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The 2026 NFL season is right around the corner, and training camps are already starting to kick off across the league.
Preseason games might seem like a throwaway exercise at this point, but they can be an important opportunity for certain teams to iron out some of their rough edges and answer some important questions before the real things gets underway.
Here are six NFL teams who have some things to prove in exhibition action before the regular season gets rolling:
New York Giants
Since Tom Coughlin resigned following the 2015 season, the Giants have gone through four different head coaches (and two more interims), searching for stability and the kind of winning culture that brought them multiple Lombardi Trophies under Coughlin's watch. That's likely why they jumped at the chance to hire John Harbaugh, after the nearly two decades he spent with the Baltimore Ravens that included a Super Bowl win.
But the sustained success Harbaugh had in Baltimore won't automatically nor magically appear for Big Blue, and he'll have to prove he can replicate it in a new place, with a much different roster. There's promising youth, but already durability issues to consider with the likes of quarterback Jaxson Dart and running back Cam Skattebo. They traded away their best defender in Dexter Lawrence, but netted a second top-10 pick in this year's draft. Nobody's expecting this ship to turn around immediately, but Harbaugh will be expected to field a fundamentally sound team that shows the early markings of a strong foundation upon which future success can be built.
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings made a huge gamble when they traded up to make J.J. McCarthy their franchise quarterback of the future, doubling down on it by moving on from Sam Darnold after he led them to a 14-win season. Last year, Darnold won the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks, while the Vikings missed the playoffs. McCarthy's numbers were disappointing (163 passing yards per game, 11 TD passes, 12 interceptions, 57 percent completion rate), and the offense struggled with him at the helm.
There's still time for McCarthy to prove himself worthy of being the face of the franchise moving forward, but he'll have to start by beating out a more experience veteran in Kyler Murray, who was acquired in the offseason. Brian Flores' defense will face the challenge of moving on without future Hall of Famer Harrison Smith at safety, and Kevin O'Connell will have to live up to his billing as a "QB whisperer" who can get the most out of his signal-callers. This team has postseason potential, but it will go as the quarterback situation goes, and preseason action could decide who gets first crack at winning the regular-season job.
Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta's offense has been loaded with talented playmakers for a while now, but they haven't been fully maximized. Enter Kevin Stefanski, who should be able to get the most out of weapons like Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts in terms of scheme and play-calling. But it will fall to the quarterbacks to execute Stefanski's approach, and consistency hasn't exactly been the calling card for Michael Penix Jr. or Tua Tagovailoa.
Penix, a top-10 pick two years ago, is coming off a season-ending knee injury, and had a lengthy history of similar injuries in college. Tagovailoa enters the picture after a roller-coaster run with the Miami Dolphins, hoping to prove he can still be a successful starter, but he's got his own durability issues to contend with. Stefanski and the rest of the team need one of the two to emerge as a the clear-cut starter who can effectively execute the offense and distribute the ball efficiency to their playmakers. The NFC South should be wide open again this year, and the Falcons are talented enough to win it, if they can get the offense to play up to its potential.
Buffalo Bills
The Bills enjoyed a ton of regular-season success under Sean McDermott, but deep postseason success always eluded them. The team made the controversial choice to relieve McDermott of his head-coaching duties this offseason, promoting offensive coordinator Joe Brady to the big chair. Keeping continuity on offense for Josh Allen is obviously important, but Brady will now have to prove he's more than just an effective offensive play-caller if he wants to take the Bills further than McDermott did.
Being an effective play-caller is much more challenging when you're forced to handle the big-picture responsibilities that come along with being the head coach, so Brady will have to prove he can do it all if he wants to get the best out of Allen and the rest of the team. The pressure will be on from Day 1, and any early hiccups could lead to regrets about firing a coach who fielded a tough defense and led the team to so many wins in recent years.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Liam Coen era got off to a roaring start in Duval, with a 13-win season and an AFC South title. But now the bar has been set there, and Jags fans will be looking for this year's team to build on that success and extend it into the postseason after last year's first-round exit. Coen's offense will have to absorb the departure of Travis Etienne Jr. as a dual-threat weapon out of the backfield, and figuring out the best way to deploy Travis Hunter will still be key in determining the team's success on both sides of the ball.
Trading up for Hunter last year left the Jags without a first-round pick in this year's draft, and while the team's management touted his arrival as getting two players in one, the fact is he can only play one position at a time. Some regression is to be expected after such an overachieving 2025 campaign, but expectations will be high now, and Coen will have to prove he and Trevor Lawrence can continue an upward trajectory that does more than win regular-season games.
Philadelphia Eagles
Everything was all smiles in Philly two years ago, with Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts hoisting the Lombardi Trophy after blowing out the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. But last year's 11-6 campaign ended with a first-round playoff exit, and the same offensive inconsistency that had plagued them at other times throughout Sirianni's tenure as head coach once again reared its head. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which has to be the case if Sirianni is now using ChatGPT to generate ideas on how to rally his team.
Sirianni's tenure has been a mixed bag, with two Super Bowl trips alternating between one-and-done postseason appearances. The highs have been impressive, but there have been too many long stretches of stale offense and an inability to maximize the full potential of the talent on the roster in between. Sirianni will need to waste no time proving he's got his house in order this season, starting with an offense that looks competent and coherent.
