworthy sample; the 2026 number is the volatile one. I would want to see at least ten games before taking the top-three ranking at face value.

Minnesota's defense (reprise): the mover against baseline, with the caveat

Vikings' defense moved from −0.1012 (1,016 plays) to −0.1891 (338 plays). That is a 0.088 EPA/play swing in the "good" direction on the smallest denominator in the league. The 2025 number already told us Minnesota's defense was top-six. Everything else — being first instead of fifth — rides on 338 plays.

4. Believe it or not yet

Dallas's defense is still a problem. Believe it. +0.1384 EPA/play allowed in 2026, +0.1674 in 2025, +0.0830 in 2024 — three samples of 1,000+ plays or 400+ plays all pointing the same direction, worst or near-worst in the league each time. Three years. What would kill the read: a cleanly improved pass-EPA number over the next six weeks (it is currently +0.2616 against the pass, higher than 2025's +0.2206). Nothing in the record so far suggests that is coming.

Buffalo is the best offense in the NFL. Believe it, cautiously. 354 plays is small, but their 2025 full-season baseline was +0.1376 (second in football) and the 2026 jump is in every split: pass, rush, both. Opponent strength is league-average. What would confirm: another month at pass EPA above +0.20 against a stronger slate. What would kill it: regression specifically on first-down pass EPA over the next three weeks.

Minnesota has the best defense in football. Not yet. The number is real and the 2025 context is supportive, but 338 plays is the smallest base in the league and six games means one bad outing will crater the rate. What would confirm: hold the number under −0.15 through 12 games. What would kill it: a −0.05 or worse four-week stretch, especially against a top-half 2025 offense.

The Chargers' offense is historically bad. Not yet. The 2026 figure (−0.2248 on 370 plays) is worse than the 2025 Raiders' full-year number, but their own 2025 baseline (−0.0354) was middling, not catastrophic. The gap between those two numbers is where sample variance lives. What would confirm: another 400 plays with a pass EPA below −0.20. What would kill it: a single week of competent passing moves the per-play rate noticeably at this sample size.

Philadelphia's offensive drop is real. Lean yes. The two-year decline from +0.1188 (2024) to +0.0213 (2025) to −0.1164 (2026) is a trajectory, not an outlier. 410 plays is enough to notice, not enough to settle. What would confirm: holding below −0.05 across the next five games against the second-half schedule. What would kill it: a bounce back to the 2025 baseline over 400 more plays.

Jacksonville's offense is a top-five unit. Not yet. 355 plays, up from a 1,128-play baseline that was 15th in the league. The jump is 0.124 EPA/play — the largest in the sport — and that is exactly the kind of magnitude that regression eats. What would confirm: holding pass EPA above +0.20 across the next six weeks. What would kill it: two games at or below the 2025 baseline would already drop the top-three ranking.

Methodological note. None of the 2026 numbers above are opponent-adjusted. Where the opponent strength is relevant to the read, I have shown the opponents' 2025 offensive EPA/play as a prior-season proxy, which is more stable than any seven-week opponent rating would be. Early-season EPA leaderboards reward teams that have drawn the easier half of their schedule; through seven weeks of 2026 the "schedule gap" between Washington's slate (+0.0517 avg opponent) and Miami's (−0.0617) is wider than the gap between the 2025 league's No. 1 and No. 15 offenses. Treat any ranking in this piece as a seven-week standing, not a verdict.