NFL Streaks — What's Hot, and Whether It Means Anything
Current runs by club, and the measured answer to the question the list raises. Updated with each week's results.
Which NFL teams are hot right now?
| Club | Run | Length | Last game |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas Cowboys | run of overs | 10 | 2026-10-04 |
| Las Vegas Raiders | covering run | 5 | 2026-10-04 |
| Detroit Lions | run of overs | 4 | 2026-10-04 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | winning run | 4 | 2026-10-04 |
| Minnesota Vikings | winning run | 4 | 2026-10-04 |
| San Francisco 49ers | winning run | 4 | 2026-10-04 |
| Cleveland Browns | winning run | 3 | 2026-10-01 |
| Cleveland Browns | covering run | 3 | 2026-10-01 |
| Dallas Cowboys | covering run | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Indianapolis Colts | covering run | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
Which NFL teams are cold?
| Club | Run | Length | Last game |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | against the line (against them) | 13 | 2026-10-04 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | Winning runs (against them) | 7 | 2026-10-04 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | against the line (against them) | 6 | 2026-09-27 |
| Philadelphia Eagles | against the line (against them) | 6 | 2026-10-04 |
| Tennessee Titans | Winning runs (against them) | 6 | 2026-10-04 |
| Houston Texans | Winning runs (against them) | 5 | 2026-10-04 |
| Houston Texans | against the line (against them) | 5 | 2026-10-04 |
| Miami Dolphins | Winning runs (against them) | 5 | 2026-10-04 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Winning runs (against them) | 4 | 2026-10-04 |
| Arizona Cardinals | Winning runs (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Baltimore Ravens | against the line (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Chicago Bears | over the total (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Detroit Lions | against the line (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | over the total (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| Minnesota Vikings | over the total (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
| New York Jets | Winning runs (against them) | 3 | 2026-10-04 |
Does a NFL streak predict the next game?
Of 36 run lengths tested in the NFL, 1 clears the noise band — and about 1.8 would clear it on chance alone, so a count this high turns up about 84.2% of the time with nothing going on. No run length here tells you anything about the next game.
The test is the one the list invites: take every game in the record, work out the run the club was on going into it using only earlier games, then see what happened. The comparison is not 50% and not the league average — it is that club's own rate in that same season, with both the graded game and the run itself removed, because a club on a six-game losing run has a bad season record largely because of those six games and comparing the run against a figure that contains it compares the run with itself.
Even that is not enough. Running the identical calculation over data whose runs have been destroyed — the same clubs, the same season rates, outcomes shuffled within each season, so the true answer is known to be zero — the method still reports an edge of two to five points. That is bias, not signal, so it is measured and subtracted. The Edge column below is after that correction, and the Noise column is the spread across those shuffles. An edge inside the noise is not a finding.
Winning runs
| Run | Next games | Continued | Expected | Edge | Noise (1 SD) | Beats noise? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 in a row | 1,245 | 50.8% | 47.5% | +0.1 | ±1.2 | no |
| 2 in a row | 630 | 55.2% | 51% | +1 | ±1.6 | no |
| 3 in a row | 348 | 58.6% | 52.3% | +3.5 | ±2.2 | no |
| 4 in a row | 204 | 52.9% | 54.1% | -5.4 | ±3.5 | no |
| 5 in a row | 107 | 62.6% | 56.6% | +1.1 | ±4.9 | no |
| 6+ in a row | 210 | 69% | 59% | +6.9 | ±3.6 | no |
Runs against the line
| Run | Next games | Continued | Expected | Edge | Noise (1 SD) | Beats noise? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 in a row | 1,356 | 50.4% | 47% | +0.5 | ±1.1 | no |
| 2 in a row | 681 | 49.8% | 46.4% | +0.4 | ±1.4 | no |
| 3 in a row | 336 | 49.7% | 45.8% | +1.2 | ±2.6 | no |
| 4 in a row | 166 | 44% | 46.6% | -5.6 | ±4.3 | no |
| 5 in a row | 73 | 47.9% | 45.3% | -0.7 | ±5.2 | no |
| 6+ in a row | 68 | 50% | 39.9% | +6.4 | ±6 | no |
Runs over the total
| Run | Next games | Continued | Expected | Edge | Noise (1 SD) | Beats noise? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 in a row | 1,408 | 48.4% | 45.9% | -0.3 | ±1.4 | no |
| 2 in a row | 677 | 46.5% | 44.7% | -1.2 | ±1.5 | no |
| 3 in a row | 314 | 49% | 44.5% | +1.1 | ±2.9 | no |
| 4 in a row | 153 | 40.5% | 44.7% | -7.7 | ±4.3 | no |
| 5 in a row | 62 | 48.4% | 44.9% | +0.8 | ±6.5 | no |
| 6+ in a row | 47 | 38.3% | 43.1% | -8.3 | ±5.6 | no |
Why a hot streak is not an edge
A run is public. Everyone can see it, including the people setting the line, and the line moves to absorb it — a club on four straight wins is priced as a club on four straight wins. What is left to bet on is whatever the market got wrong about the run, which is a much smaller and much noisier quantity than the run itself. That is why straight winning persists in these tables while covering the line does not: winning is about the team, covering is about the team relative to its price.
The break-even strike rate at standard −110 pricing is 52.4%, not 50%. A run length that continues 51% of the time is a losing bet made at a profit-looking number.
More NFL
Built 2026-10-12. Across all four codes, 21 of 144 run lengths clear the noise band against about 7.2 expected by chance.