Excitement Builds for the 2026 NFL Season & Super Bowl
As 2026 continues, NFL fans eagerly await kickoff and the pursuit of the Lombardi Trophy. How does this season look to shape up from a preseason perspective?
Video Transcript
Well, as we ramp up for the 2026 NFL season, it was great to see football on the tube this past Thursday when you got a chance to watch the Hall of Fame game.
You get a chance to go out there and watch football again.
I know, again, it's not real football, but anytime football is back on your tube, you know you're right around the corner.
The thing that I love about the Hall of Fame week is this.
You celebrate the past and you put those men into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
And then once the game and once the ceremonies are over, we start prepping up for another edition, another chapter in what is America's pastime now.
That is pro football.
College football as well.
That will start up in three weeks with week zero when we're talking TCU and UNC, but it's great.
I love the game of football.
I have my entire life.
It's a game that teaches you many things.
It's a game that's the greatest reality television show of all time.
This is why fans are transfixed each and every single week.
It's the greatest reality show of all time.
You don't know what to expect.
The 2026 season, hey, everyone's looking at the Los Angeles Rams as a team that is there and in the bullseye for them to go out and win and beat.
I think they have the best roster in all of pro football.
But how many times have we seen it's about the collective, not about the stars?
Go and look at what New England did for those 20 years.
You couldn't name a Hall of Fame offensive football player that Tom Brady played with outside of Rob Gronkowski that was a skilled player.
Not one.
Not one first-round draft choice Tom Brady played with for 20 years.
Think about that.
No first-round draft choices.
The Edelman's, the Amendola's, the Welker's.
Even Gronk was a second-round draft choice.
You may have the greatest roster.
And I've always compared people and tried to explain.
Look at what Indianapolis had compared to the Brady era.
They had Marvin Harrison.
They had Reggie Wayne.
They had Marshall Faulk.
They had Edgerrin James.
They had Peyton Manning.
They had the collective stars.
But the Patriots had the collective team on both sides of the football.
Just because you have the most talent doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be the champion holding a Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year.
That's what makes pro football so great.
You never know.
And the league is set up this way.
There's always going to be surprises like we saw with Chicago a year ago.
Or we saw with what Jacksonville did, rising from the ashes with Liam Cohn taking over and putting Trevor Lawrence on a path that looks like now his career is heading in an upward swing.
We'll see.
That's what the league is.
Pro football is the greatest anticipation sport of all time because we're anticipating what our favorite teams are going to do this coming year.
The game of football has taught me a lot.
And the game of football is now the number one sport in America for a reason.
Fans can't get enough of it.
This is why they're talking expanding to 20 games.
This is why they're now most likely going to play an 18th game.
Why they're going to go overseas.
Look at the NFL and how it has grown because of its fans.
The only thing that I would say that the NFL always has to be concerned about, let's not forget the people that make this sport great.
And that is the fans.
These crazy price tags that we have now that fans have to spend to go to football games are being priced out of their own buildings and out of their own passion to be able to go to these games.
People from Coca-Cola told me a story about two years ago that said that 96% of all NFL fans have actually never been to a football game.
Tells you how important television is.
Tells you how important the presentation of the sport is and how the league is presented to its fan base.
As long as the NFL never loses that, it will always be America's pastime.
We look forward to each and every single Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night now compared to what we used to back in the day when it was Sunday and Monday night football.
It's truly going to be a great year.
Do I have a favorite that I think will win the Super Bowl?
I really don't.
I have no idea what team is going to be holding that Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year.
You got your favorites.
Obviously, we said the Rams.
Kansas City, will they end up coming back?
I love that Charger team.
Will Kyle Shanahan ever, like, win a big game?
What will Josh Allen do in Buffalo?
Lamar Jackson, what's the storyline there with him?
As great a football player as he is, is that guy going to go and do something that needs to be done to make his legacy in the postseason?
Same with Josh Allen.
The job that Sean Payton's done in Denver, that's going to be a storyline.
Bo Nix, who was on, like, a GI Bill in college when he was at Oregon and Auburn.
And then, of course, the guy in Philly who continues to prove me wrong.
Will he win another Super Bowl?
Will he get his team to another Super Bowl?
Will he win another division, Jalen Hurts?
These are all storylines that make the NFL the greatest sport in America for a reason.
