With fewer than 100 days until the start of the 2026 NFL campaign, I wanted to drill down on the organizations that figure to start the season most squarely in the camera eye.
This list is not limited to assumed front-runners. Sure, they're the bulk of the teams facing the most pressure -- and the teams with the most non-fans watching from the outside in -- but I also wanted to single out some franchises that have been thrust into the spotlight based on offseason moves, coaching changes and/or fan bases tired of losing.
Some teams here will exceed expectations. Others will wither in the face of tension. But there's little question that each of these nine squads, ranked according to the pressure I expect them to feel, will face a stronger glare than others.
It’s a time for change in Western New York, with Joe Brady replacing Sean McDermott as head coach and Buffalo opening new Highmark Stadium across the street from the old place. The expectations haven’t changed, however: The Bills still view themselves as Super Bowl contenders.
Josh Allen is the biggest reason why. He’s a superstar QB who played at a slightly-less-than-superstar level last season. And though he’ll have some more help at receiver this season, the pressure to win has been raised, as Allen turned 30 this spring. His window to claim a Lombardi Trophy won’t suddenly close if the Bills can’t do it this season, but naysayers will continue to suggest he can’t win the big one.
Brady was a controversial hire, elevated from offensive coordinator to finish the race that McDermott started. Could this situation be similar to Gary Kubiak replacing John Fox in Denver and winning a Super Bowl in Kubiak’s first season? Or might it be a repeat of the Bears firing Lovie Smith after three non-losing seasons and falling off a cliff for the following five years?
With Allen in his prime, it’s hard to imagine him or the Bills suddenly tanking. But after years of near misses -- including last season, when the bottom fell out on the AFC -- there’s absolutely no guarantee they’ll be able to reach the mountaintop either.
Recently, I ranked the Rams as having the most complete roster in the NFL despite the division-rival Seahawks beating them twice in three tries last season and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at season’s end. And that was before the Rams swung one of the biggest NFL trades in recent memory, landing Myles Garrett, which will pair the reigning Defensive Player of the Year with the reigning MVP (Matthew Stafford).
After last season, the area that needed the most help -- by far -- was the secondary, where Los Angeles made two big additions in CBs Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson. By shoring up that position, the Rams have no obvious, glaring weaknesses. Swapping Jared Verse for Garrett is another big upgrade up front. That's no slight to Verse; Garrett is a generational game-wrecker who just broke the single-season sacks record.
Despite those blockbuster acquisitions, Los Angeles still has to go out and prove its superiority, and the division-rival Seahawks are one of many obstacles the Rams face. L.A. has one of the toughest schedules out there, opening with four 2025 playoff opponents in the first five games and closing the season with a wicked post-bye run.
Stafford recently signed an extension to keep him under contract through 2027, but he seems to be in a year-to-year mindset right now. He turns 39 a week before Super Bowl LXI, which just so happens to be scheduled for SoFi Stadium. The last time the big game was there, Stafford was throwing no-look passes in the Rams’ Super Bowl victory. Could history repeat?
The Chiefs have been under the microscope to a degree for more than a decade, and especially during the Patrick Mahomes era. Last season was the first time since Mahomes entered the staring lineup that the playoffs began and the Chiefs were not a threat to win it all.
Instead, they were sent home early, with Mahomes rehabbing a torn ACL. He has maintained that his goal is to return to the field ready for Week 1, and that alone will have extra eyes peering in on Kansas City. Throw in what could be Travis Kelce’s final NFL season, and there will be some nervous energy in Chiefs Kingdom as the team tries to bounce back from an unseemly 6-11 record.
On top of that, there’s the Rashee Rice drama after he recently violated the terms of his probation and was ordered to serve jail time. With Rice, the Chiefs appear to be Super Bowl contenders, but without him -- and he’s missed a lot of time via injuries and suspensions in the last two seasons -- they lack a clear go-to guy at receiver.
The Broncos and Chargers both finished ahead of the Chiefs last season, with each team sweeping Kansas City in 2025. And the cellar-dwelling Raiders look far friskier after a big offseason. The Chiefs are in a spot they’ve not been in for quite some time -- having finished last season with six straight losses -- and many will be tuning in to see how they acquit themselves.
The spotlight never really dims on Dallas, but after two straight seven-win seasons, the tension has been raised a notch. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer had the Cowboys playing some decent football after a slow start last season, and they were in the playoff race for a hot minute, but it quickly dissipated when the defense reverted to form.
Dallas added nearly 20 new players on defense, and it wouldn’t be stunning if half of them or more joined the two-deep. Allowing 30 points per outing just won’t cut it again; the Cowboys lost four games and tied another despite scoring 24-plus points. There’s a lot of pressure on 34-year-old Christian Parker to fix this thing in his first year as a defensive coordinator. He’ll have more talent than Dallas fielded last season, for sure, but there is a lot of youth and a lot that must be sorted out -- namely, who plays where and how much.
There’s also pressure on Dak Prescott to echo his greatness. All things considered, he was pretty terrific in 2025, but the team also failed to top 20 points in five games last season, losing all of them. The Cowboys still have George Pickens on a one-year deal, but the team says it's not working on a multi-year extension before the July 15 deadline, so it could be a shorter window for him in Dallas.
The Eagles boast back-to-back division titles, and the Cowboys face a gauntlet of a schedule this season. Do they possess the firepower to make the postseason? That’s a tough question to answer now.
The Ravens have been one of the more talked-about teams in recent years, and there’s little chance that is changing after John Harbaugh was fired and with QB Lamar Jackson coming off an injury-plagued season.
The assumption is that Baltimore will remain competitive with Jackson back and new head coach Jesse Minter taking over. Minter's two-year run as Chargers defensive coordinator certainly paints him as a promising hire and a talented coach. The roster appears to be in good shape overall, and many expect the Ravens to be favorites in the AFC North again.
Minter’s specialty is defense, and his Year 1 task will be to improve an underachieving unit. The talent is there, and the addition of Trey Hendrickson could light a fire under the pass-rush group, but we’re still waiting for a clearer picture on the health of Nnamdi Madubuike. The secondary features four former first-round picks, but Baltimore allowed the third-most passing yards in the NFL last season and didn’t make enough plays on the ball.
The Ravens aren’t problem-free on offense, either. Jackson still has something to prove coming off an uneven season. Furthermore, he’s on his third offensive coordinator (30-year-old Declan Doyle) in five seasons, and it’s not clear who Jackson’s starting center will be after the Ravens lost Tyler Linderbaum. Derrick Henry will turn 33 in Week 17, and he’s had four straight 300-touch seasons. Two of Jackson’s top four receivers could be rookies, too.
It will not be shocking if the Ravens rebound quickly under Minter, but there’s a lot of pressure -- and plenty to sort out -- for the first-year head coach.
Much like some other teams on this list, the Eagles often find themselves in the middle of things. There’s always something to talk about in Philly with this team, and this offseason has been no exception. The 2025 season was a topsy-turvy affair, never reaching the championship heights from a year before. Is there still a title-caliber group here? The answer is probably yes, with a schedule that appears pretty manageable, although a fierce NFC field could put a stop to that.
Nick Sirianni has won nearly 70 percent of his 85 regular-season games and has a Super Bowl ring to his name. Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts was an MVP runner-up and a Super Bowl MVP. Yet both men continue to fight for respect. With wide receiver A.J. Brown now in New England, Sirianni and Hurts will be asked to prove themselves without one of their better playmakers in recent years.
If the Eagles can prove that moving on from Brown was addition by subtraction and Philadelphia’s defense maintains its relative excellence, even with some losses on that side of the ball, it could be a bounce-back season. Philly's pattern has been uncanny the past five seasons: wild-card loser, Super Bowl runner-up, wild-card loser, Super Bowl winner, wild-card loser. The trend suggests the Eagles will be back closer to the top this season, and they have the pieces to make a run.
It's hard to believe that only four head coaches have been with their current teams longer than Zac Taylor has with the Bengals, and that includes Green Bay's Matt LaFleur, who was hired one month prior to Taylor in Cincinnati. After missing the postseason for three straight seasons and finishing 2025 with the team's worst record since Taylor's second season there, the coach absolutely will feel pressure to win -- or else.
It's almost certain that Taylor's chances of success are directly tied to the health of Joe Burrow. The QB missed more than half the 2025 season with turf toe, and it's hardly the first time he's been hurt. When Burrow is on and healthy, he's as good as there is -- with two of the best receivers in the game to throw to in Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. But without Burrow starting, the Bengals have gone 7-16 under Taylor.
Cincinnati also has major defensive issues to sort through. The Bengals were one of the worst tackling teams in recent memory last season, and they allowed 34-plus points six times, losing all six games. They significantly addressed the defensive front, and new safety Bryan Cook could be a steadying force on the back end. But the team made minimal additions at corner and linebacker, and coordinator Al Golden is facing a lot of pressure to make this a competent unit.
The Bengals play in a tough division, and they'll open the coming season with three games against 2025 AFC playoff teams in the first four weeks, but the schedule is otherwise pretty friendly. If Burrow can stay healthy and the defense can make even incremental strides, the Bengals could be back in the postseason. Otherwise, it wouldn't be shocking to see this team broken up in some way in 2027.
The Giants are under the microscope for mostly intriguing reasons, although the backdrop of it all is that this is a franchise with eight losing seasons in the past nine campaigns. That’s a big reason why the team went so hard after John Harbaugh this offseason. His worst mark in the past decade (eight wins) would have been better than all but two Giants teams over the same span.
Jaxson Dart enters Year 2 with some excitement after some solid play as a rookie, and New York features a wealth of young talent overall. There’s some question about the short- and long-term health of Malik Nabers, which clouds the picture a bit, and though the recent return of Odell Beckham Jr. was a headline grabber, it’s anyone’s guess what he can add. This is still an offense that feels a piece or two short of being close to a complete unit.
Defensively, the Giants are far from tip-top, too, even after some strong play late last season. They’re still waiting to see the best versions of first-round picks Kayvon Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter and are hoping that rookie Arvell Reese can slide right in at inside linebacker, a still relatively new position for him.
The Giants probably will have more eyeballs on them this season than they have in years. They open with back-to-back prime-time games and have four over the course of the season. If they can survive those and a tough schedule overall, the G-Men have some surprise-team elements that can’t be overlooked. But if not, the franchise’s losing streak could continue.
The Patriots have endured a challenging last four months, losing Super Bowl LX, with head coach Mike Vrabel then embroiled in an off-field controversy. Super Bowl losers have struggled more often than not the following season, and the Patriots will have plenty to prove after they sneaked through a faulty AFC field last season only to be blasted by the Seahawks in the final game.
The Patriots took advantage of a very thin regular-season schedule in 2025, and they probably won’t enjoy that same luxury again. New England opens with three of its first four games on the road, and it has tough travel in November and December, too. You can be sure that the Bills will be coming with everything they’ve got after ceding the division to the Patriots a year ago.
Drake Maye also puts the Pats under the microscope. He was a popular MVP candidate heading into the home stretch, and the third-year QB has all the makings of a star for years to come. But he also played poorly at times in the playoffs -- likely hindered by a shoulder injury -- and must prove he can perform well again.
There are offensive line concerns and pass-rush worries, but New England did finalize the trade for a No. 1 receiver in A.J. Brown. The Patriots are way ahead of schedule in their rebuild, and last year can’t be thrown out, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see them fall back to earth this coming season. They’re back in the spotlight, but for how long?
