Going into the 2025 NFL season, all the talk was about how dominant the AFC was about to be as a conference with so many elite top-end teams, quarterbacks, and young teams on the rise. As you would expect, the NFC completely flipped that narrative on its head.
Not only did the AFC look like the slightly weaker overall conference, but the NFC ended up including the team that hoisted the Lombardi Trophy (Seahawks), taking home the league MVP (Rams QB Matthew Stafford), and the Offensive Player of the Year (Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba).
How much better can the NFC be in the 2026 season? Now that the dust has all settled from the 2026 NFL Draft and the majority of NFL free agency, we are going to take a look at all of the changes each team has made, and how they all stack up as we start to project for the 2026 season in our latest NFL Power Rankings.
2026 NFL Power Rankings: Cowboys ascending in NFC rankings with Eagles on the brink of a downfall
16. Arizona Cardinals
It's easy to see heading into the 2026 NFL season that the Arizona Cardinals are on their way to potentially earning the #1 overall pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. At this point, anything else would be a slight shock.
Not only do the Cardinals have a 1st-year head coach in Mike LaFleur, but they have a roster that is in progress when it comes to being rebuilt. The icing on the cake is that they don't really have much in the way of an exciting quarterback option at the present moment, but with Ty Simpson going to the LA Rams, that feels like it was by design.
The Cardinals did use a 3rd-round pick on Carson Beck, but whether or not Beck can be another version of what Tyler Shough was for the Saints last year remains to be seen. Even with Jeremiyah Love added to the mix and the duo of Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison Jr. available in the passing game, this Cardinals team is poised for a long season of learning and evaluation.
15. Atlanta Falcons
If it weren't for the Arizona Cardinals, the Atlanta Falcons would pretty comfortably be the worst team in the NFC right now heading into the 2026 offseason program. We saw the Falcons finish strong last year, and I like the decision to hire Kevin Stefanski as the new head coach, but this team just doesn't have the pieces to compete, even in a weak division.
Injury issues have repeatedly come up throughout Michael Penix Jr.'s football career, and the Falcons didn't exactly get a model of availability by bringing in Tua Tagovailoa as an insurance policy. There are weapons for this team offensively, but how far can Bijan Robinson really carry this team?
The Falcons got a huge boost last year from 1st-round pick James Pearce Jr., but his situation off the field looms large right now. He could face a minimum suspension of six games for violating the league's personal conduct policy. Even with the strong finish we saw from the Falcons last season, it feels like this team's ceiling is going to be 7 or 8 wins.
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