Josh Allen just finished as the second-highest ranked player on the NFL’s Top 100 list for 2026, trailing only Myles Garrett and sitting ahead of every other offensive player in the league. That alone tells you where the conversation around this team should start. But this year’s Bills are also walking into Week 1 with a new head coach, a new defensive identity, and a roster that looks meaningfully different than the one that has been bounced from the playoffs six straight times. With training camp
in the rearview and Houston up first, here are my five bold predictions for the 2026 Buffalo Bills.
Josh Allen wins his second NFL MVP
Not so bold, right?
The league already told us where it stands on Allen entering this season. He’s the No. 2 overall player on the NFL Top 100, the highest-ranked offensive player in the sport, and Sports Illustrated’s most recent quarterback comparison had him at the top of the position as well, ahead of Patrick Mahomes. Dalton Kincaid even said out loud what a lot of people around the league seem to think — that Allen should have been No. 1.
He’s also getting what might become the best supporting cast of his career. DJ Moore arrives via trade to reunite with new head coach Joe Brady, who was Moore’s offensive coordinator in Carolina back in 2020 and 2021 — the two best statistical seasons of Moore’s career. Allen himself has said the fit already feels seamless. Pair that with a difficult schedule that will force Buffalo to play its best football just to stay in the AFC East and wild-card race, and you have every ingredient for an MVP case: the talent, the weapons, the opportunity, and the motivation.
Maxwell Hairston finishes with five or more interceptions
Hairston’s rookie season was more about flashes than volume, and for a fair reason — a training camp knee injury cost him the first six weeks, and an ankle issue ended his year before the playoffs even started. He still finished with two interceptions and five pass breakups in just 11 games and three starts, good enough to tie for third among all rookie defenders in picks and to land him on both ESPN’s and The Athletic’s All-Rookie teams.
The tape backs up the ceiling. In just his second career game, Hairston picked off Patrick Mahomes and led every Bills defender in PFF grade that day at 91.1, the highest mark on the field. His 4.28 40-yard dash gives him the recovery speed to play aggressive, ball-hawking coverage rather than just survive downfield. Now entering year two as an expected full-time starter across from Christian Benford, and hopefully healthy heading into the season, Hairston should get the reps and consistency his rookie year never allowed. I think he takes that leap into being one of the better young corners in football. My friend Raphael Sattamini, from the “SattaMiniCast”, has him leading the league in INTs!
Terrel Bernard returns to All-Pro-caliber form
Bernard and Hairston share the same theme: talent that hasn’t been able to stay on the field. Bernard’s ceiling isn’t in question — his 143 tackles in 2023 ranked 12th in the entire NFL, and he added 6.5 sacks and three interceptions that year. Even in a lesser 2024 campaign as a team captain, he still posted 104 tackles. But 2025 was a step back across the board, with just 65 tackles, zero sacks, and one interception in 12 games as injuries piled up.
Here’s why I think that changes. Buffalo’s move to Jim Leonhard’s 3-4 scheme, with bigger bodies up front designed to occupy blockers, should keep Bernard cleaner than he’s ever been in the NFL. That’s not a new concept for him — he played inside linebacker in a 3-4 under Dave Aranda at Baylor, and Aranda and Leonhard worked together at Wisconsin, sharing a defensive philosophy built around disguised pressure. With the extra defensive linemen and Dorian Williams taking on more of the load absorbing bigger offensive linemen in the new base defense, Bernard gets to play in space again, doing what he does best: making plays sideline to sideline instead of constantly shedding blocks from guards and centers. I think he’s not just healthy this year — I think he’s back to being one of the most disruptive off-ball linebackers in the league, earning a Pro Bowl nod and being in the All-Pro conversation.
The Bills finish top three in the NFL in sacks
Jim Leonhard isn’t walking into Buffalo without a résumé. He spent the last two seasons on Vance Joseph’s staff in Denver, where the Broncos set a franchise sack record in 2024 and led the entire NFL in sacks again in 2025. Before that, at Wisconsin, Leonhard ran defenses that blitzed on over half of all dropbacks across six seasons, touching nearly 72% in 2020. Aggressive is the baseline, not the exception, for this coordinator.
He’s also inheriting more juice than Buffalo’s pass rush has had in years. Bradley Chubb signed a three-year, $43.5 million deal after an 8.5-sack season in Miami and slots in as a starter. T.J. Parker, Buffalo’s second-round pick out of Clemson, adds another true edge threat. Inside, Deone Walker and Ed Oliver give Leonhard real interior push to pair with an outside rotation that also includes Greg Rousseau and Michael Hoecht. After finishing 27th in pass-rush win rate a year ago, this group has the pieces and the coordinator to flip that number completely. I expect it to show up immediately in Week 1 against Houston, and I expect it to hold up over 17 games — this defense finishes top three in the league in sacks.
The Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl
Let’s be fair about what actually happened over the last six years. Sean McDermott built a genuinely winning culture in Buffalo, and that part of his legacy is real. But it’s also fair to point out that his defenses collapsed at the worst possible moments, over and over. Six straight playoff losses since 2020 for a combined 199 points allowed — the most in the NFL over that stretch. Four blown fourth-quarter leads in five of those eliminations. Zero sacks and one takeaway in the loss to Denver that got him fired. That’s not all bad luck or bad calls. That’s a pattern.
Speaking of bad calls, though — they were real too. The fourth-and-1 spot in the 2025 AFC Championship Game, with Buffalo up 22-21 and 13 minutes left, went against Allen on a quarterback sneak that plenty of people, including cameras from multiple angles, thought he got. Kansas City scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive and won by three. That’s not the only time a Bills season has ended on a coin flip of a spot or a measurement.
Sure, Josh Allen had plays he wanted back, which quarterback, EVER, doesn’t? However, his playoff résumé already speaks for itself: a 101.5 passer rating, 3,915 yards, 29 touchdowns, and only six interceptions across 15 career playoff games. He has nine rushing touchdowns in the postseason, second all-time behind only Jalen Hurts. He’s made the playoffs every year of his career except his rookie season, and he’s one win away from tying Tom Brady’s record of eight straight seasons with at least one playoff victory. Allen has done more than enough to get this team to a Super Bowl. What he hasn’t had is a defense that matches his level in December and January, or the racing luck to go with it.
That’s what’s different now. Buffalo kept the locker room culture and the professionalism that McDermott built, while removing the parts that kept costing them in January. Joe Brady gives the offense continuity instead of a teardown. Leonhard gives the defense an identity that should hold up under pressure instead of folding. Add a fairer bounce or two along the way, and I think this team finally has everything around Allen that it’s been missing. Get the Bills to the Super Bowl, and I don’t think they’ll let it slip away this time.
Those are my five bold predictions for 2026, all positive ones because I won’t be the one bringing on negativity to start the season. Let me know which ones you’re buying and which ones you think are too far off — and drop your own in the comments. Oh, and don’t miss the latest episode of Leading The Charge!
