And then there were eight …
The NFL playoffs pick up Saturday with two of four divisional round games that will set the conference championship matchups for next week.
Those eight remaining Super Bowl hopefuls all, honestly, have a viable chance of getting to the Big Game.
It’s been said plenty, including here, but this sure seems like the most wide-open Super Bowl chase in quite a while.
Would any of the potential conference championship matchups truly surprise anyone?
Some more than others, sure, but not totally.
The only game this weekend with a point spread larger than 4.5 is the Seattle Seahawks as 7-point home favorites over the San Francisco 49ers in the Saturday night spotlight, mainly because the teams played a rather one-sided game just two weeks ago (albeit with a misleading 13-3 margin).
But the 49ers were without elite left tackle Trent Williams in that game and got overwhelmed by the Seahawks’ aggressive defense. San Francisco played a lot closer to its offensive potential in a 23-19 playoff win over the Eagles last week with Williams back from his hamstring injury. Also, nobody would truly be surprised if Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold scuffled in only his second career playoff start after a brutal postseason performance last year for the Vikings. He also is dealing with an oblique injury that could keep him out.
The Buffalo Bills vs. the Denver Broncos in the first game of the weekend Saturday is a total toss-up with Denver a slim 1.5-point home favorite. Denver’s defense, Sean Payton, Bo Nix’s fourth-quarter moxie and a home game coming off a bye vs. … Playoff Josh Allen. It’s hard to pick confidently either way there.
The New England Patriots are 3-point home favorites over the Houston Texans in the early Sunday game, but Houston has won 10 straight games and finished off the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-6, last week despite a glaringly bad performance from QB C.J. Stroud for most of the night.
And the Los Angeles Rams are 4.5-point favorites over the Chicago Bears on Sunday night, but Chicago is home with an expected temperature well below freezing and light snow even possible. The Rams also just barely escaped a road playoff game at Carolina last week, while Bears QB Caleb Williams delivered a legendary fourth quarter performance to beat the Packers and has proven more indomitable than “Halloween’s” Michael Myers.
With that said, any of these teams could be playing next week or Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California, in the Super Bowl.
So let’s rank the most compelling potential storylines still in play. Here’s how the narrative would be framed for each team IF it advances to the conference championship round.
1. Buffalo Bills
QB Josh Allen and coach Sean McDermott make their third AFC championship game with their biggest perennial obstacle already out of the way, after being outdueled and eliminated by the Chiefs in four of the last five playoffs. Patrick Mahomes is home recovering from knee surgery this time and the Kansas City dynasty is either over or on hiatus, while Allen — already with a MVP award but missing an elusive major piece to his resume — gets his best shot at his first Super Bowl appearance.
The postseason version of Allen is as good as it gets, and there isn’t another player left in the field who would bring more star power or a better individual story arc to the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, one of the NFL’s best fan bases sees its best path to a breakthrough that has been awaited since the franchise’s famed four straight Super Bowl losses in the 1990s.
2. Chicago Bears
The team many remained reluctant to believe in this season just keeps winning — probably dramatically, per usual — while Caleb Williams formally asserts himself as one of the game’s emerging stars and top QBs in just his second season.
Chicago is 19 years removed from its last Super Bowl appearance and an even 40 years from its only SB championship, now with a shot to complete one of the most incredible year-to-year turnarounds in league history after winning just five games in 2024.
3. New England Patriots
Kind of ditto on everything we just said about the Bears, minus the regular fourth quarter dramatics.
In fact, of all the teams remaining in the field, New England had the worst odds to win the Super Bowl at the start of the season (80-1 per BetMGM, with only eight teams opening with more extreme odds).
Of course, the Patriots have won more Super Bowls than any team in the 2000s, so it’s hard to truly embrace them as an underdog narrative even if they are. New England went 4-13 last season as one of the NFL’s worst teams. Aside from early evidence from his rookie season that QB Drake Maye had major potential and the general acknowledgement that coach Mike Vrabel was a great hire, there wasn’t any indication this was coming.
If you can separate the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick Era and look at this team in its own context, it truly is a fun storyline. Really, the Bears and Patriots could just as easily be the Jets, Raiders or Browns (or any other forsaken franchise) had they struck gold on the QB/coach decisions in the same way.
4. Denver Broncos
We went deep earlier this season on the potential for coach Sean Payton to elevate himself into the rarest of pantheons if he wins a Super Bowl with the Broncos.
Only six NFL coaches have ever taken two different franchises to the Super Bowl — Don Shula, Bill Parcells, Dan Reeves, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren and John Fox (perhaps the outlier of the group) — but none have ever won the Big Game with two different organizations.
(*Early NFL legend Weeb Ewbank won two NFL championships pre-Super Bowl Era with the Baltimore Colts and won Super Bowl III with the New York Jets.)
Payton, of course, won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints and now has a real shot to do so with the Broncos after building that proud franchise back up from its own version of rock bottom (not Browns, Jets or Raiders level, but few can dig that deep).
Denver went 5-12 in 2022 as head coach Nathaniel Hackett didn’t even last one full season, while the franchise took on an incredible sunk cost in draft capital and salary cap damage in moving on quickly from expensive QB acquisition Russell Wilson. Payton returned to the NFL after two seasons off, started 0-3 with a humiliating 70-20 loss to Miami and then 1-5 before rallying that team to an 8-9 finish.
He’d build the Broncos from that low point into one of the NFL’s best defenses, get to 10 wins last year with rookie QB Bo Nix and then 14-3 and the AFC’s top seed this year. If he gets Denver to a Super Bowl title this year or any year — while adding to his already substantial win total of 184 career regular-season victories, which is second among active coaches behind Andy Reid and already 13th all-time — he’ll force his way onto the short list of best coaches in NFL history.
And there’s no reason this Broncos team can’t be the one to put him there.
5. San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers keep losing star players with tight end George Kittle (torn Achilles) the latest injury casualty last week, but no team has shown more resilience this season.
Playing one of the NFL’s better defenses in Philadelphia, QB Brock Purdy threw for 262 yards and 2 TDs with his leading receivers being a ninth-year journeyman wideout in Demarcus Robinson who has never had more than 505 receiving yards in a season, running back Christian McCaffrey, and one of the last of a dying breed in fullback Kyle Juszczyk.
More to that point, Jauan Jennings is the only wide receiver on the team to even total 40 catches this season, yet Purdy was one of the most productive QBs down the stretch.
Coach Kyle Shanahan has led San Francisco to two Super Bowl appearances and four NFC championship games in the last six years, and yet this might be his best coaching job yet.
6. Los Angeles Rams
Matthew Stafford has a chance to go from being viewed as one of the best quarterbacks of his era to a true all-timer this season.
He’s already the betting favorite to win his first MVP at 37 years old (though it’s still a bit of a toss-up between he and Maye) after passing for 4,707 yards, a career-high 46 TDs and just 8 INTs in the regular season.
Stafford won one Super Bowl with the Rams four years ago and could now add a second title to puts him in a different tier of historic context. If he does, he would be one of two active QBs — along with Mahomes — with multiple Super Bowl championships and one of 14 all-time. Imagine telling that to a Detroit Lions fan six or seven years ago.
He also ranks sixth all-time in passing yards (65,516) and seventh in touchdown passes (423) already with a legitimate shot of finishing top 3 or 4 in both if he plays a few more seasons.
And he’s already started this postseason run with one signature moment, throwing for the game-winning TD in that 34-31 come-from-behind win in Carolina after saying this to his teammates:
7. Seattle Seahawks
The Sam Darnold career arc!
From perceived first-round draft bust with the New York Jets (but then again, plenty of company with that franchise), bouncing around the depth charts of the Panthers and 49ers and a mutual parting with the Minnesota Vikings after a rough finish to a career-best season, to now potential Super Bowl champion?
Well, that’s a pretty compelling storyline, right?
The Seahawks enter the weekend as the betting favorites to win the whole thing (+300 odds, narrowly ahead of the Rams, per BetMGM) after opening the season at long +6000 odds.
Many still doubt whether Darnold can win the big game — or three in a row, for that matter — to go all the way. But he also doesn’t have to necessarily carry this team, which can lean heavily on its ground attack and a defense that might just be a worthy successor to the Legion of Boom unit that defined the Seahawks’ last Super Bowl era.
8. Houston Texans
The Texans are just the seventh NFL team to ever start the season 0-3 and make the playoffs, only the second to ever then get to the divisional round (along with the 1992 Chargers) after such a start. And, with a win Sunday, they’d become the first of that group to ever get to a conference championship game.
Houston was actually 3-5 before reeling off 10 straight wins, including the playoff victory in Pittsburgh last week.
They’re trying to follow the formula of Super Bowl champions like that 1985 Bears and 2000 Ravens that were predominantly driven by their league-best defenses, though Houston’s 277.2 yards and 17.4 points per game allowed (in the regular season) isn’t quite to the level of Mike Ditka’s Bears (258.4/12.4) or Ray Lewis’ Ravens (247.9/10.3).
But two fourth quarter defensive touchdowns last week and holding the Steelers to just 175 yards sure looks the part.
Editor's Pick
2026 NFL Postseason: Playoff Schedule & Draft Order