Pro Football History.com Blog
By Stephen Juza
October 28th, 2026
As the NFL season approaches Week 8, two of the three undefeated teams lost in Week 7 (Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers), while one previously winless team found their first win of the season (Miami Dolphins). The Chargers, coming off a bye week, hope the extra rest and planning will come at a moment they can catch their first win this week.
For NFL head coaches under pressure, finding a moment of stress relief during a bye week is critical. When taking a break from studying game film, many football fans and sports enthusiasts turn to recreation like online poker to unwind and test their strategic skills. Just as a quarterback must read the defense and play the odds on every snap, card players rely on sharp focus, calculated risk management, and precise timing to outplay their opponents.
Games of the Week:
There are two compelling divisional rivalries that you will want to tune in for as they vie for first place. Leading off Sunday’s early slate of games, check out the Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2) hosting the Cleveland Browns (5-2) as they face off for the AFC North lead. Fans of both teams are likely surprised by the early season performance of both teams, and the winner of this game will effectively take a two game lead over the division.
Then, Sunday’s exciting midday game will be the Kansas City Chiefs (5-1) travelling to face the Denver Broncos (5-2). The Chiefs have struggled with the kicking game so far this season, but recently signed former Raven kicker Justin Tucker to the practice squad to help shore up the special teams. The winner of this game will take the pole position for the AFC West.
Undefeated Teams:
The sole undefeated team remaining in the league is the Minnesota Vikings (6-0). Those that have watched the Vikings play this season know the incredible work that defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ defense have been doing all season long. They are tied for the league lead in sacks. Tied for third in interceptions. First in points allowed per game (12.3). In fact, they have not given up a point in the last five minutes of any game, all season long.
While the offense has been uninspiring, the defense has shut out any opportunity for the opposing team to offer much of a threat. This week offers another major opportunity to show the league just how stout the defense is when they take on the Detroit Lions and their high-power offense, currently ranked second in the league in total points.
Winless Teams:
Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Chargers (0-6), they remain the last winless team in the league. Entering the season, they knew they were going to have a tough start to the schedule, with a stretch of games from Week 3 to Week 8 against Super Bowl contenders. However, I don’t think anyone expected them to go 0-6 to start, especially after finishing 11-6 the first two years under head coach Jim Harbaugh.
Injuries are certainly a factor, with many injuries on the offensive line limiting the time for Justin Herbert to dissect the defense. But while every team struggles with injuries in the NFL as the season progresses, they have struggled to inspire much hope for a turnaround. After their last loss against the Kansas City Chiefs, our internal model had Harbaugh as more likely than not to be fired at the end of the season. It would be a very shocking turn of events for a team that has finished in the playoffs the last two seasons.
By Stephen Juza
October 27th, 2026
With Week 7 now in the books, we got to see the Miami Dolphins secure their first win of the Jeff Hafley-era against the listless New York Jets. How did the victory change the likelihood that Hafley gets a second season after being one of the last winless teams in the league? Let’s check in on our weekly hot seat report to see who may find their way to the unemployment line in a few short months.
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Hottest Seats:
Todd Bowles - 66% chance of being fired
Bowles remains one of the only two coaches to sit above the 50% mark predicting a job change, but the Week 7 win against the division-leading Carolina Panthers at least brought the odds down from last week’s 74% chance. Baker Mayfield rejoined the starting lineup after having a dislocated thumb earlier, but the Bucs did not need him to do very much. He finished with only 11 attempts for 64 yards, but his sole touchdown pass was his 200th for his career.
The blowout victory over the Panthers was handled by an impressive running attack that saw the team gain 258 yards on the ground, while the defense had five sacks and forced five turnovers. Week 8 will have the Bucs playing host to another division rival (Atlanta Falcons) in a game that could move the Bucs into second place in the division.
Jim Harbaugh - 51% chance of being fired
The Los Angeles Chargers’ are the last winless team in the league after spending Week 7 on their bye week. For Harbaugh’s sake, let’s hope that the bye week gave him a chance to dial up a better gameplan when they host the Los Angeles Rams. In addition to the extra prep time, the off week hopefully allowed the team to heal up. The latest injury report only had one player (Ladd McConkey) held back with a concussion, whereas last week there were seven players on it.
Dan Quinn - 49% chance of being fired
Dan Quinn is the next closest to being fired by our model, who like Harbaugh and the Chargers is coming off a bye week where they hope the extra practice time will help them secure a win against the Philadelphia Eagles. Their sole win on the season was a Week 3 victory against the Seattle Seahawks, with a 27-27 tie against the New York Giants in Week 5.
Heating Up:
Aaron Glenn - 17% chance of being fired
While still representing a small chance in the model, Aaron Glenn of the New York Jets saw one of the largest increases after a 25-28 loss against the Dolphins and another poor performance at the end of the first half. In the 24 games in Glenn’s tenure, the team has been outscored 107-6 in the final two minutes of the first half, prompting former Steelers head coach and current NBC Analyst, Mike Tomlin, to comment that if he was in Glenn’s shoes, he would insist on running two-minute drills in practice every day until the issue is fixed.
The Jets will have a good opportunity to right the ship next week when they host the Las Vegas Raiders (3-4).
By Stephen Juza
October 23nd, 2026
Coaching turnover is a constant in the NFL today, with more than a quarter of the teams changing coaches each offseason. As we start Week 7, we look at some coaches whose seats have been getting rather toasty recently, or who have quelled some of the calls for their firing with some surprising performances to start the year.
While fans track coaching hot seats and debate whether a midseason turnaround is on the horizon, many look to pass the time between Sunday kickoff windows by trying their luck with online casino games or taking a look at updated sports betting lines. The dynamic nature of modern sports fandom often mixes the thrill of live football with digital gaming options, giving enthusiasts plenty of ways to stay engaged throughout the week.
Hottest Seats:
Todd Bowles - 74% chance of being fired
One of only two coaches above the 50% threshold, Bowles has not done much this year to help his case for a sixth season in Tampa. Our internal model has his chance of being fired at 74%. Tampa is currently 1-5 on the season, well below our predicted record for them this season. While injuries are an inevitable part of the league, starting quarterback has missed three full games due to a dislocated thumb, leading the team to start undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels.
2026 is Bowles’ ninth season as a head coach (four with the New York Jets, five with Tampa) and he has only had three seasons with more wins than losses. A very, very quick turnaround by the Bucs will be needed to help salvage Bowles’ job for 2027.
Jim Harbaugh - 51% chance of being fired
The Los Angeles Chargers’ latest loss to AFC West rival, Kansas City Chiefs, has put Harbaugh’s likelihood of being fired at 51% for the year. Harbaugh and the Chargers entered the season with very high expectations after back-to-back 11-win seasons. However, that has all come crashing down to Earth as the team remains one of the few winless teams remaining in the league. While they have had a rough schedule to start the year, 0-6 is simply unacceptable for a team that had playoff aspirations for 2026.
The team has the bye week this week to help turnaround their performance before facing their cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Rams, for their Week 8 matchup.
Cooling Down:
Dave Canales - 24% chance of being fired
Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales started the season with the second-highest chance to finish the season on the chopping block at 62%, only behind Bowles, but a recent two-game win streak has the Panthers at the top of the NFC South. The surprising start is behind a surprisingly strong offense, currently ranked fourth in points scored in the league. He has the Panthers eyeing their best season since 2017, the last season they had a winning record.
October 22nd, 2026
Elo, the chess formula we applied to NFL team strength in late 2025, works on a simple idea. Every result moves a team’s rating up or down, and the size of the move depends on how surprising the result was. Beat a stronger team and the number jumps. Beat a weaker one and it barely moves. How well that works depends on how much evidence the formula gets. An NFL club plays 17 regular-season games, one a week from September into January, so every result carries a lot of weight and a single upset can reshape a team’s rating for a month.
Baseball sits at the other extreme. An MLB club plays 162 games between late March and late September, close to one a day, and every game gets a price, a starting pitcher, a total and a run line. That daily rhythm built an entire consumer category in the United States, including guides to the best MLB betting sites that compare which operators cover the sport and what markets they carry. Sports betting in the US runs on state law, with separate licensing rules and minimum ages in each state, and anyone who needs help can call 1-800-GAMBLER. Football never had that volume, and the way its ratings move reflects it.
Seventeen games leave little room for error
With so few games, a rating system cannot wait for the noise to settle. Our football version answers this by moving ratings more per game than a baseball model would, and by carrying part of each team’s rating into the next season instead of starting everyone from 1,500, the midpoint in the Elo scale.
The trade-off is plain. A fast-moving rating catches a real change in a team quickly. In 2008, when the Patriots started the season with one of the highest starting Elos ever, it was built largely on Tom Brady playing as the starting quarterback. But a Week 1 injury that forced Matt Cassel into the starting lineup significantly changed the performance of a team that a slower rating model would not have detected.
A hard cap promotes parity
The league’s structure pushes teams toward parity, and Elo ratings follow suit to the middle. In 2026 every club works under a hard salary cap of $301.2 million and carries 53 players on the active roster, plus 16 on the practice squad. A hard cap ensures that no team can simply buy a deeper roster than its rivals, and the draft hands the best young players to the teams that finished worst.
For a rating system, that forced parity keeps the gap between the top and bottom of the league narrower than in sports without a cap.
The draft keeps adding new inputs
Each spring the draft changes rosters faster than any rating can follow. Since 2017 the International Player Pathway has added another layer, bringing in players from outside the American college system. Two of these players were drafted on April 25, 2026. Miami took the British tight end Seydou Traore in the fifth round, and Philadelphia picked Uar Bernard, a defensive end from Nigeria, at No. 251 overall.
None of those offseason moves can show up in a rating until the player takes the field, which is one reason early-season numbers deserve some caution.
Neutral sites test the home-field adjustment
Our internal Elo model gives the home team a fixed bonus, and that assumption gets harder to apply as the league plays more games abroad. The first regular-season game outside North America came in 2007, when the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10 at Wembley Stadium in front of 81,176 people.
The 2026 international schedule set a record with nine games across four continents, seven countries and eight stadiums. It opened at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 10, where 100,021 people watched San Francisco beat the Los Angeles Rams 27-7. For these games, the home-field bonus in a rating model has to be removed, because neither team is really playing at home.
By Stephen Juza,
October 21st, 2026
As the NFL season approaches Week 7, three teams remain undefeated (Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, and the San Francisco 49ers), while two teams are still searching for their first win of the season (Miami Dolphins and the Los Angeles Chargers). The Chargers will have to wait just a little bit longer for their first win since Week 7 is their bye week, which comes at a moment where head coach Jim Harbaugh is desperately hoping to right the ship.
While football fans across the country tune in to see if these early-season matchups continue to unfold, many are also looking for ways to stay entertained between game days. Exploring online gaming platforms has become a popular pastime for sports enthusiasts wanting to test their luck without breaking the bank. For those looking to dive in with zero upfront commitment, checking out options at https://www.playusa.com/sweepstakes-casinos/no-deposit/ offers a fun, risk-free way to enjoy casino-style games from home.
Game of the Week:
Don’t miss Thursday Night Football this week for the best matchup of the week. The defending AFC champion New England Patriots (4-2) will travel to take on defending NFC North champion Chicago Bears. Both teams sit at 4-2, and this game represents just one of three games this week that feature both teams above .500.
The Patriots had a rocky start to the season, with quarterback Drake Maye showing a lot of struggles compared to his 2025 campaign. However, a three-game win streak has helped to give fans something more to cheer for as the Patriots chase the division-leading Buffalo Bills.
For the Bears (4-2), they are coming off a Week 6 scare where they held a massive 24-point lead against the Atlanta Falcons well into the 4th quarter, but allowed two late touchdowns and 2-point conversions to let the Falcons make a game of it. The Bears gained just 24 yards on their first four drives of the last quarter during the Falcons run until their defense forced a fumble to seal the game.
Undefeated Teams:
The Chiefs, Vikings, and 49ers are all still undefeated entering the week, with the Chiefs facing the toughest game of the three to remain undefeated. The Chiefs travel to Seattle to take on the defending Super Bowl champs, and while the Seahawks sit at just 3-3 entering the week, their defense has been a turnover machine. They have snagged seven picks, good for second in the league.
Meanwhile, the 49ers will travel to Atlanta to take on the 2-4 Falcons and the Vikings will host the 2-4 Colts. While anything can happen, look for all three undefeated teams to continue their unbeaten streak.
Winless Teams:
While the Chargers have their bye week to try and fix a season that has gone tragically off the rails, the Dolphins have their best opportunity for a few weeks to secure their first win of the season. Coming off their bye week, they will travel to face the New York Jets (2-4). The Dolphins are averaging only 14 points a game, second-worst in the league, while also generating the least amount of sacks on defense. If they cannot pull the upset here, they may not have a good chance until November 15th against the Colts.