Why the Patriots, Steelers and Jaguars Will Regress in 2026

This year's Chiefs, Albert.

So this is a team that Made the playoffs last year, that was excellent, um, and is gonna hit like a sharp regression.

And there's a lot of candidates here, um, right?

Because we had a little bit of a top-heavy NFL last season.

And I also think that like, there's, there's an obvious answer, but I think that there's also some, there's some interesting ones kind of laying in wait there.

So I'm curious what your, uh, what your thought is here.

So, I'm probably gonna take the obvious one off the board, OK, Steelers.

Oh, OK, that's not the, that's not the obvious one, right?

I mean, I, yeah, I guess not.

But I mean, I, I, I think, I, I think it's like, I just look at the age of the roster, you know what I mean?

Like, and that makes me nervous.

And if they can keep it all together, like I actually think it's built to leverage.

Aaron Rodgers' experience because you're putting so much experience around him, which means you're gonna be able to run the offense in a way that you wouldn't be able to if you had a bunch of 1st and 2nd-year guys with them.

So, you know, like that's, you know, Michael Pittman, um, turning 29, that's DK Metcalf turning 29, that's Rico Dowdell in his 8th year, that's Pat Friarmuth, I think he's going to year 6.

you know, so you've got like a lot of like guys who have NFL experience, like a ton of NFL experience, and that means you're gonna be able to run the offense at like a higher.

That the offense is gonna have a higher collective IQ level, which is gonna, I think, leverage more out of what Aaron can do.

Um, but, like the flip side of that is, What happens if a bunch of these guys hit a wall at once and like that's what I'd be concerned with.

So I go with the Steelers there.

Who's the obvious one?

Are you gonna go Jaguars?

Well, I, I was gonna do the Jaguars, right?

Um, but I think the obvious one is the Patriots, right?

Um, I mean, Patriots are 4-win team from a year ago.

And now they go from a schedule, uh, last year that was among the easiest in NFL history.

And again, I know the Patriots fans are sick of hearing this, but they go from last year to this year where projected playoff opponents, 12345678, not counting.

The Jaguars, the Bears, and the Steelers.

So if you count them, 11.

Of those teams that they're playing, have realistic playoff aspirations.

They start the season against Seattle, uh, then they go to Pitt, then they have Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Buffalo.

There's very much a world, Albert, where that team is 0 and 4 to start the season, and I'm not saying that to be, you know, no, and, and, but I mean, like, and you wonder if, like, some of the stuff that's happened in the last couple of months then gets stretched back up, which I think inevitably it will.

It was like, where was, where was Vrabel's head at, like, you know, like those sorts of things will come up, yeah, if they start 1 and 30 and 4, whatever.

The flip side of it is, I actually think their roster is better.

It is.

Let me ask you this.

What if Drake May becomes like the best player in the league, which is possible again, and, and, and, and, and I think that.

I mean, we've talked a lot about like the regression is possible, right?

But I just remember Mahomes year 2 to year 3, you know what I mean?

Like, and I don't know that like Mahomes was quite as spectacular.

In 19 as he was in 18 was like a, it was like a movie watching him in 18, you know what I mean?

But then they don't make it to the Super Bowl, they lost in devastating fashion.

There was the Dee Ford offsides game, they probably win the championship that year if Dee Ford just has his hand in the right place, you know, in the AFC championship game, but I think like at that point, there was like a little bit of like the , OK, here's a guy who's just a big athlete playing ball out there, and where's his next level?

And then Mahomes showed us, like, oh yeah, I've got a lot of, I, I've got a lot of growing I can still do.

And even though it wasn't as spectacular in 19, it was more efficient, it was more advanced, and I just wonder.

If like, I think with Mahomes in May, there's a little bit of that element of the big athlete playing ball, learning how to play quarterback, you know what I mean, and continuing to learn how to play quarterback.

So I think that part of it's interesting.

I'm totally there for a For a Drake May takeover season, I think he's that good.

Um, I think he's that talented.

Uh, I, I don't think there's any doubt about it.

I just think that when you flip the pendulum, and again, the, it's not like the AFC East is running away from them.

I think Miami will have a top 5 pick next year, and I think the Jets will probably be close to having a top 5 pick next year.

So you could say that those are a couple of wins that are already baked into your schedule, but It's hard.

I mean, it's so hard, and they got, and they're older in some spots, older and spots, which is like people don't pay attention to because it's just like the commanders last year.

The commanders, they brought in like a lot of these older free agents, and some of those guys were not the same the second year.

And so like they've got some older guys like Carlton Davis and Robert Splain that they're relying on on defense, Harold Landry.

That now are a year older.

And so there's that element of like what happened with the commanders too, where it's like, OK, like what is year 2?

But I do think like, you know, presuming they wind up getting AJ Brown in a couple of weeks, and then like, now you got Brown, Romeo Dobbs, so I think the collective around May is a little bit better.

It's just interesting.

There's some sliding doors with them, you know.

I think, and this might sound wild, but I think that There's a world where, and again, I mean, listen, let's give the Patriots credit.

They went out and beat like the Buffalo Bills last year, uh, well, they split with the Buffalo Bills last year.

It's not like they didn't beat anybody.

I mean, they went out and beat the Bucks last year, they went out and beat the Falcons last year, um, they went out and beat, you know, I mean, they, they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers the Texans in the playoffs.

They beat the Texans in the playoffs.

Yeah, I mean, they won in Denver.

Now that's Jarrett Stidham, but yeah, yeah, and so you're taking the Jaguars for this though.

Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna take the Jaguars on this one, but you gotta finish your point on the Patriots, and I cut you off there .

Yeah, no, that's OK.

Um, I also, you know, I, I can make fun of the AFCs as much as I want to, but I don't think it's a lock that they sweep the Jets, and I don't think it's a lock that they sweep the Dolphins this year, because I, I, I think the Dolphins are just different.

They profile as a different team.

It's gonna be a little bit of a wild card defensively.

Jeff Halley is a really good coach, not saying Mike McDaniel isn't, but he's a different head coach for that group of players that might get something out of them.

I don't know that the answer to that question.

I think Jeff Hafley's goal in year one is to make the Dolphins a pain in the ass to play against, to get, you know what I mean?

I think, but I think like that's sort of what they're going for, right?

It's like, all right, we're not gonna be very good, but we're gonna be gritty, we're gonna be tough.

Like, I, the one thing I really like about them is, so like, you look at like their draft class, and it was interesting .

I was talking to some people there.

And um like with Caden Proctor, they actually like leaned on like the scouting staff and, and Sullivan himself, their connections at Alabama , and like figuring out with Caden Proctor and like cutting through it, and they actually said like, this is a guy who took it personally, the weight thing, who isn't gonna let it happen again, who's gritty, who's tough, who knocks people out on the field, like, you know , you just had to cut through that.

And then Chris Johnson and, you know, Jacob Rodriguez, and they got all these guys that were sort of like team captain types, you know.

And I just think like for them, it's like, OK, creatively with Bobby Slope is the coordinator, Malik Willis, are you able to do some things that are difficult to deal with on offense, and then you've got a defense that plays really hard, like, I think what Jeff Hafley is trying to build in his first year in Miami, isn't, it's not gonna be an 11 and 6, 12 and 5 team, but I think it's like, I think you're right to say, like, it's the type of team that maybe is gonna catch some people napping, you know, and like all of a sudden, like you went down there and you thought like, OK, like this is gonna be a de facto bye week, and now it's like 10 minutes left in the game and you're in a freaking dogfight that you weren't expecting, you know.

The, um, the Jaguars were interesting.

So, Mike Clay, who does a great job at ESPN, I thought this was just kind of worth thinking about, OK?

Um, he puts together all the teams schedules with the, um, with the built-in win probabilities attached to them as it stands right now.

And again, you can throw all this crap out the window three weeks into the season when everything we think we know is completely meaningless, right?

But as it stands right now, If you had to guess, how many games on the Jaguars' 2026 schedule, which is nasty, do you think that they have an above 50% chance of winning?

How many?

I'll say 87, OK, and And I knew it was gonna be low because, because you wouldn't have asked me if it wasn't low, but I , I, and if you look at this beginning of the year schedule, right, Cleveland is the opener, which, and, and it's in Jacksonville, but and maybe we're just way overhyping DeSean at this point, and this is just an indication of where we are in the offseason, but like, I don't want to be the team.

That faces him and you don't know it's the first time when you have no idea what it's gonna look like, right?

That sucks.

That's in a bad spot and then you go 2 mile high.

Then you get the Patriots, then you go to Cincinnati, then you get the Eagles, then you get the Texans before you buy.

That's a tough 6 game start.

That's a really tough 6 game start.

And then the Colts could be really good, you don't know, yeah, yeah, the Colts could be decent.

The, the, the little pocket here, and again, I wanna say something because, all right, I just ate a fly.

Did you really?

I spit it out, but it landed in my mouth.

I could feel it in my tongue, and I just spit it out.

It was like a little fruit fly.

I don't know, Shelby.

I don't know if we have like actual video of that, but like, just mark it down and if you could see the fly, like I, you could, you, you probably could catch me spitting it out because I actually did spit it out.

Albert with a little bit of extra protein , uh, this morning to, uh, to round never know what the day is gonna bring.

Um, but I love these projected win total schedules because it's crazy to me that like, some of the easier games on the Jaguars' schedule are the Bears, the Steelers, the Cowboys, the Commanders, and two Colts games.

I mean, again, this is, you know, I, I think that they can fare OK, but you're thinking about a 14-win team that was a lock for the playoffs, and that everyone was super high about, and that you're looking to build on that.

The Jaguars didn't have a build-upon offseason.

You know what I mean?

They lost more than they brought in.

Now they're leaning on their own self-scouting evaluation, and sometimes that leads to, I mean, you know, look at Houston, who I'm sure we're gonna talk about here in a minute.

Look at the way that they were able to turn themselves around with players that not everybody was sitting there going, oh yeah, this guy's a guaranteed star, you know.

But I just think that, and, and we're going schedule heavy at this point, but I just think that like, You're putting an awful lot on Liam Cohen right now, um, and you didn't have a first round pick this year.

Your first round pick last year, you're still kind of holding out hope that he could play both, like, it just, it just doesn't feel like the grist for like, oh, this is like a, you know, this is now a fifteen-win season, but, um, I've been accused of being a Jaguars hater before, and that's OK.

I, uh, I can do that again.