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Red’s 2026 NFL Picks – NFC East

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Red’s 2026 NFL Picks –  NFC East

Red traditionally starts with the NFL East.  Don’t ask why – because he doesn’t know. 

Philadelphia –  Let’s start with the two-time reigning NFC East and 2024 NFL champs.  2025 finished on a disappointing note.  After a nice 8-2 start, the Eagles lost 3 straight and floundered to a 11-6 finish not quite good enough to secure a first round bye.  That resulted in a Wild Card round close 23-19 loss to the 49ers.  Red notes that a surprising 22 games in NFL history have ended with that somewhat odd score.  Jalen Hurts (known to some as the most polarizing QB in the NFL) is still in his prime.  Can the experience of the venerable Red Rifle  aka Andy Dalton help Hurts overcome some of the errors of his ways?  Hurts has Saquon Barkley hoping to defy old man time for at least one more season.  He is effectively entering his 8th season have missed most of 2020 with only 19 carries. A few RBs continue to excel after 7 seasons but they are the exception to the rule.  As such, the Eagles had best not count on another 300 plus touches from Barkley in 2026.  And maybe that will not be necessary. The receiving corps gets a welcome addition in first round pick Makai Lemon and possibly free agent Marquise Brown.  Maybe Tank Bigsby lives up to his name to take some heat off of Saquon in short yardage situations.  What does not seem questionable is the Eagles defense.  Red expects the No Phly Zone to be in rare form in 2026.  Questions about a 5th offensive coordinator in 5 seasons are certainly reasonable, but HC SirIanni has shown that he knows how to win with a 59-26 record over 5 seasons – second in winning percentage only John Madden and Vince Lombardi.  Not bad company for a team that actually plays in the city in its name.  Eagles go 12-5 and win the East rather easily. 

Washington  –  The former OTNAs if you have to ask you have not been paying attention) who play in Maryland are a sexy pick to challenge for a playoff spot in 2026 after a disappointing 5-12 record last season.  Let’s face it – an 8 game losing streak is tough to overcome.  And on top of that, the Commandos were the first NFL team ever to lose four consecutive games by 21 or more points.  But as all NFL fans know, every year one formerly pathetic excuse for a professional football team rises from the dustbin and makes the playoffs.  Red is not calling the Commandos his “2026 NFL Team of Destiny” just yet, but he thinks that the DC faithful will not be dissatisfied in December.  Jayden Daniels and Terry McLaurin are back. New additions include  Laremy Tunsil who may have something left in the tank, Deebo Samuel a reliable option at WR and Von Miller and Will Harris on defense. Dan Quinn is an experienced and successful Head Coach and while memories are short, this team did go 12-5 in 2024.  Commanders will finish 10-7 with an outside shot at a Wild Card spot.

New York –  The New York Football Giants who play in New Jersey. Most predict the Giants to be around 7-10 in 2026.  Red certainly has no love lost for Trump bootlicker Jaxson Dart, but he is a competent NFL QB with a good crop of receivers.  Red does like Tyrone Tracy, Cam Skattebo and if they stay healthy the Giants’ rushing attack will take a lot of pressure off of Dart. Abdul Carter looks like a superstar in the offing at outside LB for a defense that could set a new team sack record. If they knock off the Cowboys in Week 1, they have 3 very winnable games in their next 6 when facing, the Titans, Cardinals and Saints.  A 4-3 record going into their bye week sets them up nicely.  It gets much tougher after that and some upsets will be needed to bring home an 8-9 record and win the tie-breaker with Dallas for 3rd spot in the East.  Giants 8-9.

Dallas –  The Cowboys (who play in Arlington) are clearly in decline.  Since back to back to back 12-5 seasons, the team has won only 7 games the past two seasons and of course, missed the playoffs.  Since 1996, the Cowboys have won a grand total of 4 playoff games.  If you are not a math whiz that is one playoff win on average every 7.5 seasons.  So first, what do the Cowboys have going for them this season.  They still have the best kicker in the league in Brandon Aubrey and added George Pickens at wide receiver.  The defense was not technically the worst in the NFL in 2025 but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  Only the Jets gave up more points and only the Bengals and Commandos gave up more yards per game. The run defense was bad, but the passing defense was truly atrocious giving up more yards per game than any other team. (NOTE:  If defenses could win Deadman of the Year – the Cowboys would have swept the field.  Maybe Red needs to rethink his award strategy!) Yes, the defense will not be as truly terrible as it was in 2025, but . . .   Anyhow, Red will continue here with his traditional beef.  A team that has not really sniffed a chance at a Conference Championship appearance, much less a Superb Owl in 30 years gets 9 national TV appearances yet again.  That includes the big time Week 1 Sunday night game, one more Sunday night game against Green Bay in October followed by a Monday night showdown with the Eagles, the mandatory Thursday night game, another Monday nightery  in December and 4 late afternoon Sunday games including the prime Thanksgiving spot.  Only one of the late pm games is time zone related when they play the Rams in late December.  Cowboy haters will have their hands full.  Cowboys go 8-9 and round out the bottom of the NFC East.

Red’s NFL 2024 Conference Championships Pick

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Red has a special guest this week as he welcomes the BIG DOG to the blog for his Conference Championship pick. What say ye, Dog?

Thank you, Red,

First, some interesting items:

Saint Tom- 29 years as head coach.   12 conference title appearances.  5 wins.   Trounced a couple of times but also had some bad luck there and in the Super Bowl.   

Belicheat 29/13/9.   

Reid 25/12/5.   

Walsh 10/4/3.  Add seifert and you get 18/9/5 (the 97 appearance was a Mauricci).

Gibbs 12/5/4.   Bonus points for doing it w 4 different QBs.  (Not counting round two under Danny boy.)   Missed playoffs twice w 10-6 record and good teams back before it turned into a 12 or 14 team thing 

Andy is in some rarified air.   

RED ADDS:

Chuck Noll enters the room (22/7/4)

Noll: Hey Tom, how’s it going.

Landry:  Who let this SOB in?

And now back to the BIG DOG.

On the Texans and the refs-  Mahomes was on the wrong end of Brady calls in 2018 and 2020.   Now he’s on the fun end of Mahomes calls.   I don’t agree with either penalty.  But neither is a surprise.   I’m more focused on nine sacks (I counted nine, stats might say eight) given up, missed kicks and generally not turning yards into points.   Which tends to be made harder when you give up sacks and miss kicks.   At least they won the bill O’Brien invitational again- 6-2 in the wild card game, all at home, all in the early time slot on Saturday.   Followed by 0-6 in the divisional round with another loss at the site of Bill O’s Waterloo.    This one was competitive, like the first one at Baltimore.   Bookending four beat downs.   

Speaking of sacks- they’ve made a semi comeback in the playoffs.   As a kid of the 80s I’m a turnover and sacks junkie.  Nothing more fun than watching QBs get put on their ass.   Hope it continues this weekend.   

This weekend we get a couple of interesting stars.   We have the five year rule in play- since the merger a coach /QB combo who doesn’t win the Super Bowl in their first five years as coach /primary starter never does.  It works pre-merger too if you factor out Stram/Dawson or count an AFL title.    Harbaugh/Flacco and Dungy/Manning did it in five.    McDermott/Allen are in year seven.  So are Harbaugh/Jackson but they’ll now get to 8.    The sweet spot seems to be 3 or 4 years.    

The Chiefs have been the Bills’ roadblock.    They’ve won at home and on the road.   With the better team and the lesser team.   Neither team looked great last week.  Buffalo was content to turtle up and let Baltimore find a way to hand them the game.   Minus 2012 that has been a Harbaugh/Ravens specialty.   And it worked.   It won’t tomorrow.  

The Chiefs are close to a threepeat as we’ve seen since the 49ers in 1990 – home game, won the first matchup, opponent with backup QB.   The Giants needed a fake punt and a late fumble to win 15-13 and deprive us of a Steve Young Super Bowl start (Montana suffered the two year injury late).  Here, the Chiefs are at home and favored, where I expected the Bills to be -2 or so.    The teams that overcome their playoff roadblock going back to the 70s tend to be at home.  Buffalo isn’t.   Andy and Mahomes are 4-2 in this game.   Two losses (and one win) in overtime.   Buffalo needs to beat them in this game before I believe they actually can.  The BIG DOG will take Kansas City.

RED pops in again:

Red is taking the BIlls -getting the ball first in OT and winning the game.   Buffalo 31 KC 24.

Take it away DOG!

On the other side the Commanders matter for the first time in 30 plus years.   The first thing I think of with these teams is the body bag game.  And how Washinton went back to Philly two months later and killed them and ended the Buddy Ryan era.   

Lots of talk about rookie QBs going 0-5 in conference title games.   Which makes me wonder why guys who do this for a living don’t remember Dieter Brock as a 34 year old rookie in 1985.   

All six of them (counting Brock) lost and the only two not to get trounced were Flacco Joe (threw big pick six when he had a chance to lead game winning TD drive ) and Shaun King (execrable performance but only lost 11-6 behind elite Tampa defense, and he might’ve won 6-5 if dungy had turtled up).  Daniels could be the first to win.  Philly should win this game pounding the ball.  Paradoxically they do better if Hurts has less passing yardage in the playoffs.    The Commanders seem to have something going.  Not a team of destiny- I don’t buy that crap or that teams play better with “something to play for” like the LA wildfires.   They are rolling offensively, can get pressure on Hurts, and can win a shootout even if Barkley breaks one off.   This is kind of a sentimental pick because of how much I enjoyed the Gibbs teams.   Hurts is also injured- if his mobility is limited it’ll be a factor.   The stats say Philly should win by two scores.   The spectre of injury is there for Daniels – it sunk the Niners when Purdy was a rookie.  But I think Daniels has another big day and makes a lifetime of enemies in Philly.  

Red one last time. Red thinks Barkley and the Eagles defense carry the day. Philadephia 29 Washington 19.

Red’s 202(4) NFL Conference Semi-Final Picks

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For those of you paying attention and thinking about throwing some hard earned money at the misnamed “gaming” industry this weekend, you might note that Red was 6 for 6 straight up last week.

For those of you playing the line, Red was 5-0-1, with only the Commanders/Buccaneers matchup being a push. Red doesn’t typically pick base on the odds, but you might just want to think about that.

So on to the misnamed “Divisional Round” – a round in which two teams who were not division champions could face each other. Red will go to the mat in fighting to call this weekend the Conference Semi-Finals – only because that is exactly what these games are. On to the picks:

Texans over Chiefs. Call Red crazy – he doesn’t mind because he probably is for making this pick. Let’s look back at the Texans’ painful playoff history against the Chiefs.

In the 2015 playoffs the Chiefs walloped the 9-7 Texans at NRG 30 to ZIP. This game was pretty much over after Knile Davis took the opening kickoff 106 yards for a score. Ugh. Red had almost forgotten that long Saturday afternoon.

What Red clearly remembers is the beacon of hope that shone in the first 18 minutes of the Texans/Chiefs game on Jan. 12, 2020. The football world was shocked when the Texans went up 24-0 on the Chiefs. Normality was restored by halftime with the Chiefs leading 28-24 in route to a 51-31 rout. It would take several years for the Texans to shake off that ass whomping.

So why should this year be any different? The Chiefs are not the same juggernaut they have been for the past many years. The running game is suspect. Mahomes has to carry the team – which would be a dream come true for most. CJ Stroud seems to have shaken off his sophomore slump and if Joe Mixon can bruise and cruise for over 150 yards and a brace of TDS, the Texans have a chance. But more critically, Red thinks the Chiefs have run out of rabbits and maybe even the hat to pull them out of. A team only gets some many miraculous finishes in one season. And the Texans showed real signs of life last week against a very good Chargers team. It’s a close call. Houston 27 KC 24.

Lions over Commanders. The Lions are the best team in the NFC by a long shot. Red thinks that only the Rams might have a chance against them if they make it through a frigid Sunday afternoon in Philly. Goff is playing at his best (ask the Vikings), Gibbs is bruising defenses and the Lions defense is good enough to hold down the fort. The Commanders have had a good season (meaning any season the Cowboys don’t win the NFC East) and certainly should be thinking they have a chance. But Red isn’t saying that. Take the Lions forget about the spread. Detroit 45 Washington 17.

Eagles over Rams. People are raving about how the Rams played down the stretch. But tell Red this, other than beating the Bills at home in a wild 44-42 game that could have gone either way – who did the Rams beat before waxing the overrated Vikings in the Wildcard round? The Patriots, Saints, Jets, 49ers, Cardinals – no one of consequence. Red knows you can probably say the same thing about the Eagles. And while Red doesn’t normally place much meaning in a regular season matchup, the Eagles did dispatch the Rams with some ease back in November. Only a garbage time touchdown by the Rams kept that game from looking like more of a rout. The Rams had no answer for Mr. Barkley who had 255 yards on 26 carries. Red will let you do the math. If Hurts has just an average game, with the best back in the game right now controlling the ball, Red just doesn’t see the Rams as being able to keep up. It may be close for a while, but the Eagles close out strong. Philadelphia 31 Los Angeles 20.

Bills over Ravens. Red hates picking this one. These are two teams who both deserve a shot at the Conference title. The Bills have been pretty consistent all year with but a few bumps in the road (maybe the loss to the Texans doesn’t look so bad and losing to the Ravens and Rams is no mark of disgrace). The Ravens started the season 0-2, then corrected course for a while beating the Bills 35-10, then it was up and down but come mid-December they have been really unchallenged and playing their best football. This one all comes down to who has the better game Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. The difference might be a single sack, an interception or a turnover on downs. This one is down to the wire as it should be. And is too much to ask for a blizzard game? Buffalo 31 Baltimore 28.