There is a lot that can steer a season wrong for any NFL team. We've seen some pretty aggressive year-over-year change, too. For example, the Kansas City Chiefs went 15-2 in the 2024 NFL Season, earned the AFC's top seed, and made it to the Super Bowl.
But in 2025, they went just 6-11 and totally missed the playoffs. This was a similar scenario for the Detroit Lions, as they went from 15-2 in 2024 to 9-8 in 2025 and were on the outside of the NFC playoff picture.
With the 2026 regular season right around the corner, we've done an updated exercise of each AFC team's ceiling and floor record, meaning what would their best and worst possible scenario be. Let's dive into it here.
Ceiling and floor record predictions for each AFC team in the 2026 NFL Season
AFC North
Baltimore Ravens
Ceiling: 13-4
Floor: 9-8
With the Baltimore Ravens having already proven to be a potent regular season team, their ceiling in 2026 is quite high, and if new head coach Jesse Minter can have this defense playing as well as the talent indicates, and the roster isn't nearly as injured to begin the season as they were last year, there is a clear path for the Ravens to mostly run all over their opponents to a 13-4 record, which would likely be plenty good enough for the division title and a top seed in the playoffs.
Cincinnati Bengals
Ceiling: 13-4
Floor: 8-9
It would be a similar scenario for the Cincinnati Bengals, as this front office finally got serious about the defense and brought in a slew of new faces, perhaps allowing Cincy to at least be average on this side of the ball, which is all they'd need to do with how good the offense can be. The floor, though, would be much of the same as what we've seen - slow starts and an overall underperformance - and this would also mean the defense just didn't play nearly well enough to allow Cincy to get over the hump.
Pittsburgh Steelers:
Ceiling: 10-7
Floor: 7-10
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the epitome of a low ceiling, high floor team. Aaron Rodgers is fine, and much of the roster overall is fine. There isn't one particular thing the Steelers do well, but they don't really do anything poorly. This would lead to a rather ho-hum 10-7 ceiling, which has been the case for years now, but some stumbles along the way could drop Pittsburgh to below .500 since the George W. Bush administration.
Cleveland Browns
Ceiling: 6-11
Floor: 2-15
The Cleveland Browns could potentially get slighty-below-average play from their quarterbacks this season, which would allow them to win six games, at most, but with how dysfunctional that room appears to be, the Browns might struggle to sniff more than four wins. If just about nothing comes together for this team, they'd flirt with being the first winless team in the 17-game era.
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