We just put out our NFL Playoff Contenders Tier List: October 2026, sorting all 32 teams into Super Bowl contenders, playoff hopefuls, and no-shot squads based on Week 6 standings and odds. Most of it wasn't controversial. The 49ers and Chiefs go in the top bucket, nobody emails us about that. The Dolphins and Titans go in the bottom bucket, and honestly, nobody emails us about that either. Some things are just true.
But one placement blew up our replies faster than anything else: the Chicago Bears. Do they belong in playoff hopefuls, or do they get dropped to the no-shot pile with the rest of the pretenders? We put them in hopefuls. A lot of you think that's one tier too generous.
Why the Bears are the fight
Here's the case against them, and it's a good one. Chicago looked like a legit NFC contender through the first few weeks, riding a schedule that, in hindsight, wasn't doing them any favors. Then Green Bay happened. A 31-7 blowout that wasn't close at any point, and it dropped the Bears from around #9 to #11 in several power rankings overnight. That's not a bad loss, that's an exposure. The quarterback situation with Tyson Bagent is the real question mark here. Is he a bridge who can manage winnable games, or is he the reason the offense stalls out the second a defense takes away the easy stuff? Right now nobody outside Halas Hall seems totally sure, and that's the problem with ranking this team in October.
Here's the case for keeping them in hopefuls instead of burying them. One loss, even an ugly one, doesn't erase five or six weeks of data. The NFC is messy enough this year that a 3-2 or 4-2 record still keeps you in the wild card conversation into November, especially with Green Bay, Minnesota, and Detroit all beating up on each other along the way. We're not saying Chicago is a Super Bowl team. We're saying "no shot" is premature when the division hasn't sorted itself out yet.
Where the rest of the debate lives
The Bears aren't the only shaky placement, just the loudest one. A few other teams got real arguments in our group chat before this list went up:
- New York Giants: leading a weak NFC East with one bad loss already on the ledger. Looks great on paper, means very little against actual good teams. -, which is the kind of swing that makes you want to wait a few more weeks before trusting it either way. - Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers: both stuck in that gray zone where "sleeper" and "mediocre" look identical in October. - Las Vegas Raiders: rookie QB Fernando Mendoza has flashed enough that some analysts think this is a turnaround year, others think it's too early to hand him a playoff race.
Compare that to the stuff that isn't up for debate. The 49ers are 5-0, got a nice jolt by adding Mike Evans this offseason, and gained more title probability than any team in the league after Week 5. The Vikings are 5-0 too and have gone from "contender" to what some analysts are now calling a legit "threat," which is a fun phrase for a team that was an afterthought last year. On the other end, the Chargers are already being described as a "season lost in October," and the Dolphins at 0-5 are getting called the least talented roster in the league without much pushback.
Why this matters at Week 6
Six games in is exactly the point in the season where the standings start lying less. The undefeated teams (49ers, Vikings) look increasingly real. The winless teams (Dolphins, Titans) look increasingly done. But the middle tier, the Bears, Falcons, Steelers, Giants, Raiders types, is where the actual disagreements live, because small samples and one bad loss can swing a whole narrative.
That's exactly why we built the tier list the way we did instead of just publishing straight playoff odds. Odds are a snapshot. Tiers force you to make a call, and calls are what people actually want to argue about. If you want to see the full breakdown of all 32 teams, including where we landed on the Ravens, the Lions, and the rest of the murky middle, check out the NFL Playoff Contenders Tier List: October 2026.
If football rankings are your thing, we've also got the Greatest NFL Running Backs of All Time Tier List and the NFL Wide Receivers 2026 Tier List for more to argue about.
So where do the Bears belong? Hopefuls, no-shot, or are we underselling them? Go build your own version of this tier list and tell us exactly where we got it wrong.
