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The Cap Sheet
One short email a week: the contract moves that mattered and one chart. Free.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
NFL news, in plain English
Game results, injuries, coaching and front-office changes, league discipline and every contract move, each with a short note on what it means. Tap a team to open its cap page.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
All 32 teams
Roster ratings: each team is rated from the play ratings of its starters, the players with the most snaps at every spot, then ranked against the league on the same 40 to 99 scale players use. Tap a team for its lineup, depth chart, stats and traits.
Offense vs. defense
Dashed lines mark the middle of the league. Teams up and to the right are strong on both sides of the ball.
Best in the league
Roster ratings
SKL: running back, receivers and tight end. DL: edge rushers and defensive tackles. DB: corners and safeties. ST: kicker and punter.
- Offense
- Defense
- Special teams
- Dead money
- Cap room
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Weekly team tiers
Top-right = good at both: scoring a lot and giving up little.
Loading team tiers…
Awards and power rankings
PlainStats ranks every player and coach for the big awards using the same play ratings, stats and team ratings you see across the site, then turns the scores into odds. Tap an award to see the full race. Everything recalculates when a new week of stats lands.
How the scores work
All 32 teams ranked by a blend of results, scoring margin, roster strength and efficiency. Wins count, but so does how a team wins and how good its starters are, so a team can rank above or below its record.
Results vs. roster
Up is better results (record and scoring margin). Right is a stronger roster and more efficient play. Teams below the diagonal are winning less than their talent suggests.
Risers and fallers
Team power rankings
How the power score works
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Scores and schedule
Loading the schedule…
Division standings
Div and Conf are records against division and conference opponents. Proj. is the model's average final record; Playoffs is how often the team made the field in the model's simulated seasons. Tap a team for its page.
If the season ended today
Ties use the main NFL tiebreakers in simplified form: head-to-head, division record, conference record, then strength of victory.
Most likely playoff field
The seven teams that reached the playoffs most often, with their chance of the No. 1 seed and its first-round bye.
The PlainStats game model rates every team from its results, picks every game and plays out the rest of the season thousands of times, playoffs included. It updates every week after Monday night.
If the season ended today
AFC playoff odds
NFC playoff odds
Every team, projected
How the model works
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Contracts
Recent deals, broken down
Top quarterback contracts
All players under contract
| Player | Team |
|---|
Which contracts are paying off. Every player with enough snaps gets a market value: what teams pay today for a player who ranks where he ranks on the field at his position. Surplus is that value minus his yearly pay. Green means a team is getting more than it pays for.
Best value contracts
Most overpaid
Best-run cap sheets
Bargains and overpaid count players $5M or more above or below their market value.
Every rated contract
Every player still on the contract he signed as a draft pick, from the 2022 to 2026 classes. First-round picks have a fifth-year team option, and any pick can sign an extension once he has played three seasons. Tap a player for his full page.
Fifth-year option decisions
The option adds a fully guaranteed 2028 season. Its price follows the CBA, roughly: the top-10 average salary at the position for picks 1 to 10, and the average of the 3rd to 25th highest for picks 11 to 32, before Pro Bowl bumps. PlainStats's read compares that price with what his play is worth on today's market.
Extension watch
All rookie contracts
Draft data: nflverse draft picks, matched to contracts by name and team. A contract that runs one year longer than the rookie deal is treated as a picked-up fifth-year option; longer than that is an extension.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Play general manager
Build a starting lineup
Tap a spot on the field, or a row in the list, to pick a player. Team ratings update as you go. Your lineup is saved in this browser.
Compare up to four players
Know someone who argues about the NFL? Send them this tool.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Players on the field
Box-score stats for every player, this season and the three before it. Pick a season and a position; tap a column to sort. Tap a player under contract for his full page, including his season-by-season line and this year's game log.
Season stats
Regular season only, from nflverse weekly player stats. Fantasy points use PPR scoring. Offensive linemen are left out because box scores do not track blocking. Garbage time is any pass, run or sack when the offense's win probability was under 5% or over 95% (nflverse play-by-play); it only applies to passing, rushing and receiving stats. Snaps are offense plus defense snaps in the weeks picked (special teams for kickers and punters).
The best players at each position right now, by play rating.
Top players right now
Roles
Each player gets one or two roles from how much he plays and what he is asked to do, the headline role first. The number is how many players have that role; "avg" is their average play rating.
Pay vs. play
Dashed lines mark the middle pay and the middle rating. Green dots play well above their pay rank; red dots are paid well above how they are playing so far.
Positional rankings
Traits
Gold is the top 6% of qualified players at the position in that skill, silver the top 16%, bronze the top 28%. Iron man, Clean sheet and Big leg are earned outright.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
The cap lab
Every number here is a percentile against the league, so 90 means better than 90% of players at the same position, or 90% of teams. Tap any card, crest or cell to dig in.
Find a type of contract
Spending heatmap, $M
Each cell shows what a team spends at a position, shaded by its rank among the 32 teams. Tap a column name to sort by it; tap a cell to see those players.
Cap health rankings
Blends four percentiles: cap room, low dead money, money coming off the books after this season, and how evenly pay is spread beyond the top five contracts. The four small bars show each piece.
Contracts most like his
Pick a player and find the deals closest to his in yearly pay, guarantees, length, age and cap share, across the league.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
Free agency
Every player whose contract ends after a given season, with how well he is playing and a PlainStats estimate of what his next deal could pay. Pick a class year, then filter by position or pay.
Top of the class
Where the money is
Bars show the estimated yearly pay the players at each position could command on their next deals, for players earning at least the pay floor you pick below.
Class by team
All pending free agents
Next-deal estimates rank each player by play rating among his position, read that rank's price off what teams pay today in PlainStats' contract table, adjust for his age when the deal starts, then grow it with the salary cap to the year he signs. They are PlainStats estimates, not reports.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
The draft room
Loading the draft class…
The top college players for the April 2027 draft, ranked by combining public big boards. Each prospect gets the same treatment as an NFL player on PlainStats: a grade, a role, trait badges and his 2026 college numbers, plus what his rookie contract would cost.
Top of the board
Where the class is deep
- Top 32 on the board
- Ranked 33 and lower
Where the experts split
The biggest gaps between WalterFootball and NFL Draft Buzz. A wide gap means scouts disagree, so his draft spot is harder to call.
Full big board
If the season ended today, this is the first round. Picks follow the current standings, with traded picks moved to their new owners. The model pick is PlainStats's best guess at who fits: the best player left on the board, nudged toward each team's biggest needs.
Who holds the picks
Picks on the move
Draft order and model mock
Needs come from each team's 2026 roster on PlainStats: how its starters rate on the field, and how many of their contracts end after this season. Ties in the standings are broken by point differential here; the league uses strength of schedule.
Draft picks are the cheapest good players in football. The rookie pay scale sets every contract by draft slot, so a team knows almost exactly what each pick will cost before it is made.
The rookie pay scale
What a pick saves
The grey bar is the average yearly pay of the 10 highest-paid veterans at the position. The blue bar is that pick's rookie deal per year. A rookie quarterback who plays like a top-10 starter saves his team the most.
How rookie deals work
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
The words on every contract page
Short answers to the terms you see in contract news. Start with cap hit and dead money; most of the rest builds on those two.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA or any team. Team names, logos and player images belong to their owners and appear only to identify teams and players.
About PlainStats
PlainStats explains NFL contracts and the salary cap for everyday fans. Every deal shows what is really guaranteed, what the player counts against the cap each year, and what happens if his team cuts or trades him. Team pages, player ratings, the draft board and the front-office tools all build on the same numbers.
Contract figures come from named news reports and team announcements, plus PlainStats' own calculations from the rookie pay scale and the collective bargaining agreement. Each player shows where his numbers come from, and a contract with no confirmed figure yet shows "Contract being verified" instead of a dollar amount. Player stats come from nflverse. Ratings, grades, estimates and award odds are PlainStats' own models built from public data. They are estimates, not official figures, and they update as new stats and reports arrive.
Found a wrong number or have an idea? Use or email info@plainstatsnfl.com. A contract figure changes once a named report confirms it.
PlainStats is an independent fan site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL, the NFLPA, the NBA or any team.
Privacy and terms
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