MLS Power Rankings: Nashville Dominates While SKC Bottom Out

Welcome back to our (somewhat) weekly breakdown of MLS team Elo ratings and power rankings.

The dust has settled from another week of MLS action, and this week we have some excitement at the top of the table, while at the bottom we have a masterclass in despair.

Let’s dive into this week’s biggest movers and losers.

Nashville Stays Hot, Miami Stumbles

At the summit, Nashville continues to prove why they are the kings of MLS. Picking up a solid +6.5 boost, they sit comfortably ranked at #1 (1591.6) riding ten points from their last four games.

Right below them, the Vancouver Whitecaps happily reclaimed the #2 spot (+10.3) after Inter Miami suffered a brutal collapse, taking a -15.7 Elo hit and dropping to #3 (1561.0). An isolated loss is one thing, but Miami has been getting outplayed, and so the model’s math hands out punishment.

Philadelphia’s Resurgence

Remember a couple of months ago when the Philadelphia Union were neck and neck with Sporting KC for the wooden spoon? Those days are gone.

The Union have clawed their way out of the cellar and into the middle tier, moving up to #15 (1490.4) this week. Even with a minor -1.9 adjustment over the weekend, their unbeaten five-game stretch (WWWDD) shows that they have righted their ship and left the bottom-dwellers behind.

Sporting KC: Rock Bottom?

This brings us to Sporting Kansas City. For weeks, we’ve talked about SKC clinging to “not-the-worst-team” by fractions of a point and hoping for better days. This week, again, they came up short.

Absorbing a -10.2 Elo point loss and carrying a bleak LLLDL form, SKC has plummeted to a 1412.5 rating. This is the lowest their rating has been, and they’ve been the worst team in MLS since about the start. SKC sits entirely alone at #30, staring up from the bottom at everyone else.

Around the League

• Toronto’s Turnaround: Toronto FC scored the biggest positive jump of the week (+15.7), vaulting three spots to #22 with an unbeaten DDDDW run.
• Orlando Surges: Right behind them, Orlando banked +14.4 points to crack the Top 20.
• St. Louis Soars: St. Louis jumped two spots into the Top 5 with an impressive +11.1-point-win over Houston and are carrying a WDWDW form.
• San Jose and Colorado Fall: It was a bad week for San Jose (-13.7) and Colorado (-13.3), who both sank five spots down the rankings into the bottom half.

Here’s the full table as it stands today.

Parting Thought: The math at this point in the season is unforgiving. Teams like Philadelphia proved that with a little consistency, you can fight your way back to safety. But for clubs like SKC, staring at a historically low Elo rating, the hole has been dug, and may be too deep to get out of. They’ll need to find momentum, and they need to find it fast.

Second Parting Thought: If we track teams year-over-year without resetting their ranking at the start of each new season, SKC’s lowest Elo rating (1351.0) actually occurred on May 9^th of this year following their 6-0 thrashing by Portland. This was the lowest rating in Club history. Their current rating without seasonal resets sits at 1367.0, which is their fourth-lowest rating in Club history. The third-lowest occurred on May 2^nd, 2026 (1360.6) and the second-lowest was on April 25^th, 2026 (1351.5).

Want to see a more detailed breakdown? You can dive deeper into the numbers by heading over to https://jough13.github.io/xG_Elo/mls_2026.html