There is nothing like dumping a good bucket of cold water on the optimism of an NFL fanbase at the end of the offseason.
The preparations have been made. Week 1 is nearly upon us. The rosters have been set. Everything is about to get underway, and all 32 teams are -- for the moment -- undefeated.
The brutal reality is that the optimism of the offseason is about to be shattered for a number of fan bases in the coming months, and there's nothing we can do about it. That's the NFL for you. And we're going to try and predict which teams, specifically in the NFC, could be in for more losses for the 2026 NFL season.
There could be a number of factors playing into this, and we'll explain as we go along. But let's look at the trio of NFC teams that feel all but guaranteed to lose more games in the upcoming season.
3 NFC teams that will almost certainly have more losses in 2026
3. Seattle Seahawks
Last season, the Seattle Seahawks only lost three regular season games. It's not that the Seahawks have gotten markedly worse in 2026, but winning 14 regular season games is incredibly difficult to do in the first place.
Repeating that kind of success is nearly impossible.
I still view the Seahawks as a team that will win a minimum of 11 games, but even if they only regress by one loss, I'm calling my shot right now that they are not going to win 14 or more games yet again. That, for me, would put them in the "low-hanging fruit" section of this particular category.
It's a little bit easier to predict that a team is going to have more losses than they did the previous year when they barely lost any games to begin with. But look at some recent examples. The Kansas City Chiefs won 15 games in 2024, then just 6 in 2025. The Detroit Lions won 15 games in 2024, then just 9 in 2025. The Philadelphia Eagles won 14 games in 2024, then just 11 in 2025.
Repeating that kind of success is brutal in the NFL.
2. San Francisco 49ers
It just feels like the offseason has been so overwhelmingly weird, bordering on bad, for the San Francisco 49ers.
All jokes about the electrical substation and Daejon Love aside for the moment, the 49ers have been in the news for pretty much all the wrong reasons this offseason.
Injuries have already started to pile up for this team, including to one of their top offseason acquisitions: WR Mike Evans. Evans has been dealing with injury issues all throughout the month of August, and even though we've seen this team overcome injuries before, it feels like the idea of the 49ers winning 12 games (only losing 5) is far-fetched this year.
This looks -- and feels -- like a 10-win team, maybe even a 9-win team. They play in one of the best divisions in football, and the NFC is more of a gauntlet than anyone realized.
Some of their best players are coming off of injuries and/or are getting older. It might just be a gut feeling with this team, but there's a dark cloud looming over the 49ers going into this season.
1. Atlanta Falcons
If there is one team in the NFC -- maybe the NFL -- that I'm all but certain is going to lose more games in 2026 than they did in 2025, it might be the Atlanta Falcons.
The Falcons were 8-9 last season, but this has the look and feel of a team that could contend for the #1 overall pick in next year's draft.
There are less talented teams, to be certain. There are teams with worse rosters overall. But the Falcons have such a bad and confusing quarterback situation right now, and it would take a shocking series of events taking place in the regular season for them to get that figured out.
There's a reason why they're the last team in the NFL to make any declaration about a Week 1 starter...Even they can't seem to figure it out.
Beyond that, the Falcons' defense lost 2025 1st-round pick Jalon Walker for the season, a huge loss to the defensive front and this team's overall pass rush. On top of that, James Pearce Jr. is suspended for 8 games after violating the league's conduct policy. And who knows how quickly he's going to be able to get back into game shape upon his return?
I'd be more confident in this projection if the Falcons didn't have such a stellar trio of weapons offensively, but I'm still confident they're losing more than 9 games in 2026.
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