Colin Cowherd used a recent edition of The Herd to name five non-playoff teams he thinks can get back to the postseason in 2026, and three of the biggest choices were the Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints and New York Giants. The pick was less about hype than about who he believes has already started to fix what went wrong.
That is why the list is drawing attention now, during a stretch when training camp talk turns into best-case projection. Only a handful of teams that miss the playoffs one year make it back the next, so Cowherd’s choices stand out as an early map of which clubs he thinks can buck that math before Super Bowl 2026 is even decided.
The Chiefs were the loudest call. Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL in Week 15 last season, and Kansas City missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014, but Cowherd pointed to Andy Reid’s long record of avoiding back-to-back losing seasons and to the team’s ability to add help with a top-10 pick in Mansoor Delane. He also leaned on the numbers that made the collapse look more fixable than fatal: Kansas City was 1-9 in one-score games, the kind of record that can swing quickly if a few bounces change.
Cowherd was just as direct about the Saints. He said New Orleans finished its 2025 campaign on a high note under first-year coach Kellen Moore, with Tyler Shough going 5-4 as a starter and leading the Saints to four wins in the final five games. He also cited a busy offseason that brought in Travis Etienne, Jordyn Tyson with a top-10 pick and David Edwards, then argued that Tyler Shough led all rookies in completion percentage, passing yards and passer rating. In Cowherd’s view, that is enough to make New Orleans a serious candidate to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2021 in a division he called very winnable.
The Giants got the same kind of treatment, though for a different reason. Cowherd framed them as a wild-card team because they are getting Malik Nabers back after his second season was cut short by an ACL tear, and because the roster now includes first-round help in Arvell Reese and Francis Mauigoa. He paired that with the arrival of John Harbaugh as head coach and Jaxson Dart as a second-year quarterback, then pointed to a brutal stretch in close games. Over the last two years, the Giants were 2-15 in one-score games, and 1-7 in those games last season, the kind of record Cowherd used to argue they were closer to respectability than their finish suggested.
What makes the list useful is also what makes it incomplete. Cowherd named five teams, but the Chiefs, Saints and Giants are the only ones identified in the discussion now, which leaves the final two open as the part fans will keep chasing until he names them. For the moment, the larger point is sharper than the missing names: he sees three teams that lost their way last season, changed enough to matter, and could be back in the playoff picture by the time the 2026 race is settled.
