With hours to go before the first game of the 2026 NFL season, an ESPN column lays out a projection for the 14 teams that will be celebrating after the league completes its 272 regular-season games, according to ESPN.
The piece warns against overconfidence in teams that reached the postseason last year, noting that 17-game seasons increase variance and churn. Using data back to 2002 and treating the seventh-best team in each conference as a playoff entrant, roughly 56% of teams that make the postseason one year return the next — just under eight teams per campaign, per the column.
The column also examines division-title trends. Since 2002, just under 60% of division winners have made the playoffs the following season, an average of about 4.8 teams that the writer rounds to five. About 43% of division winners repeat as division champions the next year; excluding perennial powers in the data set reduces that repeating rate to roughly 36%, or about three repeat champions in a typical season, according to ESPN.
Recent seasons have shown unusual swings. In 2024, six of eight teams that had been division winners the prior year retained their crowns, while in 2025 just one of the eight reigning champions repeated. That lone repeat was the Philadelphia Eagles, who became the first team to win back-to-back NFC East titles in more than two decades. The column also recalls that four 2024 division champions — the Chiefs, Ravens, Lions and Buccaneers — missed the postseason outright in 2025.
Following the historical rates, the projection plans to pick three 2025 division winners to repeat as champions, two more to return as wild cards, and three 2025 division winners to miss the playoffs entirely. The column notes uncertainty in several choices and says it will conclude with a Super Bowl pick for the upcoming season, according to ESPN.
