NFL: Four Teams That Could Win Their First Super Bowl in 2026

Nick Foles shockingly lifted the Lombardi Trophy in Minneapolis back in February 2018, running that Philly Special trick play to help the Eagles claim their first-ever Super Bowl win. In the eight years since, the Big Game has never had a first-time winner. 

Last season, it was Sam Darnold hoisting the biggest prize in the game as Seattle’s vaunted ‘Dark Side’ defense strangled the New England Patriots in Santa Clara. Online sports betting sites listed the Seahawks as a +6600 outsider in preseason, but as the Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time in Patrick Mahomes’ career, the Ravens were gone, and the Lions went 9-8, the draw opened up, and Seattle took full advantage. 

With September beginning to loom on the horizon, the popular sports betting at Thunderpick platform is already pricing up Week 1’s games. And if the early odds are anything to go by, 2026 could well be the year we see another first-time Super Bowl champion. Here are four such teams that have lofty expectations. 

Buffalo Bills

Scott Norwood’s wide right is 35 years old. Four straight Super Bowl appearances from 1990 to 1993, four straight losses, three decades of heartbreak ever since. Josh Allen has been to seven straight playoffs without reaching a Super Bowl, and only twice contested the conference title game. The 2025 season ended in Divisional Round overtime against Denver. Sean McDermott — eight postseason berths, never a conference title appearance — was promptly fired in the aftermath.

The Seahawks were 66/1 before last season, while the Patriots — the team they beat at Levi’s Stadium — were +8000. The league spent 2025 proving the door swings open for whoever is ready. And Buffalo, under new head coach Joe Brady at 36, has never been better built to walk through it. 

Brady and Allen have history. DJ Moore arrives from Chicago, a receiver Brady developed at Carolina. Jim Leonhard brings a new defensive scheme; CJ Gardner-Johnson, Geno Stone, and Bradley Chubb arrived, while Matt Milano, Tre’Davious White, Taron Johnson, and Jordan Poyer moved on.

Since 2019, no team has scored more points than the Bills or allowed fewer. James Cook won the 2025 rushing title — the first Bill since O.J. Simpson in 1976 — behind the best run-blocking line in football. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Buffalo the best Super Bowl probability of any AFC team and the second-best in the entire league behind the Los Angeles Rams.

Allen is 30. The window doesn’t stay open. In a league that just handed a Lombardi to a 66/1 team, urgency is the only rational posture.

Detroit Lions

Nick Foles won a Super Bowl, and nobody saw it coming. Carson Wentz was supposed to be the guy. The Lions — the only NFC franchise never to appear in a Super Bowl, carrying a drought back to 1957 — have been watching other people’s miracles for 69 years.

After a 9-8 season and a fourth-place NFC North finish on tiebreaker, something structural shifted. Finishing last means Detroit drew the NFL’s 31st-ranked strength of schedule for 2026, providing an open road for a franchise that desperately needed one.

Drew Petzing arrives as offensive coordinator. David Montgomery went to Houston; Isiah Pacheco joins Jahmyr Gibbs — the early favorite for Offensive Player of the Year — in the backfield. Rookie tackle Blake Miller was taken in the first round. Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Penei Sewell give Dan Campbell an offensive ceiling most NFC rosters can’t touch. Aidan Hutchinson, who posted 14.5 sacks before injury in 2024, is healthy. ESPN’s FPI gives Detroit a 38.2% chance to win the NFC North and a 5.2% Super Bowl probability. 

But don’t tell Lions fans about percentages. Tell them about Philadelphia in 2017. Nobody thought Nick Foles was winning a Super Bowl. Campbell’s team isn’t a pleasant story — they’re a franchise built on 69 years of hurt, and 2026, with the softest schedule in football and a healthy Hutchinson, might finally end it.

Cincinnati Bengals

After a disappointing 2025 in which the Bengals missed the playoffs for the third straight season. Joe Burrow came back in the spring and said his 2026 roster reminded him of his 2019 LSU national championship squad. He has since declared the Super Bowl the stated objective.

That is not bulletin-board material. That is a man who missed significant time in 2025, watched his franchise limp to 6-11, watched a defense finish bottom four in yards per play in both run and pass — and decided the correct response was to burn the ships.

The front office burned them with him. Trading the tenth overall pick for Dexter Lawrence was the most uncharacteristic move in franchise history — a two-gap force who generated 123 pressures in the four prior seasons, second only to Chris Jones in that span. Boye Mafe on the edge; Jonathan Allen on the interior; Bryan Cook at safety; Cashius Howell drafted for pass rush; Trey Hendrickson to Baltimore. The defense has been rebuilt from the ground up. 

All 11 offensive starters return. Cincinnati carries the third-easiest schedule in the league, is favored in 15 of 17 games, and sits around 22-to-25-to-1. When Burrow is healthy behind that rebuilt defense, what exactly is the argument against the Bengals? It’s hard to find one. 

Houston Texans

Three straight Divisional Round exits. The AFC Championship still uncharted territory for a franchise that arrived as an expansion team in 2002. Under DeMeco Ryans, the Texans matched a franchise-best 12 wins in 2025 and posted a best-ever point differential of plus-109 — and they still went home early. 

Now, David Montgomery arrives from Detroit to fix a rushing attack that finished 29th in the league, averaging fewer than four yards per carry — the dimension strangling Stroud’s play-action. Braden Smith, Wyatt Teller, and first-round rookie center Keylan Rutledge reinforce the line. Tank Dell returns from a knee injury. Will Anderson Jr. anchors a defense that ranked first in total yards allowed per game in 2025, largely intact.

As a rookie, Stroud averaged a league-leading 273.9 yards per game — 4,108 yards, 23 touchdowns, five interceptions. That version of Stroud, with a genuine ground game, a rebuilt line, and a top-three defense underneath him, is Super Bowl-level.