Ranking the Top 10 NFL Defenses for the 2026 Season!
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What is the premise of the episode and who are the hosts?
Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Sheel Capatia. Today we are projecting the top 10 defenses in the NFL. We did the offenses last week. I love doing this exercise every summer just to see where these teams rank. When you have to rank them, you're like, all right, who do I actually believe in? If I had to choose this team or this team, who would I go with? So went through that exercise here over the last couple of weeks. So did my guest, Deontay. Lee from the ringer. We agreed on some of the top ones, but a lot of these we disagreed on. So there are some certainly in five through 10 that we did not have on both of our lists. So we'll talk it all out. Maybe we convinced each other, maybe we didn't, but let's take a break.
We'll come back. We'll talk top 10 defenses for the 2026 season. This episode of the Ringer NFL Show is presented by Orgain. Orgain Creatine helps improve muscle size, strength, and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. Plus, it's certified with informed choice, which means it's tested for prohibited substances in sports. Upgrade your performance with Orgain Creatine, available at Amazon. Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. These statements have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show doing top ten defenses with my friend Deontay Lee from the Ringer. Deontay, easier exercise or harder exercise for you to whittle it down to ten than last week when we did the offenses.
I would say easier in the sense of dismissing teams that I know are just not in the conversation at all. Right. I think we kind of talked about this at the beginning of last week's episode that doing the defenses, it is much easier to just set your threshold and see which teams like, Oh, they don't have the edge rushing talent, they don't have the coverage talent. I don't trust the coach, you know, or the regression says that this X, Y, or Z thing might be happening this upcoming season. Offense, it's a little tougher to kind of sort through, but I feel pretty good.
How do Sheil and Diante decide which defenses belong in the top‑10?
I would say one through 15 or so was where I have each defense ranked.
Okay. Yeah. I was I felt like I could find 17, 18 offenses I felt pretty good about. And then I could find like five defenses. Yeah. I felt really good about and then I'm like, all right, let me just pick. I'm gonna have to just pick from the rest here and see what I come up with. So I think we're gonna have some duplicates. My prediction would be we're gonna have duplicates near the top, like top five-ish or so, but five to ten, we might have some differences. So let's see if I'm right about that or not. All right, we're going to count down 10 to one. Again, this is our projections for the best defenses in the NFL in 2026. Deontay, get us started with number 10. Who do you got?
Number 10, and I think that this is right around that range where you start having uh ask questions about how good you feel about whatever this team ex team strength is. I'm going with Buffalo, right? I'm going with Buffalo here as number 10. This is me really calling my shot with Jim Leonard as a defensive play caller. This is me, I think, crossing my fingers that Ed Oliver and Christian Benford are going to be available for this defense and be playing at peak capacity, which we've really only had an opportunity to see in spots for like the last two, three seasons because they've been banged up or not had the right amount of supporting cast around them. to really maximize their skill sets. And I think that just changing the way that they approach things defensively, if I'm to assume that Jim Leonard wants to borrow from some of that Vance Joseph, really going back to Rex Ryan-esque approach to defense where we are just trying to make plays in the backfield as aggressively as possible.
We're gonna play tight coverage and trust Benford and Maxwell Hairston. to be our speed guys who can run w in one on one coverage with all these guys.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of the episode and who are the hosts?
0:05–2:28
2
How do Sheil and Diante decide which defenses belong in the top‑10?
2:28–4:41
3
Why do they rank the Buffalo Bills as the #10 defense?
4:41–8:54
4
What arguments do they use to place the Indianapolis Colts in the top‑10?
8:54–13:07
5
Why is the Kansas City Chiefs considered a top‑5 defense for 2026?
13:07–17:34
6
What makes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a surprise top‑10 pick?
17:34–20:45
7
How do they evaluate the Los Angeles Chargers and why do they rank them high?
20:45–24:59
8
What are the final takeaways and predictions for the 2026 defensive rankings?
24:59–1:28:14
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Ringer NFL Show
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