The National Football League completes their preseason schedule today with a pair of games beginning with the Indianapolis Colts hosting the Detroit Lions at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time. The final preseason game kicks off at 3:00 p.m. with the Tennessee Titans hosting the Chicago Bears.
A week from Monday, September 7, Qoxhi will release our 2026 win total projections for the coming season. Each year we routinely have seven to nine games that are projected to go over or under their posted win totals. On Tuesday, we will release our Super Bowl LXI prediction. The next day, Wednesday this year, the NFL will kick off their 2026 campaign with the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the team they beat last February, the New England Patriots.
Instead of beginning the regular season with the traditional Thursday night opener followed by an International Game on Friday, this year those two contests have been moved up a day. The first of nine out of country contests this season finds the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers tangling in Australia.
The reason the games have been moved up a day this season is because of that game in Australia. Because of the starting time and international date lines the game would have conflicted with the agreement between the NFL and high school and college football. The NFL does not compete for time between college football on Saturdays or high school football on Fridays, and because … well for whatever factors force this move the NFL is starting their season on a Wednesday.
The preseason is a time for teams to get their squads in shape and their quarterbacks in sync with their weapons. For the best teams, that was the objective and accomplished this year, for some of the teams projected for down years, they are still looking for their starting quarterback.
This gap between the have and have nots is easily seen in August … what now remains is what teams come out of their problems with surprise good seasons and what projected strong squads squander their edges and collapse on the scoreboard.
Last year, a pair of projected longshots met each other in Super Bowl LX. The New England Patriots had a new coach and were coming off a last place four-win season in 2024. Mike Vrabel parlayed that hand into a Super Bowl squad.
The Seattle Seahawks acquired the services of Sam Darnold, who had won 14 games for the Minnesota Vikings in 2024, but was released because Kevin O’Connell’s team was committed to developing J.J. McCarthy as their franchise quarterback.
How did that work out?
Darnold became only the second quarterback in NFL history to win 14 regular season games in consecutive seasons, Tom Brady did it with the New England Patriots and led the Seahawks to their first Super Bowl title since they beat Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLVIII.
As for the Vikings.
That McCarthy development has not worked out. He was both mostly ineffective and missed numerous games with injuries last season and was reported to be nursing an ankle injury while sitting out last night’s loss in Denver. The ankle injury is highly suspect as a more likely reason for his sitting out Thursday night’s game is that he is on the trading block and the Vikings didn’t want to risk injury.
To start their season, O’Connell has named recently acquired Kyler Murray the Vikings starter for their season opener at home against the Green Bay Packers.
With so much to sort out we have our opinions on what teams are poised to succeed, what teams are headed to failure and what teams have already surrendered the 2026 season as a rebuilding year. Our initial work will be revealed next week with the season win total predictions.