u/AndrasKrigare

Rank	Team	Record	Elo
1	Louisville	4-4	1553
2	Orlando	6-2	1551
3	DC	5-3	1548
4	St. Louis	5-3	1541
5	Birmingham	4-4	1503
6	Houston	3-5	1457
7	Columbus	2-6	1426
8	Dallas	3-5	1421

For anyone not familiar, Elo is a rating system invented for chess that takes strength of opponent into account. These results were calculated copying 538's method of using margin-of-victoy.

We can see Louisville rocketed up despite being 4-4 after defeating the once #1 Defenders (RIP Ta'amu). And we can also see that although back in week 6 there was a decent gap between most of the teams, there's now a tight cluster of the top 4, and then "everyone else."

The model isn't factoring in roster at all, though, so it might still be considering DC a bit higher than it should, but the losses took care of most of that and the top 4 are all close enough that it's statistical noise anyways.

Rank	Team	Record	Elo (fresh)
1	DC	4-1	1597
2	Orlando	4-1	1551
3	St. Louis	3-2	1527
4	Louisville	2-3	1512
5	Dallas	3-2	1484
6	Columbus	1-4	1453
7	Houston	2-3	1448
8	Birmingham	1-4	1429

Rank	Team	Record	Elo (including 2025)
1	DC	4-1	1644
2	St. Louis	3-2	1557
3	Dallas	3-2	1497
4	Orlando	4-1	1477
5	Columbus	1-4	1471
6	Houston	2-3	1458
7	Louisville	2-3	1449
8	Birmingham	1-4	1448

For anyone not familiar, Elo is a rating system invented for chess that takes strength of opponent into account. These results were calculated copying 538's method of using margin-of-victoy. I have one version where the team's starting position is based off of their last-season results and one where all start at 1500.

Interestingly, Elo puts Columbus above Houston despite the record difference, because when Columbus has lost, it's been close (with the exception of DC and Orlando who both are high elo), and their win was substantial. You can also see the Louisville/Dallas swing; before the game Dallas was pretty high and Louisville pretty low, but Louisville won by such a large margin that it flipped them.