Can the Giants and Jets improve on their awful 2025 records? Will the Chiefs, Lions and Ravens all make it back to the playoffs? Barnwell analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season X's and O's, offseason transactions and so much more. He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, with episodes released weekly. Barnwell joined ESPN in 2011 as a staff writer at Grantland.

Even by NFL standards, 2025 was a topsy-turvy season. Seven teams saw their records improve or decline by at least six wins, the most in any campaign since 2008. And though that's a little more feasible in a 17-game season than it was in the 16-game era, the 10-game improvement by the Patriots, who improved from 4-13 to 14-3, was the largest by any team since 1999, when the Colts pulled that off in [PERSON_NAME] second season.

Teams hoping to emulate the Patriots might find a difficult path forward. The Pats made a major coaching upgrade by hiring [PERSON_NAME], who had been one of the league's best coaches during his time with the Titans before losing a power struggle in [ADDRESS]. [ADDRESS] relied as heavily on free agency as any team in recent memory, with 13 of its 25 most-used players on offense and defense acquired as free agents over the previous two offseasons. And the Patriots notably had what was one of the easiest schedules in league history, facing just two teams that posted a winning record all season.

The Patriots' path toward the Super Bowl was off my radar, and they weren't included in my annual look at teams most likely to improve at this time last year. The other six teams to jump by at least six wins, though, are all featured in one of the two columns you'll see this week. Today, we start on the rosy side and focus on the teams that are most likely to improve in 2026.

And on Tuesday, sadly, we'll talk about the ones that are most likely to decline. Subscribe: 'The [PERSON_NAME] Show' Last year's column featured the Raiders, who declined by a game, and the Giants, who improved by one win. The other three teams were much bigger successes.

The Bears rode the [PERSON_NAME] effect and a flood of takeaways on defense to an 11-6 mark after going from 5-11 in 2024. The 49ers jumped from 6-11 to 12-5. And the Jaguars made the biggest leap, going from 4-13 to 13-4 in [PERSON_NAME] first season at the helm.

All three teams made the playoffs after finishing well below .500 the previous season. Since 2017, this annual column has gone 35-8 (.813) in picking teams to improve on the previous season's record. The average team has gotten 3½ games better after adjusting for the 17-game schedule.

And if we include our picks for teams that will decline, the back-to-back columns are a combined 69-17 (.802) in accuracy, while going 50-36 (.581) against the preseason over-under totals preserved on Pro-Football-Reference.com. So, recent history suggests four of the five teams listed in this year's column should get better. There's a fun mix of teams that just took a step back in 2025 and long-frustrating organizations that might exceed expectations in 2026.

Let's start with the headliners from last year's decline column who might be the most obvious pick of the bunch ... Note: Schedule strength is via ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI). Jump to: BAL | DET | KC | NYG | NYJ Kansas City Chiefs Record in 2025: 6-11 (1-9 in games decided by seven or fewer points) Point differential in 2025: plus-34 Projected strength of schedule: 14th easiest You could have suspected things would start here.

Twelve months ago, the Chiefs were coming off a 15-2 regular season and led my column on teams most likely to decline in 2025. [PERSON_NAME] squad had gone 10-0 in games decided by seven points or fewer in 2024, an NFL record. And though anyone who has read this column annually is already familiar with the idea that teams ...