The primary Sunday with out soccer was horrible.
It’s horrible to comprehend that that is our actuality for the foreseeable future, however fortunately the NFL has established an offseason that seems like a season in lots of respects. Quickly sufficient it will likely be NFL Mix time; there may be truly lower than a month to go till free company begins… the whole lot is about perspective.
As we start to look towards 2026 for all 32 groups with the Tremendous Bowl now behind us we are able to accomplish that via the distinctive lens that solely Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa can present.
Which NFL groups ought to really feel actually optimistic heading into the 2026 season?
If I’m rating Groups Who Did Not Win The Tremendous Bowl That Should Really feel Superior then I really feel just like the Chicago Bears are most likely on the prime of that record.
Nearly the whole lot that Chicago did throughout the 2025 calendar 12 months (and a bit past) labored out. There needs to be a lot validation of their decision-making and good luck that they received the Ben Johnson Sweepstakes.
Past having Johnson, he amplified somebody they believed in beforehand in Caleb Williams. Chicago’s rookie draft class impressed as nicely and helped to ascertain the core for a nucleus to contend within the rapid future.
Issues are developing Bears!
I additionally agree that the Bears ought to be feeling very optimistic as a result of they’re subsequent in line to win the Tremendous Bowl subsequent 12 months after the Eagles and Seahawks every received 20 years after dropping a Tremendous Bowl.
In 2006, the Colts beat the Bears. If this wild coincidence ought to proceed for an additional season, the Bears will likely be destined to win the Lombardi Trophy a 12 months from now.
Now for a person who ought to really feel wildly optimistic, that may be Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. The rent of Mike McDaniel offers the offense one thing it hasn’t had since Kellen Moore was the group’s OC for a single season: Hope and potential.
Herbert has suffered lengthy sufficient with the likes of Joe Lombardi (who was additionally fired by the Broncos this offseason) and Greg Roman – two guys who have been the antithesis of what Herbert wants as a quarterback. Then as dangerous luck would have it, Staley’s protection was so dangerous in 2023 that it price Herbert the most effective OC he ever had.
Now’s the time to lastly flip the narrative on its head. Herbert will likely be again to slinging it across the yard very quickly.
Which group has no hope at a time the place hope is everywhere in the league?
I feel so long as you’re a Raiders fan, you’re not one to ask hope into your life until confirmed emphatically in any other case. It hasn’t mattered who the coach, normal supervisor, or quarterback is, historical past tells us they’re going to be on the backside of the AFC West as a rule.
John Spytek and Tom Brady have a number of work left on their fingers and so they have to actually, actually hope that Kubiak is the precise man for the job. The Raiders have been one of many final groups to rent their new head coach which suggests they possible didn’t get any of their first few decisions. Now, getting the offensive coordinator from this 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl champions is an effective begin, however that’s simply the 1st step in a protracted, lengthy journey.
The entire world lies forward of each group within the NFL proper now, however even with that being the case there may be one group in my view who I’d very simply write off for 2026. Perhaps 2027, too.
What’s there to love in regards to the Arizona Cardinals? Severely asking right here. In case your favourite group might commerce for something to do with their group (throw of their entrance workplace, teaching employees, heck even their stadium) what would you need? Trey McBride might be the consensus reply.
The Cardinals are a extremely directionless franchise proper now and type of received (all due respect) the final decide when it got here to move coach candidates. I’m positive that they’re enthusiastic about Mike LaFleur, however would they not have been extra excited than anybody else?
Are the Dolphins doing the precise factor by purging?
Actually I don’t know the way anybody can disagree with this method from Miami. They tried to create a window for themselves and it didn’t work out. There is no such thing as a disgrace in that.
The worst factor that an NFL group can do is tread water. Miami transferring on from Tyreek Hill and Bradley Chubb is proof that they’re able to take their drugs on this explicit entrance and decide to a brand new wave of future stars. Being afraid of discovering these stars is how so many groups compromise themselves and so I’ve zero situation with this method.
If I’ve any criticism it’s for Miami not recognizing all of this sooner. You can also make a powerful argument that they simply wasted the final 12 months by retaining Mike McDaniel and that they arguably ought to have traded these explicit belongings away as an alternative of clinging on to unfastened hope.
I feel it’s their solely possibility, in all honesty. They began eliminating good gamers earlier than the common season ever got here to an finish and now they’re leaning full right into a reset now that they’ve a contemporary normal supervisor and head coach.
Letting go of Tyreek Hill is a great transfer given his age and the potential for him to overlook the beginning of the common season after a extreme leg harm ended his 2025. Bradley Chubb has been effective, however he’s replaceable with the precise strikes at a lesser price. Guard James Daniels is identical case.
A brand new regime would somewhat get their guys within the constructing as quickly as potential as an alternative of losing a 12 months with a gaggle they didn’t deliver collectively.
How would we really feel about Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers collectively once more?
It’s at all times bizarre to me when a coach lands on a brand new group and simply recreates what he had occurring in his earlier cease. We sometimes see this from a training perspective; Sean Payton actually took a number of Saints to Denver as only one instance, however Pittsburgh is on the verge of a really distinctive instance of this.
I can’t think about what it will be wish to a Steelers fan and watch the top coach and quarterback who beat you within the final Tremendous Bowl you have been in… be your dudes. Is that not bizarre? Am I alone right here?
All of that being mentioned… it will type of be fascinating on a human-interest degree to see McCarthy and Rodgers work collectively after a decade (nearly) aside. Maybe they’re every at a spot the place it may well work out for the higher of everybody concerned and on some degree that may be actually neat.
It could be a giant deal for many who wish to really feel a nostalgic tingle of their physique, however that’s all I received. Each of them have been via fairly a number of ups and downs since they have been collectively in Inexperienced Bay and I’m positive there’s a degree of familiarity with a possible reunion that’s tantalizing.
I additionally agree together with your level that it will be bizarre for Steelers followers to should root for a similar head coach/quarterback mixture that beat their group in its final Tremendous Bowl look, however that’s typically how issues go within the NFL. And hey, if McCarthy and Rodgers can ship some massively profitable season of their first 12 months along with the Steelers, then that’d be a straightforward solution to make followers overlook in regards to the previous.
