Last year's playoff teams in the NFL can quickly find themselves on the outside looking in the very next season.
Just ask the Detroit Lions, who won a whopping 15 games during the 2024 season, looking like perennial Super Bowl contenders and a powerhouse team in the conference, only to miss the playoffs completely after winning just 9 games the next season. The parity of the NFL will humble even the best of teams.
Entering the 2026 season, it's impossible to know which teams are going to make it into the playoffs, but there are some teams that may already be doomed to give up their spots. Which NFC playoff teams from a season ago are the most likely to be left out in 2026?
3 NFC teams that could be doomed to miss the playoffs in 2026
3. Chicago Bears
If the idea is that someone has to go, an argument can be made for the Chicago Bears after their breakout year in 2026.
I wouldn't be taking it to the bank that the Bears are going to miss the playoffs, but their defense was overly reliant on creating takeaways last season, and they lost a lot of the guys who accounted for those takeaways. Chicago was 23rd in points allowed per game. They were 29th in yards allowed. They ranked 22nd against the pass, 27th against the run, 22nd in 3rd-down defense, and 15th in red zone defense. They were 21st in the NFL in sacks.
And you could make a legitimate argument that the Chicago defense didn't get much better, if at all, in 2026.
As we saw last year in the NFC North, it's very possible to have a winning record and still miss the playoffs. We also saw the 15-win Detroit Lions fall completely out of the playoffs last year. It's not impossible that the Bears could be left out in a deep field of NFC teams.
2. San Francisco 49ers
This is a really tough one, because the 49ers still had one of the best teams in the NFL last season even with all of the injuries they were dealing with. As good as some of Kyle Shanahan's teams have been, we've also seen a number of them miss the playoffs completely, including the year after losing to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
The 49ers play in what might be the best division in football. They were one of three teams last season that felt like legitimate contenders in the NFC West, and the competition is going to be brutal once again in 2026.
Not only do the 49ers have to deal with the actual Super Bowl champions -- the Seattle Seahawks -- but they've got to deal with this year's offseason champions -- the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams added Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett (among others, soon to be more) to an already-loaded roster.
If the 49ers can make it through the injuries they dealt with last season, they can probably make it through whatever 2026 is going to throw at them. But it's going to require another huge effort just to earn a Wild Card spot in the NFC this season, so the margin for error is razor-thin.
1. Carolina Panthers
Here we have the low-hanging fruit in this category, and you almost feel bad picking on the Panthers like this. This is a really good team, and one of the more improved teams under head coach Dave Canales.
They deserve more than just to be considered one of the first teams getting booted from the playoffs, but that's something they're going to have to earn after winning the NFC South last year with a losing record.
As improved as the Panthers were last year, they haven't "arrived" by any stretch. They still have to go out and prove that they can fend off the Buccaneers, who will be playing with a bit of desperation and a chip on their shoulders this season. The Falcons could be vastly improved if Tua Tagovailoa can play at the level we once saw from him in Miami. Even the New Orleans Saints have become a popular darkhorse pick in that division.
This is a division that has been underwhelming as a whole in recent years, but the Panthers can't just marginally improve to repeat as division champs. They have to take a big jump and create some distance, or one of those other teams is going to replace them.
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