2026 NFL Season Preview | Overreaction Monday with Rich

The season preview edition of Overreaction Monday opened with a wardrobe crisis. Rich and Chris Brockman turned up in shirts close enough in shade that Rich felt obligated to address it before a single take was made, "so people aren't wondering, is it a season preview, or is it just two bald guys in the same shirt?"

Twelve items were up for bids. Here is how they landed.

Brockman opened with a structural bet: for the first time since 1990, the league will not produce four new playoff teams. Rich went through the returners out loud and found the math tough to argue with. Broncos, Chargers, Bills, Jaguars, Texans, Seahawks, Rams, Eagles, Bears, and a Patriots team he keeps staring at. "I look at that 14 and 3 and it's just like, really?" Top five defense, an MVP candidate in Drake Maye, a coach of the year. To Rich, only the 49ers and Panthers were "jumping at the screen" as obvious openings. So he took it. "I'm going to zag with you while everyone else is zigging."

Next came Mendoza Mania. Kirk Cousins is the Week 1 starter in Las Vegas, but Brockman says Fernando Mendoza leads the Raiders in passing and finishes as an offensive rookie of the year finalist. Rich agreed, with a caveat about which half of the claim is harder. The finalist part he considers close to a formality if Mendoza plays, pointing to Tyler Shough coming in midway through last season and nearly taking the award. The passing yards are the catch, because Cousins might get half a season. What made Rich comfortable was the schedule. After a winnable opener against Miami comes a stretch of at the Chargers, at New Orleans, home for Kansas City, at New England, home for Buffalo, home for the Rams. "Jeez Louise. So he's going to get in there." On the player himself Rich was unequivocal: "Neck up, I think he's going to be good."

The first rejection came over quarterback rankings. Brockman claims the top five looks completely different by season's end. Rich, who had Josh Allen first, Patrick Mahomes second, then Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford and Lamar Jackson after Jeremy Fowler's ESPN.com series, was not moved. Allen is having an outstanding season. Mahomes is going to "show everybody he's still Patrick freaking Mahomes." Burrow he is all in on, and not out of desperation. "It's now or never because the guy's constantly hurt. He's feeling healthy and he sees Chase healthy." Jackson gets a new offensive coordinator in Declan Doyle out of the Ben Johnson world. As for the last one, "Stafford's going to be freaking Stafford." Rich set the bar at three of five changing, called it an overreaction, and put a pin in it for Week 8.

Item four went worse for Brockman. If Dallas wins Super Bowl 61, he argues, Dak Prescott becomes the best Cowboys quarterback of all time. Rich did not entertain it. Troy Aikman won three. Roger Staubach, as Rich put it, "has a bust in the Hall of Fame." Rich did concede one genuinely strange fact, that no Cowboys quarterback has ever won a regular season MVP, and allowed that a Prescott MVP plus a title would make him the first Dallas quarterback to pull that off. On the all time claim itself he would not budge. "Come on now." Brockman kept swinging about numbers these guys could only dream of. Rich called it an overreach and moved on.

Baltimore got the fifth item, and here Rich argued the affirmative better than Brockman did. Jesse Minter, Brockman says, will have Ravens fans wishing they had hired him sooner. Rich piled on reasons. Minter tightens up a defense that was a bigger problem last season than the offense ever was. Derrick Henry keeps proving 30 is just a number. Zay Flowers is coming off a thousand-yard season and has now been paid. Minter was in Baltimore before, so he already understands what the franchise is asking for. Not an overreaction. Brockman pushed to a one seed and got waved off. "That would be a tall order, man."

Fourteen teams have never won a Super Bowl, and Brockman says one of them at least makes it this year. Rich walked the pool and landed on the AFC as the only sensible source, running through the Bills, Chargers, Jaguars and Bengals, plus a Texans franchise that has never even made one. Not an overreaction.

Houston came back around after the break, with Brockman claiming the Texans will regret not extending C.J. Stroud before he leads them to the AFC one seed. Rich swatted it. Stroud has not played at that level in a regular season since his rookie year, though Rich credits him with a real knack for playoff football, having won a playoff game in each of his first three years. The regret framing is what broke it. If Stroud delivers a one seed, Houston pays him and considers the bill worth it. Brockman floated 12 to 15 million more per year. Rich went bigger: "If he's the one seed and let's say they win the Super Bowl, if I'm him, 65 per year, please." He also thinks Jacksonville wins that division, which set up the running joke that Houston is opening wild card weekend on Saturday either way.

Running backs produced the sharpest disagreement. Brockman says multiple backs threaten 2,000 rushing yards, starting with Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson. Rich went the other way, and then went further. "I don't think we're going to have multiple ones. I don't think we're going to have one of them." His reasoning was usage: Gibbs and Robinson are too involved in the passing game, and James Cook gets vultured by his own quarterback. Saquon Barkley was the last back to genuinely threaten it. Then Rich left himself one exception. "I think Jonathan Taylor is going to do it."

Baker Mayfield was next, and Rich split the item cleanly in half. Tampa Bay winning the NFC South, he will take. Mayfield turning that into a 60 million dollar per year quarterback, he will not. Rich sketched what a great year actually looks like there, 12 and 5, an MVP candidate, an NFC championship game, "betting on himself and just saying I'm pissed, and now what?" He would love it for him. He just does not see the number, not from Tampa and not from the teams Brockman floated.

Detroit was the easiest yes of the night. Brockman says Jared Goff deserves more respect as an elite quarterback and the Lions field the number one offense. Rich was in immediately, noting he was the only one on the set picking Detroit to win the division, and that it took a year to get the post Ben Johnson plan right. With Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta, his question was simply why they would not have the number one offense. The health caveat is Aidan Hutchinson and the rest of that defense staying off IR. His actual complaint was about attention. "Detroit needs a better PR team."

The Aaron Rodgers item turned into a full production. Brockman says if the Steelers win the AFC North and a playoff game, Rodgers reconsiders 2027 despite calling this his last year. Rich did not just agree, he storyboarded it. Pittsburgh gets to 6 and 2 heading into the bye, survives a six week stretch of at Cincinnati, at Philadelphia, home for Denver, home for Houston, at Jacksonville and home for Baltimore that "could age anybody whether you're in your 20s or end of the season," and finishes 11 and 6 with Week 18 deciding the division. Coming out of the bye, Rodgers against Burrow on Sunday Night Football, playing well and feeling healthy, Mike Tomlin sits him down. "Are you really done after this year? Because you look great." Rich's verdict on his own scenario: "That is definitely happening." They agreed to ask Cam Heyward about it on Tuesdays, then immediately agreed not to build a graphic around it, because the rest should stay organic.

The finale was the one Rich had been waiting for. Brockman declared the Super Bowl champion will not come from the AFC or NFC West, handing Rich the other six divisions. Rich took it, while making clear he thinks Brockman is wrong, then spent the next several minutes making the case against himself. The Rams have the defending MVP and the defending defensive player of the year, two separate people for the first time in league history. They have a three time defensive player of the year returning from a two year hiatus on fresh legs. They have Davante Adams, two really good running backs, a catch machine, two corners they did not have last year including Trent McDuffie, "and the biscuit known as Sean McVay dialing it up." Rich's conclusion was blunt: "I do believe the Rams are making the Super Bowl."

His hedge was the calendar. Los Angeles plays a Thursday that is really a Friday, a Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a Sunday night, a Monday night, possibly a Saturday at Tampa. "They're going to wind up playing on every day of the week this year except Tuesday. Any given one of those days, it's a problem. You show up and it's just not one of your days."

Which is the whole point of the season, and the whole point of the segment. The one promise the two of them made for the rest of the year had nothing to do with football. "We are not going to do this show again the rest of this year without calling each other saying, you wearing that shirt?"