The Draw Play

If you watch a sport long enough, you begin to notice certain patterns. Cycles. Archetypes. The draft is full of them and even leans into it directly with player comps. But this isn’t about the draft. This is about the season. We always get a certain charcuterie board of teams. The ingredients might swap in and out, but the general themes remain the same. You need a good soft cheese, a hard cheese, a couple different crackers or breads, maybe a cured meat or two, and some nuts/fruits to balance it out with wet and dry flavors.

So what constitutes the board of NFL teams? I have identified 9 strong archetypal seasons. Most teams will fall into one of these categories in some way, but there is often one team that best exemplifies the trope.

We will start with…

THE BLITZKRIEG
The Blitzkreig team is the team that is fast out of the gate and fades in the stretch, like how Germany handles world wars. They frequently have strong offenses that overpower most other teams and look nigh unstoppable for early-season stretches. They become easy favorites. But they are a mirage. Injuries or long-term defensive adjustments, as well as a reveal that they may be more flawed than first appear, end up tanking them. They frequently collapse in the second half of the season to miss the playoffs entirely or get eliminated in their first playoff game. Using 2025 as an example, the Colts. They featured the best offense in the league for the first half of the year, but then Jones went down and their schedule hardened, and they didn’t even make the playoffs.

My Prediction for 2026 Blitzkreig: Bills. The Bills, traditionally a messy team fresh off a turbulent offseason, might now get off to a hot start with offensive mind Joe Brady in charge. But one of the hallmarks of the McDermott Bills was how he’d be able to reel them into focus later in the season into consistent playoff wins. I think Brady’s freedom might propel the Bills forward early but he won’t have the chops to bring it home when things get tough.
Other possibilities: The Chargers

THE FRAUD
This one should be self-explanatory for anyone who has read this site for any length of time. The Fraud is the paper tiger, a team with a record several wins above their actual ability. They will have close, flukey wins over weaker schedules. They flirt with or flat out have negative point differentials. They are lovable, but love is blind and fleeting. Your heart will break if you believe in them, as they were never going to give you true victory, and the instant they lose the mirage collapses. 2025 example: The Bears. A team with miracle turnover luck and insane last-second wins.

2026 Fraud prediction: The Vikings. The NFCN is fraud town and the Vikings love to fraud it up. The addition of Kyler Murray might create a mystique of potential because a merely competent QB with Justin Jefferson should instantly improve the offense that NINE wasted.  The Vikings also face the NFC South, the tried-and-true method for inflating a win count.
Other possibilities: The Cowboys

 

THE CLOWN
The Clown is not the worst team. They are the funniest team. They are the team with frequent drama, ridiculous games, and hilarious chokes. The Clown is guaranteed entertainment, for positive or negative. Maybe a WR openly fights with the staff all season. Maybe they lose on multiple wild collapses. Maybe someone shoots themselves in a nightclub with their own gun. The Clown deserves your laughter. They have have decided that if they can’t get good grades, they may as well be the funny one. 2025 Example: The Giants. Multiple huge collapses, Skattebo, Dart and his gonzo idiot scrambling, the Daboll tent debacle…lots of people laughed at the Giants last year and they were right to do so.

2026 Clown Predictions: The Browns. They lost Garrett. The defense will be worse, and the offense will be helmed by either The Nasty Man or the lightning rod that is Shedeur Sanders. Sanders by himself brings the clown potential very high, because unless he takes a huge step forward (which isnt likely), he will again be the epicenter of internet hot takes from the whole spectrum of Stans to Haters. It doesn’t help that he plays terrible hero ball. If Gabriel somehow wins the starting gig, then the Browns move onto my pick for The Waste.
Other possibilities: The Giants, the Steelers, The Colts

THE WASTE
The Waste is a scornful team, not worthy of your eyes. Every game with them is a chore. They do not win. They do not entertain. They make you question why you even watch the sport. Begone, and see if next year brings any hope. 2025 Example: The Raiders. There was simply no reason to watch Las Vegas last year. They already wiped the slate clean from that abysmal mistake.

2026 Waste Prediction: The Cardinals. They are primed to be the new Raiders. A journeyman QB who has only briefly shown competence, stuck on a bad team with no line, forced to feed the exciting new RB. A defense with nobody you remember on it. Do any of you want to watch the Cardinals play football next year? Is there hype for this? I can’t find much.
Other possibilities: The Browns, The Jets

THE UPSTART
The Upstart is the young, inexperienced team in rebuild mode that exceeds expectations to reach or threaten the playoffs. They scrap together a few good wins over superior opponents, slug out a few more, but still get blown up from time to time. They inevitably lose in the playoffs, but they give a better team a fright in the process. They have enough people to pay attention to them and now they become “spooky” the following season, where they inevitably don’t follow through with the promise. 2025 example: The Panthers. While Bryce still has a ways to go to become a viable long-term answer, the Panthers improved and they gave the Packers a tough Lambeau loss, and they even gave the Rams a fright in the wildcard. I do not expect them to be much better in 2026, though.

2026 Upstart Predictions: The Saints. The Saints found a foundation in the second half of the season last year. They play in a weak division that’s up for grabs. I can see them being feisty enough to actually reach the playoffs and make us wonder.
Other possibilities: The Dolphins, The Giants, The Titans

THE STUD
Sometimes a team is just good. They look good, they win a lot while playing good, and they stay consistent. They weather the storms, they are the clear favorites, and they will probably be in contention as far as they can go and are frequently only brought down by other good teams or fluke incidents. 2025 Example: Rams. The Rams were expected to be good, and they were. They only lost to another team that ended up surprising, and they took them to the wire.

2026 Stud Predictions: The Rams, again. Unless Puka goes insane (not out of the question), there is no reason why the Rams shouldn’t be the easy favorites. They just added the defensive player of the year, might get Aaron Donald back to play with him, and as long as Stafford is healthy, hoo boy.
Other possibilities: The 49ers, The Patriots, The Seahawks

THE BLOOMER
The functional opposite of the Blitzkreig. Slow to start, surges late. Maybe a new staff just took some time to find itself, or health blossomed at the right moment. An extremely real playoff threat. 2025 Example: The Texans. They were 3-5 to start the season, then never lost again. The defense became an absolute monster. If it wasn’t for CJ Stroud playing like he had a brain aneurysm against the Patriots, this team could have very well reached the Super Bowl. Stroud remains the biggest question mark going into 2026.

2026 Bloomer Predictions: The Bengals. The Bengals are perpetual bloomers, they love to start slow and then figure out how to win games right as the playoff window closes. Provided everyone is healthy, the Bengals do look like they might have improved. The AFCN is also in flux, with the Steelers/Ravens entering a new era and the Browns being a mess. The opportunity is there.
Other possibilities: The Ravens

THE SURPRISE
Like the upstart, but not scrappy, better. A team that nobody had major expectations for that takes the league by surprise, pulling in massive statement wins and enduring a deep playoff run. 2025 example: The Seahawks. Also the Patriots. The Super Bowl was a matchup of teams we did not expect to see there. The Hawks were an afterthought behind the Rams and 49ers for much of the early year, but they outplayed both of them to take the crown. The Patriots were an outright shock at times.

2026 Surprise Predictions: Steelers. To be clear I do not want this. But Rodgers in his final season, under a coach and system he knows well, with an older but still good defense? They could end up with 11+ wins and generate an annoying amount of “going out in style” kinda takes, especially because I think most of us believe the opposite will happen and the Steelers will crash into their first losing season in ages.
Other possibilities: The Panthers, The Cowboys

THE DISAPPOINTMENT
The opposite of the Surprise. The team we all assumed would kick ass, and yet, there they go, doing jack shit. While injuries, brain drain, or a tough schedule could be factors in their downfall, sometimes a year just goes sour. Some teams will recover from it. Some do not. 2025 Example: The Chiefs. Several contenders with high expectations shat themselves to some degree last year (Lions, Packers, Ravens, Eagles), but nobody had the fallout like the Chiefs. A dynasty and the best team of the 2020’s so far was out of the playoffs before the season was over, and Mahomes hurt his knee.

2026 Disappointment Predictions: The Broncos. The Boncs had a great season last year and conventional wisdom suggests they should remain good, but the pain of the Disappointment is that they spit in the face of conventional wisdom. We saw how bad the offense was without Bo Nix, and Bo Nix was hardly a world-beater to begin with. Defense fluctuates a lot between years, and they may regress more than expected.
Other possibilities: The Seahawks, The Eagles

 

What are your predictions for each this year? I might revisit this for the Chaos awards and see who fits the bill and who called what.