5 Oddly Specific NFL Predictions for 2026

Anyone can predict who is going to win the AFC East (the Patriots) or even the Super Bowl (the Chiefs), but if you want to look really stupid, then you have to add some impossible-to-predict statistics into your predictions.

Here goes nothing.

Drake Maye Throws 37 Touchdowns

Taking a very young Patriots team to the Super Bowl was quite the feat, but one could argue that Maye’s most impressive feat was throwing 15 touchdown passes while Alex Van Pelt was his offensive coordinator.

It’s truly amazing that a guy who started 11 games at QB in a 9-year career, and lost eight of them, is considered an offensive guru. But here we are.

Van Pelt has managed to survive six seasons as an NFL coordinator; quarterbacks under his stewardship have thrown 40 touchdowns with 54 interceptions! If you remove Maye’s numbers from the equation, QBs have gone 39 and 44 in Van Pelt offenses!

Back to Maye, not only did he survive a baptism by fire, working with Van Pelt and Ben McAdoo (remember him?), he excelled under the serene competency Josh McDaniels provided last year.

Maye jumped from 15 touchdowns as a rookie to 31 in his sophomore season. With some guy called A.J. Brown arriving in Foxboro, 37 might even be on the low side, but he probably won’t get to 62.

Jeremiyah Love Only Plays 9 Games

I still drafted him in fantasy football though; have you seen that guy run? Love is the most dynamic rookie running back since Saquon emerged from Penn State as a grown-ass man.

Love averaged 5.1 yards per touch during preseason, but he only touched the ball 14 times before he injured his ankle!

Jaxson Dart Gets Sacked 49 Times

Not only does Matt Nagy run a complex offensive scheme, Nagy’s offense relies on quick decision-making to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly. But it’s also totally different to the Erhardt-Perkins system Brian Daboll runs.

Any quarterback would take a while to make the jump from one to the other.

A sophomore quarterback who grew up playing in Lane Kiffin’s cheat code offense that plays quickly to fatigue defenses is going to take longer than most to learn Nagy’s offense. While Dart is adapting, to the Giants' offensive line is going to be fighting for their lives, and his.

The 23-year-old Trump cheerleader hit the deck 35 times as a rookie, generating an impressive (in all the wrong ways) 9.36% sack rate! Even if he has used his offseason to sharpen his decision-making and figure out how to get through his progressions quickly, he’s going to take a beating this year.

Even Francis Mauigoa can’t save him now!

Kenneth Walker runs for 1,010 yard.s

That would be 17 fewer yards than he ran for in 2025, but the 2026 Chiefs offensive line is not going to be as dominant as the 2025 Seahawks unit was.

If Justin Fields has to play a few games while Patrick Mahomes recovers from his knee surgery, then Walker will have to share the carries at the start of the season.

Fans in Kansas City haven’t had a 1,000-yard rusher to cheer for since Kareem Hunt racked up a whopping 1,327 yards as a rookie. That was all the way back in 2017!

The Rams Make 24 Interceptions

That’s only one more than they managed in 2023, but it’s 18 more than they managed last season! That’s why McDuffie and Watson (who aren’t an accountancy firm, even if they sound like one) now.

Everyone is expecting Garrett, Donald and Young to rack up the sacks, but the unintentional consequence of generating a dominant pass rush is forcing quarterbacks to panic and make hurried decisions or simply throw the ball before a receiver is ready for it.