Josh Allen wins 2nd MVP and 3 other Bills bold predictions for 2026 NFL season

The Buffalo Bills are about to kick off the 2026 NFL season, and a lot has changed. Sean McDermott and many of the core veterans who have led the Bills to so much success—but ultimately failure in the end—are gone. New head coach Joe Brady, defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, and new stars like D.J. Moore and Bradley Chubb are in. For as much as Buffalo has changed, though, a lot remains the same, starting with superstar quarterback Josh Allen. The Bills' 2026 season carries the same expectations as every campaign this decade. It's Super Bowl or bust for Buffalo, and they not only have to win it, but they also have to avenge four straight losses that happened 35 years ago. That is pressure that no other team is under, and most teams couldn't survive. The one saving grace for Bills Mafia is that this isn't like most teams, because Buffalo has one thing no other team does: Allen. So, with that as the backdrop, here are four Bills' bold predictions for the 2026 NFL season. With all due respect to Patrick Mahomes, who has won the most with an offensive mastermind head coach, and Lamar Jackson, who puts up gaudy numbers but doesn't come through in the clutch, Allen has been the best quarterback in the league for several years now. He does the most with the least, and even when he doesn't play his best (see: last year's playoff loss to the Denver Broncos), he almost always puts himself and his team in a position where he has the ball in his hands with a chance to win it. The Bills' 2026 season feels (mostly) like a fresh start. Moving on from McDermott was the right move after nearly a decade of striving but ultimately failing. Should general manager Brandon Beane and offensive coordinator Joe Brady have gone, too? Probably. But just losing McDermott is enough of a fresh start that things should look at least slightly different this season. And that seems to mean taking the leash off of Allen. If that's the case, and Allen has carte blanche to air it out, continue to run, and make plays to an improved group of playmakers around him, MVP No. 2 will soon follow. Speaking of an improved supporting cast, having a true No. 1 wide receiver in D.J. Moore is something Allen hasn't had since Stefon Diggs' final season in Western New York in 2023. Moore is not a perfect WR1. He is a little undersized (listed at 6 feet, but that doesn't seem right), and doesn't have the same speed at 29 he did at 22. But, at worst, he is the second-best wideout Allen has ever played with behind Diggs. And, in fact, a lot of pundits also looked at Diggs more as a high-end No. 2 than a No. 1 before he got to Buffalo. And for Moore, Allen is the best QB he's played with since Cam Newton, and Moore didn't play with Newton until 2018, when the decline already started. All that adds up to the next Bills' bold prediction for the 2026 NFL season being that Moore will be a 1,400-plus-yard receiver this year and not just make the Pro Bowl, but the All-Pro squad as well. One of the biggest reasons that McDermott was fired is that he was a defensive guru whose defenses always failed in the big spot. From the 13 seconds debacle to the pass interference call in last year's final game, the Bills' D has never once bailed Allen out in a big spot in the playoffs. Even in the regular season, the unit has been on the decline in the last half-decade. In 2021, the Bills' D was the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL. In 2022, they were second, and in 2023, fourth. They then fell to 11th, then 12th in 2024 and 2025. So, you can see where this trend is going. Under Jim Leonhard, the Bills are switching to a more aggressive 3-4 defense that (in theory) should create more turnovers, shorter fields, and get the ball back to Allen and the offense quicker than McDermott's bend-but-don't-break units. If Leonhard and his group accomplish this feat, and Brady's offense controls tempo on the other side, the Bills' D will return to being a top-three scoring defense in 2026. It's been over three decades now since Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Marv Levy, and the rest of the early 1990s Bills lost four-straight Super Bowls. And from the time that near-dynasty ended until 2018, when Josh Allen came ot town, there was a lot of losing. Allen turned 30 in May, meaning he is probably closer to the end of his career than the beginning. For the next three to five seasons, the Bills are in now-or-never mode. It's Super Bowl or bust for this group as the QB faces his football mortality. Like many years, the 2026 NFL season feels like it could be the year for Allen and the Bills, and it's likely the regular season will help continue that narrative. The playoffs are always the issue, though, so we'll have to wait months to get any more clarity on this. Still, our final Bills' bold prediction for the 2026 NFL season is that, in February, we hear six words we've never heard before: The Bills win the Super Bowl! This article first appeared on NFL on ClutchPoints and was syndicated with permission.