The New England Patriots are No. 17 in NFLTradeRumors.co’s 2026 NFL Week 4 power rankings, published by Ethan Woodie on September 29, 2026. The ranking follows New England’s 35-6 Week 3 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, whom Woodie places at No. 6.
These rankings are Woodie’s opinion, not official NFL standings or a league-issued prediction. His available list puts the Buffalo Bills first, followed by the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers. Woodie also describes Week 3 as a week of upsets and close finishes, with no team looking untouchable. His introduction underscores how difficult he finds it to sort out the league after only three weeks: results have shifted expectations, and even teams near the bottom have shown signs of life.
Patriots sit 17th in the 2026 NFL Week 4 power rankings
Woodie places New England at No. 17 in his Week 4 snapshot. The confirmed context is the Patriots’ 35-6 loss to Jacksonville in Week 3. The ranking represents the author’s assessment after that result; it does not establish the Patriots’ eventual finish or serve as an official measure of their standing. Woodie lists New England as 1-2 and says the team fell seven places from the prior week.
Woodie’s evaluation is sharply critical of quarterback Drake Maye. He calls Maye’s play poor and says the 2025 runner-up MVP has committed seven turnovers in three games. He also characterizes Maye as having struggled again against Jacksonville. Those are Woodie’s assessments and reported figures from the source, not an independent evaluation in this article. He connects the quarterback’s play to the broader offensive concerns, describing the Patriots’ offense as stuck in the mud.
Woodie argues that Maye needs to improve if New England is to earn a playoff bid, let alone win the AFC again. That framing explains why the ranking is more than a reaction to the score alone: the writer sees the quarterback’s current form and the offense’s lack of traction as central concerns. It remains a projection and opinion at an early point in the season, rather than a conclusion about how the Patriots will finish.
For readers following New England, the ranking offers one writer’s view of the team after three weeks. Its No. 17 position is a snapshot in a list that contains substantial movement elsewhere, not a definitive verdict on the Patriots’ season. The 1-2 record and the loss to Jacksonville are the supplied results; the assessment of what those results mean is Woodie’s.
Jacksonville’s 35-6 win shapes the Patriots’ position
The confirmed result behind the Patriots’ placement is Jacksonville’s 35-6 victory. Woodie ranks the Jaguars sixth, up six places, and lists them at 2-1. In his entry, he praises Trevor Lawrence’s play and describes wide receiver Parker Washington as having emerged after a late-season breakout the previous year. He also says the defense has continued to perform despite new faces. These comments help explain why Woodie views Jacksonville as a rising team, while the score itself remains the straightforward game result.
Woodie calls the win a dominant performance against what he describes as a supposed AFC contender and says it will attract attention. He also notes that Jacksonville has an early advantage in the AFC South. Those are his interpretations of the result and its possible significance. They do not turn the Jaguars’ sixth-place ranking into an official league judgment, just as the Patriots’ 17th-place position does not determine New England’s future results.
These are NFLTradeRumors.co rankings, not official NFL standings.
Bills lead a top three that includes Seattle and San Francisco
Woodie’s top three are the Buffalo Bills at No. 1, the Seattle Seahawks at No. 2 and the San Francisco 49ers at No. 3. These confirmed placements offer league-wide context for the Patriots’ No. 17 position without implying that the rankings are official. The first three teams are all listed in the article’s top tier, which Woodie labels “Super Bowl Contenders,” but that label is part of his ranking format and not a league designation.
The accompanying notes show that the top positions do not mean every team had a flawless Week 3. Buffalo remains first after beating the Los Angeles Chargers 24-16, even though Woodie says Josh Allen played poorly and accounted for three of Buffalo’s five turnovers. The Bills’ defense helped keep the game close until the offense improved in the fourth quarter. That contrast reflects the writer’s broader emphasis on how a team responds to adversity, not simply whether it wins comfortably.
Seattle sits second despite a 31-33 loss to Washington. Woodie points to the return of quarterback Sam Darnold after a two-week injury absence and notes that Seattle was without its starting safety duo, while also saying the problems extended beyond those absences. San Francisco, third, beat Arizona 36-30. Woodie highlights Brock Purdy’s passing performance and notes that the 49ers had to withstand a late challenge. These examples reinforce his introduction: even teams near the top had reasons for scrutiny in a week of close finishes and unexpected outcomes.
In that introduction, Woodie says Week 3 brought upsets and close finishes and that no team looked untouchable. He also writes that teams near the bottom are showing at least some signs of life. That is the author’s characterization of the week and his view of the league’s unsettled hierarchy. It provides context for reading the rankings as a weekly assessment, rather than a settled order based solely on win-loss records.
The supplied rankings excerpt does not include the full list
The supplied NFLTradeRumors.co text cuts off during the New York Jets entry at No. 22. The excerpt is therefore incomplete, and this article does not reconstruct missing teams or positions. The table includes only placements confirmed in the available material. Although the source contains detailed entries through the Jets, its final paragraph is truncated, so no further information about that entry or any teams after it is added here.
Ethan Woodie published the rankings on NFLTradeRumors.co on September 29, 2026. The confirmed Patriots and Jaguars positions, along with the top three, are part of his opinion-based snapshot; they are separate from game results and official standings. Readers can distinguish the underlying Week 3 scores from the writer’s interpretation of each team’s outlook: the scores are reported outcomes, while the ranking numbers, tiers and evaluations are Woodie’s judgments at that point in the season.
