NFL teams that can win Super Bowl, top QB-coach combos for 2026 and 49ers just left for Australia

Hello football friends, and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

The NFL season doesn't kick ff until next week, but for the San Francisco 49ers, it essentially started last night, because they have already gotten on a plane and hit the road for their Week 1 game against the Rams. The Niners took off at 11:45 p.m. PT last night and by the time you read this, there's a good chance they will STILL BE IN THE AIR. Their flight is scheduled to last for nearly 15 hours and they won't be landing in Melbourne until 7:31 a.m. AEST on Friday morning (For those of you who don't like doing time zone math, that means they'll be touching down in Australia at 5:31 p.m. ET on Thursday here). 

The 49ers will be playing a Rams team that has no interest in visiting Australia. The Rams aren't leaving until next week and they're going to be spending less than 24 HOURS in Melbourne. I broke down why the Rams' travel strategy could end up revolutionizing how NFL teams travel for international games and you can check that out here. 

In non-Australia news, we have a big newsletter today, so let's get to it.  

As always, here's your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. Let's get to the rundown. 

1. Ranking all 32 teams by their chances of winning the Super Bowl

During the regular season, Pete Prisco handles the Power Rankings around here, but since Pete won't start pumping out his rankings until next week, we had Carter Bahns step in to rank all 32 teams. However, there is a twist here: The teams are ranked in tiers based on their chances of winning the Super Bowl. 

Carter came up with six tiers and I'm going to reveal one team from each tier: 

• Super Bowl or bust: Rams. This one is self-explanatory. 
• Got close in '25, could break through in '26: Bills. The Bills shook up their coaching staff by firing Sean McDermott and elevating Joe Brady to head coach. While that will not inherently fix their occasional defensive lapses, it should keep Josh Allen and the offense firing on all cylinders and potentially deliver better game planning and execution.
• Legitimate championship aspirations: Chargers. The Chargers should be better now that their offensive line is not entirely decimated.
• Make the playoffs, then we'll talk: Cowboys. The team with the best chance of climbing up a tier is probably the Cowboys. The offense ranked second in yardage last year and seventh in scoring, and it should be just as potent this time around.
• Probably finishing below .500: Titans. Everything is in place to leap into the next echelon, but the wait-and-see approach is prudent after the way Robert Saleh's starting defense floundered in the preseason. The young offensive core is fun, and Saleh can coach a defense with the best of them, but can he put it all together? He did not during his last stint as a head coach.
• No. 1 pick contenders: Dolphins. This one is self-explanatory. 

If you want to see which tier your favorite team ended up in, you'll have to check out Carter's full ranking here. 

2. Top 10 QB-coach combos in the NFL

If you're an NFL team that has a good quarterback, that's usually enough to make you a playoff contender, but if you have a good quarterback and a good head coach, that can vault you into the status of Super Bowl contender. 

With that in mind, Garrett Podell went through and ranked the top QB-coach combos in the NFL right now (And before we get to his ranking, I should point out that he has one big rule here and that's that any QB with a new coach did NOT qualify for this list. For example, Josh Allen has a new head coach (Joe Brady), so that combo was not eligible for this ranking). 

Now that we have that out of the way, let's check out the three QB-coach combos at the bottom of Garrett's top 10: 

8.  Jalen Hurts-Nick Sirianni. It's tough to argue with the results of Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. He's one of just five NFL head coaches to make the playoffs in each of his first five seasons, and he is the only one to reach multiple super bowls in his first five seasons. The sustained success of the Hurts-Sirianni duo is why they're in the top 10, but a major uptick in results will be required to remain here this time next year.

9. Justin Herbert-Jim Harbaugh. No team had a more dire offensive line situation than the Chargers in 2025. The Chargers allowed 60 sacks (the most in team history) and the most quarterback hits in the NFL (138) while having 11 different starting offensive line combinations because of injuries, which was tied for the most in the NFL. Yet, Herbert, whose 24,820 yards passing rank as the second-most in a player's first six seasons in NFL history, and Harbaugh figured out a way to drag Los Angeles into the postseason before the offensive line disintegrated into the New England air come January.

10. Trevor Lawrence-Liam Coen. Lawrence initially struggled with picking up Coen's Shanahan/McVay tree offshoot scheme, but once it clicked, he put the league on notice. He led the entire NFL in total touchdowns with 24 across the final eight games of the regular season, a stretch in which Jacksonville went an unblemished 8-0 to finish 13-4 and win the AFC South.

If you want to see the seven QB-coaching combos that ranked above this trio, you'll have to check out Garrett's full ranking here. 

3. Top games that will define the 2026 NFL season

There are 272 games on the NFL regular-season schedule this year and I think we can all agree that some of those games are more important than others. So which ones will actually be important? Glad you asked. Bryan DeArdo went through the entire schedule and identified 10 games that could end up defining the 2026 season. 

Here are three games that made his list: 

• Week 3 (Sept. 27): Rams at Broncos. A prime-time showdown between the two teams that were a game away from playing in last year's Super Bowl. Teams will undoubtedly be watching to see how disruptive the duo of Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald are against the Broncos and Bo Nix, who has a new weapon at his disposal this year in veteran wideout Jaylen Waddle.
• Week 12 (Nov. 26): Chiefs at Bills (Thanksgiving). Like a well-crafted Thanksgiving feast, this showdown will have all the fixings. From a narrative standpoint, it's another chance for Allen and Mahomes -- two of the three best quarterbacks of this era -- to match wits. Like Troy Aikman-Steve Young in the 1990s and Peyton Manning-Tom Brady in the 2000s/2010s, Allen-Mahomes is the preeminent QB rivalry of the 2020s. That alone makes this one of the most defining games of the season. From a team standpoint, this game will surely have playoff implications. For the Bills, this game is a chance to reinforce their status as one of the AFC's best teams. For the Chiefs, it's a chance to show that they are still a team to be reckoned with following last year's 6-11 slog.
• Week 17 (Dec. 31): Ravens at Bengals. The league couldn't have picked a better game to show on New Year's Eve. It's a showdown between division rivals whose games against each other always seem to go down to the wire. This game will not only have high stakes, but it will also feature some of the NFL's best offensive players in Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Derrick Henry and Ja'Marr Chase. With that level of star power, Cincinnati's Paycor Stadium might shoot off more fireworks than Times Square.

If you want to see all 10 games on the list, we've got that here.

4. NFL preseason grades for all 32 teams

After the regular season kicks off, we'll be handing out weekly grades for every team, so to get us all warmed up for that, Tyler Sullivan decided to grade all 32 teams based on how well they played in the preseason.

Over the past month, some teams were good, some teams were bad, and then there was Falcons, who ended up being the only team that got on an F. On the flip side, the Rams were the only team that got an A.

Since we know the best grade and the worst grade, let's check out one team that got a B, one team that got a C and one team that got a D. 

• Broncos: B+. The No. 1 storyline for Denver coming into the summer was the status of Bo Nix, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury last postseason, which derailed its Super Bowl chances. He only played in two drives (Week 2 vs. Packers), but the former first-round pick seemed to pick up right where he left off.
• Bears: C. The big question for this team going into the regular season, however, sits along the offensive line at left tackle. Braxton Jones appears set to start on the blindside out of the gate, but he didn't exactly impress when he was on the field this preseason.
• Browns: D. Really, this comes down to the lackluster quarterback battle between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. Watson "won" the job, but he hardly looked the part of an NFL starter. To make matters worse, Watson even put Browns fans in the crosshairs after being booed in a preseason contest against Buffalo.

Sullivan put on his professor hat and graded ALL 32 teams, so be sure to check out all of his grades here. 

5. Why your favorite team will disappoint you this year

Only one NFL team will be walking away with the Lombardi Trophy this year, which means there will be 31 fan bases that will be disappointed at the end of the season. What I'm telling you right now is that you shouldn't get your hopes up this year, and if they are up, Jared Dubin and Jordan Dajani are here to ruin your day. 

Those two went through all 32 teams and came up with one reason why your favorite team will disappoint you during the 2026 season. 

Let's take a look at what they had to say about three different teams: 

• Eagles: The new offense. Everyone expects things to be better for Philly on offense after the Eagles replaced Kevin Patullo with Sean Mannion. And it could hardly be worse than it was for much of last year, when things got pretty ugly at times. But what if it just doesn't take as well as we think it could? Things might not improve as much as is hoped. 
• Patriots: Strength of schedule. If you were unaware, the Pats played the easiest strength of schedule since the turn of the millennium last year, which helped them reach the Super Bowl. This season, they have the sixth-hardest strength of schedule overall, and the toughest Weeks 1-4 strength of schedule entering a season in the last 40 YEARS. Yikes. 
• Ravens: Offensive line. The Baltimore Ravens have three new starters on the interior of their offensive line: John Simpson at left guard, Ethan Pocic or Jovaughn Gwyn at center and first-round pick Olaivavega Ioane at right guard. If this group can't stop pressure up the middle, Lamar Jackson is going to be scrambling for his life.

Dubin and Dajani went through all 32 teams and came up with a reason why each one might have a disappointing season. You can check out the full list of reasons here. 

6. Extra points: Falcons still haven't made a QB decision

It's been a busy few days around the NFL, and since it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything, I put together a quick roundup for you.

• Falcons QB battle still up in the air. The Falcons' season will be kicking off in just 10 days and they STILL don't know whether their starting QB is going to be Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix. Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham was asked about the situation on Wednesday and he said the decision is still up in the air. "We all talk about it. We all have been talking about it forever," Cunningham said. "Ultimately, when the coaches are ready, when the players are ready, we will make that decision." The Falcons are dragging this out as long as possible, but they'll have to make a decision by next week because someone is going to have to take the first-team reps in practice and once we see who that is, we'll finally know who's starting in Week 1. 
• Raiders name Kirk Cousins the starter for Week 1. CBS Sports insider Matt Zenitz reported on Aug. 29 that Cousins would be getting the starting job, and sure enough, that's exactly what happened. The Raiders made it official on Wednesday by naming Cousins the starter. If you're wondering what this might mean for Fernando Mendoza and when we might see him on the field for the first time, we've got a full breakdown of the situation here. 
• Justin Tucker just got an NFL workout. The Jets are currently looking for a kicker, so they invited multiple players in for a tryout on Wednesday, including Justin Tucker. The former eight-time All-Pro, who was suspended for 10 games last season after being accused of inappropriate conduct by multiple massage therapists, was invited to the workout along with Michael Badgley and Josh Karty. Tucker didn't play in 2025 and only had one workout last year, which came with the Saints. It will be interesting to see what the Jets do at kicker: They currently have Blake Grupe on their active roster and Jason Sanders on the practice squad, but they don't seem too content with either of those options.