The 2026 NFL season is nearly here, and with training camps opening across the league, the time has come to stake out some territory that most people will call ridiculous. Bold predictions are supposed to feel uncomfortable. If everyone agrees with you, it isn’t bold. The five calls below range from a Super Bowl outcome that flips the current betting order to individual statistical seasons that only a handful of players in history have ever reached.

Some of these will look foolish by December. That comes with the territory. But the offseason handed us enough roster movement, coaching changes, and health question marks to justify swinging big, so here are five predictions for the 2026 season that go against the grain, starting with a title game upset and ending with a running back chasing a number nobody has touched in over a decade.

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1. The Bills defeat the Rams to win Super Bowl LXI

Buffalo enters 2026 with the third-shortest Super Bowl odds behind Los Angeles, so this isn’t a shot in the dark. Buffalo sits at the second-best odds to win Super Bowl LXI, trailing only the Los Angeles Rams. Josh Allen opened as the MVP favorite, and Buffalo added DJ Moore to address a thin receiver room. 

The Rams built their case on Matthew Stafford, who turns 39 this season and carries durability risk at that age. Los Angeles also leans on a fading Davante Adams and faces the second-hardest schedule in the league. Allen has repeatedly come up short in January, but the roster around him and a softer AFC path finally push him past the Rams in Los Angeles.

2. The Cardinals go winless

No team has finished 0-17, but the setup in Arizona is uniquely grim. The Cardinals are projected to be the only team in the NFL that is an underdog in all 17 of its games, including a staggering eight as a double-digit dog. They are more than touchdown underdogs in each of their first 10 games, so a quick start seems unlikely. 

Kyler Murray is gone, leaving Jacoby Brissett, who went 1-11 as a starter last season, running a new offense under rookie head coach Mike LaFleur. The roster sits in the NFC West, the league’s toughest division. A defense and offensive line that ranked among the worst gives Arizona little margin, and a schedule this brutal leaves no soft spot to steal a win.

3. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs don’t bounce back, missing the playoffs again

Kansas City is coming off a 6-11 finish, and the reasons for the collapse haven’t fully gone away. The Chiefs went 1-7 in one-score games last season, the worst mark in the league, a stunning reversal from the 11 such wins they piled up the year before. Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL on December 14, and the season opener falls exactly nine months later, the very front edge of a typical recovery window. 

Kansas City lost both starting corners, Jaylen Watson and Trent McDuffie, and one analyst noted the offense is largely unchanged. The Broncos have a clearly better roster across the board; the Chargers are close in talent, and there are only seven playoff spots in a deep AFC.

4. Puka Nacua eclipses 2,000 receiving yards.

No receiver has hit the mark, but Nacua came close in 2025. Through five games last season, he was tracking to 1,999 receiving yards, which would have blown past Calvin Johnson’s record of 1,964 set in 2012. He finished with 129 catches for 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns in 16 regular-season games, having missed time. Health and a full 17-game slate are the difference. 

He was targeted on a league-high 36.1 percent of routes, and Matthew Stafford leaned on him at an astronomical rate. With that volume and per-route production, a fully healthy season puts 2,000 within reach.

5. Jahmyr Gibbs goes for 2,500+ yards from scrimmage, a mark only Chris Johnson has reached

The 2,500-yard scrimmage bar belongs to one man. Chris Johnson set the NFL record with 2,509 yards from scrimmage in 2009, the season that earned him the nickname CJ2K. The Titans’ greatness has been on the minds of football fans this week for reasons far bigger than the record book. 

Johnson revealed on Good Morning America that he is battling ALS, sharing his story with a positive outlook and choosing to fight. Chasing his mark, Gibbs has the profile for it. He piled up 1,839 scrimmage yards on 320 touches in 2025, and with Montgomery gone and Dan Campbell promising bell cow usage, the runway is there.

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