Last summer, in an effort to be cute, I snuck a 13th team into my “12 teams that could realistically win the Super Bowl” post. That bonus team was … the Eagles. Thankfully, hedging my bets artfully has always been a strong suit. So was pretending that I thought the Eagles were really good all along. In reality, I thought they were much better than most people thought, which is a lot different than good enough to win the Super Bowl. Maybe, though, I am on to something with this 13th-team business. Listing almost half the teams in the NFL has a way of turning you into Nostradamus. (Well, most of the time.)
One extra club will make my list again this year out of convenience mostly, even though I think the field is far less open than it was a year ago. There are some very strong rosters right now, and I wonder whether they’ll all hover around the trade deadline and vacuum up the valuable players being shed by teams freefalling into position for Caleb Williams and Drake Maye. More than any other year, this could be a rich-get-richer kind of season, especially with the aggressive streaks exhibited by most of the general managers at the top of this list.
So, keep that in mind. Really, I feel like the list drops off after No. 5, then again after No. 9. The bonus team is there because I like the safety net. Unless, of course, it ends up reaching the Super Bowl again. If that’s the case, I knew it all along.
