On Monday, I was an optimist, picking five NFL teams I expect to improve in 2026. Today, unfortunately, we hit the opposite side of the ledger. I know not to check my mentions on social media for a few days after this annual column, and I take a little longer to answer those texts from people inside the league. "Did you really have to pick us?"... there's never a good response.
Don't blame me. I don't have any vested interest or desire to see any team do poorly or struggle. In a zero-sum league, though, five teams improving means that five teams have to decline. And using data that has helped point toward future downswings, I will identify five teams that are likely to win fewer games in 2026.
Since 2017, the decline column has gone 34-9 at picking teams that will fall short of their win total from the previous season, including an adjustment for the shift from 16 games to 17 per season. The improve/decline columns overall are 69-17 (.802) during that span, with a 50-36 mark (.581) against the preseason over-unders archived on Pro-Football-Reference.com. The average decline amounts to about 3.4 wins per 17 games.
Last year, the column correctly predicted four of the five teams. The one miss was the Colts, who went 8-9 in 2024 before getting off to a white-hot start in 2025, hitting their bye at 8-2. An offense that looked perfect started to show cracks, lost Daniel Jones to a torn Achilles and went into free fall. Without Jones or DeForest Buckner for much of the second half, the Colts lost seven straight to finish 8-9 for the second consecutive season.
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But the other four teams suffered substantial steps backward. The Vikings went from 14-3 to 9-8, as J.J. McCarthy couldn't deliver on expectations under center, and Kevin O'Connell's mastery of one-score games slipped in 2025. I'm not sure that one was too surprising.
The remaining three squads, all favorites to compete for the Super Bowl, each stunningly missed the playoffs.
Following a 12-5 mark, the Commanders fell to 5-12 last season with one of the league's oldest rosters, a lack of young talent and Jayden Daniels suffering through an injury-riddled season. The Lions were 15-2 in 2024, but issues with the offensive line and offensive infrastructure, injuries on defense and a tougher schedule knocked them back to 9-8.
And then there were the Chiefs, who did the unthinkable. Expecting the Chiefs to go 15-2 again probably wasn't realistic even without knowing that Patrick Mahomes would finish the season with a torn ACL. Andy Reid's team somehow fell from 10-0 in one-score games to 1-9, and a 6-11 Chiefs team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014.