Only five days remain before the 2026 NFL season kicks off with the Super Bowl LX champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the AFC champion New England Patriots in a Super Bowl rematch on Sept. 9. Hope is still ever present around the NFL with the league's 32 teams rested and ready to roll after cutting their rosters down to 53 players. Every franchise's coaching staff is still painting the picture to their players that they can make a run to the playoffs.
That is somewhat understandable with nearly the entire league healthy and refreshed. However, this 2026 NFL season preview is not the locale to be an optimist. That is because the objective here is to accurately project which team will be the last-place finisher in all eight of the NFL's divisions.
Without further ado, let's enjoy some haterade and a dive into the league's projected last-place teams for 2026. 2025 season finish: 7-10 (third place) The Miami Dolphins are tanking despite new head coach Jeff Hafley's comments stating otherwise. Miami possesses an NFL-record dead salary cap hit of $181.6 million in 2026 for the releases of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, wide receiver Tyreek Hill and edge rusher Bradley Chubb, plus the trades of wide receiver Jaylen Waddle and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. All of the free agents they signed this offseason were given one-year deals with the exception of quarterback Malik Willis and his three-year, $67.5 million deal with $45 million guaranteed at signing.
It's clear the Dolphins are clearing the deck to take big swings in the 2027 offseason. Of their league-high 13 players drafted, many of them are in line to start as rookies: first-round guard Kadyn Proctor, first-round cornerback Chris Johnson, second-round linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, third-round rookie Caleb Douglas and fifth-round safety Michael Taaffe. Longtime Dallas Cowboys rotational wide receiver Jalen Tolbert has the most career receiving yards in the NFL on the current Dolphins roster with 1,093.
Miami is playing for 2027, and they'll finish last in the AFC East. The corpse of Deshaun Watson is the Cleveland Browns' Week 1 starter. Watson, a quarterback who blew out his Achilles in 2023 and once again while rehabbing the original injury in 2024, has only played 19 games in four seasons since the Browns traded three first-round picks to the Houston Texans to acquire his services.
Watson has thrown for 300-plus yards in exactly none of those 19 games played, and among the 42 quarterbacks who have thrown 550 or more passes from the years of 2022 and 2024, when Watson has played for Cleveland, Watson's 6.0 yards per attempt ranked 41st in the league at 6.0. That's before even getting into his off-field legal issues since arriving in Cleveland. If/when he gets benched, Shedeur Sanders would take his place.
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