The Race For No 1 Draft Pick Five Teams In The Mix Plus Their Top

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the race for no 1 draft pick five teams in the mix plus their top

Five NFL teams have at least 5% odds to land the No. 1 pick in 2026, per our Football Power Index. The Jets' win over the Browns on Sunday had big implications on the race for the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Robert Deutsch / Imagn Images The Athletic has live coverage of Jets vs Patriots in NFL ‘Thursday Night Football.’

The New York Jets versus the Cleveland Browns. Talk about a stinker, right? While last weekend’s matchup certainly wasn’t the highlight of Week 10, it might have been the most important game of the week — at least in one regard. That game between two NFL bottom-feeders went a long way in determining who would win the race for the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Funny enough, the team that benefited the most wasn’t even involved.

It was the Tennessee Titans, who were on bye last week. The Jets’ win over the Browns pushed Tennessee’s odds of securing the top pick up from 25 percent to 35 percent. Meanwhile, the Jets’ reward for winning their second game of the season was seeing their odds of securing the top pick drop from 39 percent to 26 percent. Of course, there’s still plenty of time for the draft order to get shaken up. Heading into this Week 11, 12 teams have three wins or fewer, with nine of them still having at least a one percent chance at picking first in April. As the season winds down, each week will have huge ramifications on draft position, and some games, like the Browns against the Jets, are much more important than you might think.

The race for the #1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft is heating up with just five weeks left (already) in the 2024 NFL season. Frankly, the quality of play across the NFL as a whole this year has been pretty rough. There are a whopping 19 teams with a .500 record or worse, and 14 of those teams are two games below .500 or worse. So far, 11 teams have eight or more losses already, meaning the jockeying for 2025 NFL Draft positioning is going to be constant in the month of December. Don't get too attached to any one spot in your 2025 NFL mock draft predictions, because your favorite team might drop a handful of spots on a given week. At this stage, it seems clear that there are some teams that are worse than the rest, despite the fact that the bad teams right now are not that far apart when it comes...

Which teams are in legitimate contention for the 1st overall pick with December football officially underway? Current 2025 NFL Draft Order heading into Week 14 1. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-10)2. Las Vegas Raiders (2-10)3. New York Giants (2-10)4.

New England Patriots (3-10)5. Carolina Panthers (3-9)6. New York Jets (3-9)7. Tennessee Titans (3-9)8. Cleveland Browns (3-9)9. Cincinnati Bengals (4-8)10.

New Orleans Saints (4-8)11. Chicago Bears (4-8) January 3, 2025, 4:03pm EST 52 • By Arnab Mondal The race for the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft is tighter than ever. Unlike last season, when the Carolina Panthers had the worst record all but locked up, this year features a four-way tie at 3-13 entering Week 18.

The New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns, and New York Giants all have a shot at securing the top pick. Let’s break down how each team can win (or lose) the No. 1 pick and what’s at stake. The New England Patriots hold the top spot entering the final week, thanks to their league-worst strength of schedule (0.467). If they lose to the Buffalo Bills, who may rest their starters, they’ll clinch the No. 1 pick.

But if they win, they’ll need all three other 3-13 teams to win their games as well to maintain their position. The Patriots would have plenty of options should they earn the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, so let’s explore them. https://t.co/XHudVDXy3u The race for the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL draft is taking shape after 10 weeks of the 2025 season.

Five teams have at least a 5% chance at landing the top pick, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) projections. So we called on our NFL reporters and analysts to size up each of those bottom-tier franchises after midseason. Seth Walder used FPI to make sense of each of the five teams’ schedules the rest of the way. Dan Graziano answered how the No. 1 pick could impact each team’s current QB room. Our NFL Nation reporters looked at the biggest positional needs that could be addressed in the first round in April.

Matt Miller spun it forward and suggested one prospect each front office could consider if it landed that top selection. And finally, Ben Solak rated each team’s “excitement factor” on a 1-10 scale (with 10 being the most excited) if they picked No. 1 overall. Let’s start with the Titans, who currently have the best odds at the first overall pick. Jump to a team:CLE | LV | NO | NYJ | TEN FPI chance to earn No.

1 pick: 36.6%FPI chance to earn top-five pick: 87.3% With three weeks remaining in the 2024 NFL season, there appears to be a two-team race for the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, with five others still having a slim chance of finishing with the dubious prize. The New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders lead the competition with 2-12 records, while the New England Patriots, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans all sit at 3-11. New York and Las Vegas are both in need of a franchise quarterback, and there are only two players that can be categorized as such in the upcoming draft - Shedeur Sanders of the... It's a toss-up as to which one will be selected with the top pick, as both have been predicted to go first in the numerous mock drafts put together by football pundits.

The Giants have had the first overall draft pick twice in their history and chose a running back both times. They selected Kyle Rote from the SMU Mustangs in 1951 and took Tucker Frederickson from the Auburn Tigers in 1965, with the former helping them win the NFL Championship in his sixth NFL season. Rote was a four-time Pro Bowler, while Frederickson earned the honor in his rookie campaign. Meanwhile, the Raiders have owned the No. 1 pick just once since joining the NFL in 1970, and they used it on a quarterback. However, they're hoping that things work out better than they did in 2007 should they be the first team at the podium in Green Bay next April.

With the first selection that year, the franchise - which called Oakland home at the time - took JaMarcus Russell from the LSU Tigers. After three seasons during which he compiled a 7-18 record as a starter and completed 52.1% of his pass attempts with 18 touchdowns and 23 interceptions, Russell was released and never resurfaced in the... Five NFL teams have at least 5% odds to land the No. 1 pick in 2026, per our Football Power Index. With five weeks remaining in the 2024 NFL season, roughly a dozen teams still have a realistic shot at scoring the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Three teams have two wins; five teams have three wins; three teams have four wins; and three teams have five wins. The strength-of-schedule rankings (first tiebreaker) are also very close, so the draft order could see significant movement over the next month. Reminder: The team with the lower SOS gets the higher pick. With all that in mind, let’s look at where things currently stand in the race for the first pick in next year’s draft. Here’s what the top of the draft board looked like ahead of Sunday’s Week 14 action, per Pro Football Network’s Playoff Predictor. (Note: Our SOS rankings factor in the current records for each team’s remaining opponents.)

The strength-of-schedule stuff can be confusing, so let’s go through it.

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