By Stephen Juza,
August 9th, 2026
After a long offseason, the season opener is just a few short weeks away. In one month, the New England Patriots will travel West to take on the Seattle Seahawks in a rematch of February’s Super Bowl. Undoubtedly there are countless storylines with the upcoming season which we will have several articles to cover. But in today’s article, we will be covering our 2026 season predictions using our Elo model that we wrote about a few months ago.
Elo rankings are a way to capture how strong a team represents at that point in time. Realistically, the higher Elo ranking will win the majority of the time, but the NFL season offers many challenges not captured by traditional Elo rankings (most commonly used in chess). Among them, home field advantage, injuries, and an offseason that effectively resets the team’s roster. While top teams typically will continue to be at the top due to continuity with All-Pro players and coaching staffs, we do regress teams a bit to the average at the start of the season.
For today’s article, we simulated the entire season using the Elo ranking each team will have entering the 2026 season, and updating it each week based on the simulated outcomes. For example, if a team wins in the simulated game, their Elo will increase the next week. If they lose, their Elo will decrease. Over the course of the season, the strongest (simulated) teams will rise to the top. We will go in depth with each division in the coming weeks, but for today, we will cover the top league-wide predictions.
With the NFL season starting soon, there will be increased opportunities from a variety of websites such as betnow sportsbook to wager on a variety of NFL storylines all season long.
AFC Division Winners
Get ready to celebrate an AFC South title, Jacksonville. With a record of 13-4, our Elo model predicts that the Jaguars will not only win the AFC South, but finish with the best record in all of the NFL. Not only will they enter with the best record, but we have them entering the playoffs as one of the hottest teams across the NFL with six straight victories, including four divisional victories.
Among the other divisions, we predict that the Baltimore Ravens (12-5), New England Patriots (12-5), and the Kansas City Chiefs (10-7) will round out the division winners. While Baltimore will wrap up the division with a few weeks to go in the season, the Patriots will stumble into the playoffs with back-to-back losses and just barely edge out the Buffalo Bills. Speaking up limping into the playoffs, the Chiefs will just barely edge out the Broncos with both teams ending at 10-7 and the Chiefs ending with three straight losses.
NFC Division Winners
While the offseason was filled with memes about the potential of the Chicago Bears becoming the Gary Bears with their new stadium, here’s one thing that is not a joke. We predict that the Bears will not only win the NFC North for the second straight year, but be the top seed in the NFC with an 11-6 record. Wrapping up the top seed by finishing the 2026 season on a three-game win streak, it will give the voters a reason to award him the Coach of the Year honors that he barely missed out on last season.
While the Bears will edge out the Washington Commanders and the Carolina Panthers, both finishing the season at 10-7. The race for the NFC will be especially tight, as all four division winners finished within one game of each other, and with all wild card winners also finishing within one game of each other.
First Overall Pick
With the playoff field set, who will be playing for draft position as their season-long storyline? Coming in at a simulated 4-13, the Tennessee Titans will be drafting first overall for the second time in three years. While they will not be opening their new stadium as a winning squad, having several top picks should at least give the team a reason for optimism. Hopefully.
Rounding out the other teams in contention for the first overall pick will be the Cincinnati Bengals (5-12) and the New York Jets (5-11-1). These records bode poorly for head coaches Zac Taylor and Aaron Glenn who likely will not survive the season posting these records.
In the coming articles, we will recap each division's simulated season and how dominant storylines may shape the discourse over the course of the 2026 season.