40s and Free Agents: Offseason Preview for Eliminated AFC Teams
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
NFL
4.5 • 12.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
Gregg Rosenthal and Daniel Jeremiah return with the latest news, including the news that the Buffalo Bills fired coach Sean McDermott. They then continue their offseason autopsy, this time with the AFC, breaking down the teams whose seasons ended short of the playoffs. From missed opportunities to unfortunate injuries, the guys diagnose what went wrong across the conference. Looking ahead to the 2026 offseason, Gregg and DJ map out potential paths forward for each team, including looming free agent decisions, draft priorities, salary cap challenges, and the foundational pieces worth building around. Which AFC franchises are closer to a turnaround than they appear, and which face a longer rebuild? It is a clear eyed look at where the AFC stands and how these teams can get back into contention.
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.8 | Welcome to 40s and Free Agents. |
| 0:09.3 | I'm Greg Rosenthal with Daniel Jeremiah. |
| 0:12.5 | It's the podcast that is marching towards player acquisition season, free agency, |
| 0:17.9 | trades, and of course the NFL draft. |
| 0:20.2 | And to set you up, we are going to talk about all the teams, |
| 0:23.7 | not in the playoffs in the AFC and had more changes on Monday |
| 0:28.9 | with Buffalo Bills changing their head coach. |
| 0:31.3 | DJ, you had a theory about why these coaching moves |
| 0:36.4 | have happened in mass in this season that I thought was really smart. |
| 0:40.4 | Yeah, I think everybody was in this neighborhood in their house and they felt good about their house |
| 0:45.3 | and they felt good about themselves. And then what happened was the biggest house on the end of |
| 0:50.0 | the cul-de-sac, the big mansion, it's up for sale. And everybody started saying, well, |
| 0:54.8 | maybe my house isn't so good. I want to get in there because that was the chiefs who've run this neighborhood for so long and kind of been a reason why a lot of people have been content, just saying, well, that's the, we're not, that's an insurmountable force right now. And so we're having good years. We're getting in the tournament. We're a successful team. And now it's like, |
| 1:14.1 | well, wait a years. We're getting in the tournament. |
| 1:11.4 | You know, we're a successful team. And now it's like, well, wait a second, we could have everything. |
| 1:15.6 | It's all out there. There's no roadblock for us. So it's created this urgency and this pressure that I |
| 1:22.0 | don't know that existed previously. I think that to me, when you have the top dog and it was New England forever, |
| 1:28.7 | and then that became available, then, I mean, there wasn't any gap because the chiefs |
| 1:33.0 | immediately took that over from them. I don't think right now, even with the teams we have left, |
| 1:38.3 | and if you could make a case with, you know, Seattle maybe more so because they have a younger |
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