The new NFL season has barely begun, and the preseason predictions have already received their first serious warning. The Los Angeles Rams, a team that spent the summer collecting stars and entered September as the clear Super Bowl favorite, were beaten 27-7 by the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne.
One game, of course, does not change an assessment of the roster or erase everything Los Angeles did between seasons, but it offered a timely reminder of an old NFL rule: championship teams are not built on paper. The Seattle Seahawks showed that last season, when they reached the Lombardi Trophy without entering the year as the leading favorite, while the New England Patriots went from four wins to the Super Bowl in just one year. Once again, health, roster depth and January form will matter just as much as talent.
Rams Have the Most Stars, but the AFC Has More Contenders
Even a heavy opening loss does not change the fact that the Rams assembled the kind of roster rarely seen. Matthew Stafford returns after an MVP season, the offense remains one of the most talented in the league, and the defense added Myles Garrett, Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson. Add Aaron Donald’s return from retirement, and it is easy to understand why Los Angeles received the most support in preseason Super Bowl predictions. 
Still, Stafford is 38, Donald has not played competitive football in two seasons, and the first game against San Francisco showed how quickly even the most expensive construction can look ordinary when the offense cannot stay on the field.
The Chicago Bears also belong in the broader group of NFC contenders. Chicago has enough reason to be part of the conversation about teams capable of making a serious jump, but its season deserves a separate analysis rather than being reduced to a few sentences in a league-wide preview.
In the AFC, identifying a single dominant team is much more difficult. The Buffalo Bills again have Josh Allen, but now also have DJ Moore as their first serious outside target. The Baltimore Ravens expect a healthy Lamar Jackson and added Trey Hendrickson to the defense, while the Los Angeles Chargers, led by Justin Herbert, belong to a group of teams that can no longer be treated as likable outsiders. Each has enough quality to be playing in February, but also enough questions to prevent anyone from looking comfortably ahead to January.
Cincinnati Bengals Could Make the Biggest Leap
Of all the teams that failed to meet expectations last year, the Cincinnati Bengals may be the most dangerous. Six wins look bad until you add the fact that Joe Burrow missed a large part of the season and that the Bengals’ defense was one of the main reasons the year was effectively lost.
No one seriously doubts the offense as long as Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are healthy, so the club spent most of its energy addressing the other side of the ball. Dexter Lawrence arrived in a major trade with the New York Giants, while Boye Mafe and Bryan Cook are expected to bring more pressure and stability to a unit that too often left Burrow with the task of simply scoring one more point than the opponent.
The Las Vegas Raiders, on the other hand, may have carried out the biggest reconstruction. Klint Kubiak took over the team, Tyler Linderbaum arrived in the middle of the offensive line, the defense added Kwity Paye, Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker, and Fernando Mendoza became the face of the new project as the first pick in the draft. No reasonable person will immediately make the Super Bowl the standard of success for the Raiders, but after a 3-14 season, they do not even have to reach January for it to become clear that they have taken a major step forward.
Miami Dolphins Have Started a Rebuild, While Some of Last Year’s Successes Will Be Hard to Repeat
While the Rams, Bengals and Raiders were buying or building new strength, the Miami Dolphins effectively dismantled the team that was supposed to challenge for the top of the AFC in recent years. Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and Bradley Chubb are no longer with the club, which makes this far more than a routine set of changes between seasons — it is the beginning of a new cycle.
The Dolphins therefore enter the season with different goals from the Bills or Ravens; their job is to determine which current players can be part of the next competitive team. The Arizona Cardinals are in a similar position and, according to most preseason projections, belong near the very bottom of the league.
At the other end are teams that are good but could still finish with noticeably fewer wins than they had last season. New England made a remarkable jump from 4-13 to 14-3, but now faces a tougher schedule, while its season has already begun with a loss to Seattle and an injury to A.J. Brown.
The Denver Broncos won an unusually large number of close games last year, something that is difficult to repeat in consecutive seasons. That does not mean the Patriots and Broncos suddenly become bad teams. It means a good team can still play a perfectly respectable season and finish with three or four fewer wins.
Allen Leads the MVP Race, but Burrow Has an Ideal Opportunity
Josh Allen entered the season as the leading favorite for the MVP award, and it is not difficult to understand why. Buffalo has a legitimate chance to finish atop the AFC, and the arrival of DJ Moore gives Allen a weapon he had been missing. Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert are immediately behind him, while Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Brock Purdy and Caleb Williams are part of the broader group of contenders.
Burrow, however, could have the best story if he stays healthy. A Bengals return from six wins to the top of the conference, combined with his usual statistical production, would be a recipe for an MVP season. Until then, Allen remains the most logical choice, while the Rams are still the most complete candidate for the Lombardi Trophy — even after the slap they received on their very first step. If the NFL has taught us anything in recent years, it is that September can reveal quality, but champions are usually discovered only in January.
Photo: ChatGPT
