Welcome back to The Football Club. After a long offseason, the picks are about to start counting again, and the 25th Year Silver Jubilee season gives this year a little extra weight. A quarter-century of rivalries, ridiculous upsets, championship runs, bad beats, lucky guesses, and Sunday-night heartbreak has brought the club to 2026. Some members enter the year carrying momentum from last season, some are trying to erase it, and others are simply looking for a clean start. That is one of the best parts of Week 1: everyone begins at zero, every preseason ranking is still theoretical, and one great opening week can instantly change the conversation.
The club also returns with the same balance that has always made it work. The standings matter, the championships matter, and nobody is pretending otherwise—but the larger point is still the tradition itself. The weekly picks, the friendly competition, the running jokes, the good-natured pressure, and the chance to stay connected through an entire NFL season are what have kept this going for 25 years. The Silver Jubilee season should be competitive, unpredictable, and probably a little chaotic, which means it should feel exactly like The Football Club.
Week 1 wastes no time putting everyone under pressure. There are 43 total points available, enough to create real separation immediately. The biggest scoring opportunities are concentrated in the major categories: two Games of the Week worth five points each, a six-point Sunday Night game, and a seven-point Triple Crown. That means 23 of the 43 available points are tied up in just six games, so anyone who misses badly in the high-value categories could find themselves chasing the standings almost immediately.
There is also an early Triple Jeopardy decision in the Jets-Titans game. Anyone willing to activate TJ turns an ordinary one-point pick into a three-point reward or a two-point loss, which gives us our first real look at who plans to play aggressively in the Silver Jubilee season. The schedule itself also gives Week 1 a special feel, beginning with New England at Seattle in the Wednesday NFL Kickoff and followed by San Francisco against the Los Angeles Rams at Melbourne Park in the Thursday Australia game, both worth two points. From there, the sheet gets progressively more dangerous, culminating in the five-, six-, and seven-point games that will almost certainly decide the first MVP race of 2026.
Preseason Power Rankings — 2026
Before the first pick is scored, it is time for one of our favorite annual exercises: ranking everybody when we have absolutely no 2026 evidence yet. These preseason rankings are based primarily on recent Club Points performance, with the last five seasons carrying the most weight, while Head-to-Head and Pro Bowl accomplishments help separate players who are close. And because the Club Championship remains the highest individual achievement in The Football Club, the defending champion gets the benefit of the doubt at the top. These aren’t predictions of the final standings—they’re simply our best assessment of who enters the 25th Year Silver Jubilee season with the strongest combination of recent performance, consistency, momentum, and championship credibility.
#1 MJD Hogg — The defending Club Champion starts where he finished: on top. His 388 points were enough to survive Drummer Boy by one and Captain Jack Sparrow by two in one of the closest finishes imaginable, and his five-year trajectory culminated in exactly the breakthrough he had been building toward. After finishing 14th as recently as 2023, he climbed to seventh in 2024 and all the way to the championship in 2025. Until somebody knocks him down, the Hogg owns the penthouse.
#2 Drummer Boy — There may actually be a case that Drummer Boy is the safest pick to contend in 2026. He has finished 1st, 7th, 1st, 2nd and 2nd over the last five seasons, then added the 2025 Super Bowl championship to an already loaded résumé. Missing last year’s Club Championship by a single point had to hurt, but there is no evidence whatsoever that Drummer Boy is slowing down. MJD Hogg owns the crown, but nobody enters 2026 with a more intimidating recent body of work.
#3 Captain Jack Sparrow — Nine weeks at #1, four MVP Awards, a Pro Bowl championship and a third-place finish make it impossible to rank the Captain much lower. The problem is obvious: after controlling the 2025 standings for half the season, he watched MJD Hogg and Drummer Boy pass him at the finish. Still, going from tied for 13th in 2024 to third in 2025 was one of the year’s biggest turnarounds. The talent is championship caliber; 2026 is about finishing the voyage without sinking the ship two miles from shore.
#4 Stinkerbell — The owner of the all-time 18-week record of 449 points followed her historic 2024 Club Championship with a fourth-place finish in 2025. That matters because 2024 wasn’t simply one magical season followed by a disappearance. Her five-year record includes four Top Six finishes, with only the 2023 season interrupting an otherwise remarkably strong run. Stinkerbell enters 2026 as one of the few players who has recently demonstrated both an enormous ceiling and a dependable floor.
#5 Double-Double — At this point, putting Double-Double in the Top Five isn’t analysis—it’s tradition. He has finished 2nd, 4th, 3rd, tied for 3rd and 5th over the last five seasons, part of an extraordinary eight-year streak of Top Five finishes dating back to 2018. His two Club Championships and record-tying seven Pro Bowl titles only strengthen the case. The question isn’t whether Double-Double will be hanging around the leaders; it’s whether 2026 is finally the year “hanging around” turns back into winning the whole thing.
#6 Rad Dad — The 2022 Club Champion remains close enough to the elite tier to make another run believable, and his strong December plus the 2025 Pro Bowl championship provide some momentum. Since winning it all, however, his Points finishes have moved from fifth to ninth to seventh, making him more persistent challenger than dominant favorite. His 2022 Double Major—winning both the Club Championship and Super Bowl—remains evidence of just how high the ceiling can be. Number six feels like the dividing line between the favorites and the challengers.
#7 My Wife Loves Jimmy G — Few players are easier to imagine jumping five spots—or dropping five. He finished second in 2022, ninth in 2023, fifth in 2024 and eighth last season, while also collecting a Super Bowl championship and back-to-back Pro Bowl titles along the way. In 2025 he even reached #1 before eventually fading, despite leading the club with eight Triple Crowns. The ceiling remains championship-worthy; sustaining it for 18 weeks remains the assignment.
#8 Fearless Tuna — A tied-for-10th Points finish in 2025 was mediocre by championship standards, but two MVPs, a Head-to-Head Division title and another respectable Super Bowl run showed there is still some bite left in the Tuna. His five-year Points arc has been uneven—10th, 18th, 6th, 6th and tied for 10th—but his 2019 Club Championship, 2024 Super Bowl title and success across all three Major competitions make dismissing him dangerous. He enters the Silver Jubilee season as a veteran with something to prove.
#9 Captain Insano — Sixth place in 2025 earns Captain Insano a preseason promotion. He quietly climbed from 14th in 2022 to eighth in 2023, tied for 10th in 2024 and sixth last season, which is beginning to look less like random fluctuation and more like an upward trend. He even reached #2 during 2025 despite never winning an MVP Award. The next question is whether he can finally turn “solid season” into “championship race.”
#10 Mr. T — The former Club Champion has recovered from his ugly 16th-place 2023 campaign to finish around the middle in each of the past two seasons, and his 2025 Pro Bowl championship with the Gridiron Guardians gives him another trophy for the cabinet. He reached as high as #2 last season and picked up an MVP Award, demonstrating that his weekly ceiling remains dangerous. The floor is why he’s tenth rather than fifth. Mr. T doesn’t need reinvention—he needs fewer disappearing acts.
#11 The Rickster — The greatest overall résumé in Football Club history still demands enormous respect, but preseason power rankings are about the present as much as the past. The Rickster has finished 8th, 11th, 10th, 8th and tied for 10th over the last five seasons—a remarkably consistent stretch, but consistently in the middle rather than in championship contention. He remains the club’s only three-time Club Champion, only four-time Super Bowl Champion, is tied for the all-time lead with seven Pro Bowl championships, and owns the only Triple Major season in club history. The question entering 2026 isn’t whether The Rickster has anything left to prove; it’s whether one of the greatest players the club has ever seen has one more serious Points championship run left in him.
#12 Roadrunner — Don’t confuse this ranking with a lack of respect for what happened last season. Roadrunner won his Head-to-Head division, earned the #1 seed and reached the Super Bowl before losing to Drummer Boy. His three MVP Awards also showed that he could still produce huge weeks. But these rankings give substantial weight to Points, where after finishing third in 2022 his next three results were 11th, 17th and 12th. In a tournament, nobody wants him; over 18 weeks, we need more evidence.
#13 Young Tuna — Young Tuna remains perhaps the hardest player in the club to rank. He went from 19th in 2022 to an astonishing second in 2023, then fell to 16th and tied for 14th—but somehow still collected three MVP Awards and November Player of the Month during 2025. That’s not a normal performance curve; that’s a roller coaster. If the 2023 version ever combines with the late-season explosiveness we’ve seen recently, watch out.
#14 Nighthawk — The Points results say lower tier, while Head-to-Head keeps screaming that he’s better than that. Nighthawk won his division and reached the Conference Final in 2025 despite tying for 14th in Points, and he collected two MVP Awards along the way. His recent Points finishes—16th in 2021, 13th in 2022, absent in 2023, tied for 13th in 2024 and tied for 14th last year—are difficult to ignore. He remains a former Club Champion who can beat anybody in a given week, but a sustained Points resurgence is now overdue.
#15 Shaylene — Shaylene continues to produce isolated strengths—the 12 Sunday Night/6-point victories last season were particularly impressive—but hasn’t yet converted those specialties into a Top Ten Points season. Her recent finishes of 16th, 12th, 15th and 13th show some consistency, although not yet the kind she wants. Her 2024 Super Bowl Runner-Up finish proved she can be dangerous in tournament play. The ingredients are there; 2026 needs to be about putting them together for an entire season.
#16 Bob Swerski — Nobody’s recent résumé is stranger. Bob went from 17th in 2023 to tied for third with 426 points in 2024, then straight back to 17th in 2025. Even during last year’s struggle he managed two MVP Awards and an excellent 11-3 Triple Jeopardy record, so the ability to explode hasn’t disappeared. Add three career Super Bowl championships and Bob remains impossible to completely dismiss. Ranking him 16th therefore feels simultaneously too high and too low—which is probably exactly where Bob Swerski belongs.
#17 Hoosier Daddy — This one hurts because the historical résumé is enormous: two Club Championships, a Super Bowl championship, four Pro Bowl titles and decades of accomplishments. But preseason power rankings aren’t lifetime achievement awards, and finishes of 18th, 12th and 16th over the past three seasons demand skepticism. Even in 2025, however, Daddy & His Boys reached the Pro Bowl Final, so there are still signs of life. If there is a veteran-revival story coming in the Silver Jubilee season, Hoosier Daddy would be a fitting candidate.
#18 New York City Sewer Rat — The Sewer Rat has now spent several consecutive seasons near the bottom of the Points standings: 17th in 2021, 21st in 2022, 15th in 2023, 18th in 2024 and 18th again last season. There isn’t an honest statistical argument for putting him much higher, although the Hulkamaniacs reaching the 2025 Pro Bowl Final Four gave him something positive from the year. The good news is that preseason rankings disappear the instant the games begin. With 43 points available in Week 1, nothing would destroy this ranking faster—or be more appropriately Football Club—than the Sewer Rat walking away with the first MVP of the Silver Jubilee season.
So there they are: the official 2026 Preseason Power Rankings. MJD Hogg begins with the target on his back, Drummer Boy is breathing directly behind him, Captain Jack Sparrow and Stinkerbell are waiting for another shot, and Double-Double occupies his seemingly permanent reservation in the Top Five. The Rickster sits almost perfectly at the dividing line between current contender and legendary wild card, while several former champions enter the season with something to prove. Everyone now gets 18 weeks to demonstrate just how foolish these rankings were—and based on 25 years of Football Club history, several of them almost certainly will.