Model Projects Bears to Reach Super Bowl in 2026 Playoff Bracket

An analytics model simulated the remaining 151 regular-season games and 13 playoff games to project the NFL’s full postseason bracket. The forecast, published November 4 as the league headed into Week 9, is a projection rather than a picture of the current standings; all 32 teams remained mathematically eligible to qualify at that point in the season.

In the AFC, the model picked Buffalo, Jacksonville, Denver and Cincinnati to win their divisions. Kansas City, Pittsburgh and New England were projected to take the wild-card spots. Denver’s projected AFC West title would be its second in a row and would send the Chiefs into the playoffs as a wild card, a first for Patrick Mahomes as Kansas City’s starting quarterback.

The NFC projection had San Francisco, Chicago, the New York Giants and Tampa Bay as division champions, with Minnesota, Detroit and Seattle as wild cards. Chicago moved into the projected NFC North lead after beating Seattle. The forecast gave the Giants an 8-8-1 finish and Tampa Bay an 8-9 record, which would make them the first pair of division winners in NFL history to finish at .500 or worse. Green Bay and the Rams, both projected to finish above .500, were left out.

The bracket forecast picked Jacksonville, Denver and Cincinnati to win their AFC wild-card games, and Chicago, Detroit and Tampa Bay to advance in the NFC. In the divisional round, it projected Buffalo to beat Cincinnati, 34-24, in Buffalo’s first playoff game at its new stadium. The available projection also described Denver’s possible playoff matchup with Pittsburgh as a potential repeat of the opening game of Denver’s 2015 Super Bowl run.