This Season's Super Bowl Winner Will Be One Of These 7 NFL Teams

The NFL is a league built on parity and the idea that, in any given season, any team can rise from the bottom of the standings and compete for a championship.

The 2025 season proved this concept, with the Patriots going from AFC East bottom-feeder to Super Bowl participant.

As we head into the 2026 season, every team’s fanbase is asking the same question: Why not us? It’s a nice thought.

But here, in reality, stories like last year’s Pats come along maybe once or twice a decade.

Typically, we can whittle down the true Super Bowl contenders with reasonable accuracy before the season even begins.

And that’s what I’ll be doing here.

I’ve considered the title cases for all 32 teams and narrowed them down to a group of seven that can realistically win a Lombardi Trophy next February.

So let’s look at what makes these teams title contenders before examining the group of fringe contenders who just missed the cut, along with why they were left out.

One of these seven teams will win the Super Bowl: The Rams were one unlucky two-point conversion away from earning home-field advantage in the playoffs, which may have been enough to get Sean McVay’s team to the Super Bowl.

It would have been easy – and maybe even sensible – for the Rams to just run it back and hope for better luck.

Instead, they traded for Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, added a lockdown cornerback in Trent McDuffie, and then lured Aaron Donald out of retirement.

They were already one of the favorites to hoist the Lombardi trophy before those additions.

Now, they’re the clear favorites.

They check all the boxes you look for in a title contender: The acquisition of Garrett commanded a lot of the offseason attention, but adding McDuffie and Jaylen Watson to the cornerback room could be the moves that propel L.A. over the championship hump.