NFL Playoff Odds 2026: The AI Panel Vs Kalshi's Board
Kalshi has turned the 2026-27 playoff race into 32 separate Yes/No markets, one per team, and the crowd has quietly built a full playoff picture out of them. We handed the same question to an AI model panel, gave it last season's final standings, this year's win totals and the structure of the bracket, and let it price every team before it saw a single market number. On most of the board the two agree. On a handful of teams they do not, and one of those gaps is the widest on the page.
The Quick Answer
The panel's safest bets to qualify are the Baltimore Ravens (89%) and Los Angeles Rams (88%), the two clubs carrying the league's top win total. Its single biggest disagreement with the market is the Philadelphia Eagles: the crowd has them at a near coin-flip 58¢, the panel at 84%. The other theme is a colder read on the NFC bubble, where the models fade the New York Giants, Panthers, Saints and Commanders well below their market prices.
Fourteen teams make the playoffs, exactly seven per conference. The full 32-team board, the four-model breakdown, and every place the panel splits from the crowd are below.
Free: The Weekly PM Market Brief — the 8-model panel's graded record, the week's biggest market-vs-model gaps, and what's spiking next. One email, Sundays. Sign up in the box at the end of this article.
Prices As Of
All Kalshi prices on this page are the mid-market read as of August 13, 2026, fetched when the board was scored. This is a preseason futures market: the regular season kicks off in September, and the page is re-scored when the story moves (see the timeline at the bottom).
The Board
Sorted by the panel's blended probability that a team qualifies. Market is the Kalshi Yes price in cents (a 72¢ price means the crowd gives roughly a 72% chance). Edge is the panel's number minus the market's, so positive means the models are higher than the crowd and negative means lower.
| Team | Conf | Market | Panel blend | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Ravens | AFC | 72¢ | 89% | +17 |
| Los Angeles Rams | NFC | 78¢ | 88% | +10 |
| Buffalo Bills | AFC | 77¢ | 85% | +8 |
| Philadelphia Eagles | NFC | 58¢ | 84% | +26 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | AFC | 62¢ | 79% | +17 |
| Detroit Lions | NFC | 66¢ | 77% | +11 |
| Seattle Seahawks | NFC | 66¢ | 74% | +8 |
| Houston Texans | AFC | 65¢ | 70% | +5 |
| San Francisco 49Ers | NFC | 57¢ | 68% | +11 |
| New England Patriots | AFC | 63¢ | 65% | +2 |
| Denver Broncos | AFC | 58¢ | 60% | +2 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | AFC | 63¢ | 56% | -7 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | AFC | 61¢ | 56% | -5 |
| Chicago Bears | NFC | 52¢ | 54% | +2 |
| Green Bay Packers | NFC | 56¢ | 50% | -6 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | AFC | 52¢ | 50% | -2 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | NFC | 41¢ | 50% | +9 |
| Dallas Cowboys | NFC | 55¢ | 48% | -7 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | AFC | 35¢ | 39% | +4 |
| Minnesota Vikings | NFC | 41¢ | 36% | -5 |
| Indianapolis Colts | AFC | 38¢ | 24% | -14 |
| New Orleans Saints | NFC | 37¢ | 18% | -19 |
| Atlanta Falcons | NFC | 28¢ | 15% | -13 |
| New York Giants | NFC | 32¢ | 12% | -20 |
| Washington Commanders | NFC | 30¢ | 12% | -18 |
| Carolina Panthers | NFC | 30¢ | 11% | -19 |
| Cleveland Browns | AFC | 15¢ | 8% | -7 |
| Tennessee Titans | AFC | 21¢ | 6% | -15 |
| Las Vegas Raiders | AFC | 12¢ | 5% | -7 |
| Arizona Cardinals | NFC | 5¢ | 4% | -1 |
| New York Jets | AFC | 12¢ | 4% | -8 |
| Miami Dolphins | AFC | 9¢ | 3% | -6 |
More live boards from the same panel: Super Bowl 2027 champion (Rams lead at 16¢) · AFC Championship (Bills 16¢) · NFC Championship (Rams 24¢). Prices fetched August 13, 2026.
Hottest Prediction Markets Right Now
- 2028 Democratic presidential nominee · $177M traded
- 2027 Pro Football Champion · $59M traded
- 2028 U.S. Presidential Election winner? · $58M traded
- 2028 Republican presidential nominee · $56M traded
- Pro Baseball Champion · $51M traded
- More tech layoffs in 2026 than in 2025? · $31M traded
Every market above links to our full AI model verdict; browse them all on the OddsShopper prediction markets hub, and see how every settled call actually scored on the full graded scoreboard.
The Market
| Venue | Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state, as of August 2026) |
| The Board | "Pro Football Playoff Qualifiers, 2026-27" — 32 separate Yes/No contracts, one per team |
| How A Market Settles | Each resolves YES if that team is one of the season's playoff qualifiers, per Kalshi's rules |
| The Structure | 14 teams qualify: seven per conference (four division winners plus three wild cards) |
| Contracts Expire | Once the field is set, in January 2027 |
| Prices As Of | August 13, 2026 |
Because seven teams qualify in each conference, the Yes prices in a conference are really an expected count: add them up and they should land near seven. Kalshi's board currently sums to about 7.2 in the AFC and 7.3 in the NFC, close to fair with a little exchange overround. That matters for how the panel reads the bubble, and we come back to it below.
Every Seat's Number
The full price-blind board. The panel ran four live models across two rounds; each cell is a model's probability that the team qualifies, and the Blend is their equal-weight average.
| Team | Conf | Win total | Market | Opus | Sonnet | GLM | DeepSeek | Blend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Ravens | AFC | 11.5 | 72¢ | 88 | 90 | 90 | 88 | 89% |
| Los Angeles Rams | NFC | 11.5 | 78¢ | 86 | 92 | 90 | 86 | 88% |
| Buffalo Bills | AFC | 10.5 | 77¢ | 83 | 87 | 85 | 85 | 85% |
| Philadelphia Eagles | NFC | 10.5 | 58¢ | 80 | 85 | 85 | 84 | 84% |
| Kansas City Chiefs | AFC | 10.5 | 62¢ | 77 | 80 | 82 | 78 | 79% |
| Detroit Lions | NFC | 10.5 | 66¢ | 76 | 78 | 75 | 78 | 77% |
| Seattle Seahawks | NFC | 10.5 | 66¢ | 76 | 72 | 77 | 70 | 74% |
| Houston Texans | AFC | 9.5 | 65¢ | 66 | 78 | 72 | 65 | 70% |
| San Francisco 49Ers | NFC | 10.5 | 57¢ | 68 | 68 | 70 | 66 | 68% |
| New England Patriots | AFC | 9.5 | 63¢ | 63 | 68 | 67 | 62 | 65% |
| Denver Broncos | AFC | 9.5 | 58¢ | 60 | 62 | 57 | 60 | 60% |
| Cincinnati Bengals | AFC | 9.5 | 63¢ | 55 | 46 | 62 | 60 | 56% |
| Los Angeles Chargers | AFC | 9.5 | 61¢ | 56 | 58 | 54 | 58 | 56% |
| Chicago Bears | NFC | 9.5 | 52¢ | 48 | 55 | 55 | 58 | 54% |
| Green Bay Packers | NFC | 9.5 | 56¢ | 48 | 51 | 48 | 55 | 50% |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | AFC | 8.5 | 52¢ | 48 | 50 | 45 | 56 | 50% |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | NFC | 8.5 | 41¢ | 50 | 46 | 45 | 58 | 50% |
| Dallas Cowboys | NFC | 9.5 | 55¢ | 44 | 46 | 52 | 50 | 48% |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | AFC | 8.5 | 35¢ | 38 | 36 | 42 | 40 | 39% |
| Minnesota Vikings | NFC | 8.5 | 41¢ | 38 | 38 | 35 | 32 | 36% |
| Indianapolis Colts | AFC | 7.5 | 38¢ | 25 | 21 | 18 | 30 | 24% |
| New Orleans Saints | NFC | 7.5 | 37¢ | 20 | 13 | 20 | 20 | 18% |
| Atlanta Falcons | NFC | 7.0 | 28¢ | 18 | 14 | 10 | 16 | 15% |
| New York Giants | NFC | 7.5 | 32¢ | 13 | 11 | 15 | 7 | 12% |
| Washington Commanders | NFC | 7.5 | 30¢ | 16 | 14 | 12 | 7 | 12% |
| Carolina Panthers | NFC | 6.5 | 30¢ | 13 | 10 | 8 | 11 | 11% |
| Cleveland Browns | AFC | 6.5 | 15¢ | 11 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 8% |
| Tennessee Titans | AFC | 6.5 | 21¢ | 9 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6% |
| Las Vegas Raiders | AFC | 5.5 | 12¢ | 8 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5% |
| Arizona Cardinals | NFC | 4.5 | 5¢ | 6 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 4% |
| New York Jets | AFC | 5.5 | 12¢ | 7 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4% |
| Miami Dolphins | AFC | 4.5 | 9¢ | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3% |
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: GLM 81% on 2,318 graded calls · DeepSeek 80% on 2,343 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. The panel priced the board without seeing any market price; its facts came from a data card built at run time (final 2025 and 2024 standings, 2026 win totals, and the bracket structure), and each seat committed to a number and defended it. Every call here gets graded in public once the season settles, on the full graded scoreboard.
A note on the panel: our full Model Verdict panel seats eight models. On this run, four of them were available, so the board reflects four independent seats across three labs rather than the full eight. The blend is their equal-weight average after a revision round in which each seat read the others' anonymized reasoning.
Where The Panel And The Crowd Split Hardest
Philadelphia is the widest gap on the board. The market prices the Eagles as a near coin flip at 58¢; the panel has them at 84%, a 26-point edge. The models see a 10.5-win team whose only credible NFC East rival is Dallas at 9.5, coming off an 11-6, No. 3-seed season and back-to-back playoff berths. A division favorite with that profile reads to the panel as a strong qualifier, not a toss-up, and every seat landed at 80 or higher. If the models are right about anything on this page, this is the market number they would fade first.
The panel buys the AFC bounce-backs faster than the crowd. Baltimore (89% vs 72¢) and Kansas City (79% vs 62¢) are the two other double-digit edges, and they rhyme: both missed the 2025 playoffs, both carry a top-tier 2026 win total, and both sit in divisions where the nearest rival is at least a full win behind. The Ravens' 8-9 record last year hid a positive point differential; the Chiefs' 6-11 masked a plus-34. The market is pricing the disappointment; the models are pricing the projection.
The one AFC team the crowd likes more than the panel is Cincinnati. The Bengals sit at 63¢ but blend to 56%, and Sonnet is the low outlier at 46. The reason is the only number on the card that matches, rather than masks, a bad record: a minus-78 differential to go with last year's 6-11. In a division fronted by an 11.5-win Baltimore, the models see a real bubble team, not a lock.
The real divergence is the NFC bubble. Look at the bottom of the NFC: the Giants (12% vs 32¢), Panthers (11% vs 30¢), Saints (18% vs 37¢) and Commanders (12% vs 30¢) all sit 18-to-20 points under their market prices. This is where the structure bites. The panel is required to keep each conference summing to seven expected qualifiers, and it spent that budget at the top of the NFC on the Rams, Eagles, Lions, Seahawks and 49ers. The crowd, pricing 32 independent contracts, is under no such constraint and can keep five NFC also-rans alive at 28-to-37¢ at once. Both reads can be internally honest; they cannot both be right about how many of those teams actually break through.
Dark Horses The Panel Won't Dismiss
The top of the board tells you who is expected. The edges live lower down:
- Pittsburgh Steelers (39%, Market 35¢). The panel's favorite bubble longshot in the AFC. An 8.5-win total and a barely-positive point differential say mediocre, but in a wide-open wild-card race the models keep the Steelers a live coin-flip-minus rather than writing them off, with GLM the high seat at 42.
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (50%, Market 41¢). A nine-point edge in the panel's favor. DeepSeek is the standout at 58, reading an 8.5-win team as the cleanest path to the NFC South title over a soft field. It is the one bubble team the whole panel likes better than the crowd.
- Indianapolis Colts (24%, Market 38¢). The inverse: a team the market keeps alive that the panel fades hard, with three of four seats at 25 or below. DeepSeek is the lone holdout at 30. If the AFC South is Houston's to lose, the models think the second ticket is likelier to come from elsewhere.
- Cleveland Browns (8%, Market 15¢). Deep longshot, but Opus won't zero them out, holding an 11 on the back of a 6.5 win total in a division where injuries above them could open a door. It is the kind of low-odds name the top of the board never mentions.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
After the first round, each model read the others' anonymized reasoning and could revise. Two moves stood out:
- New England Climbed. The panel's blend on the Patriots rose from the high-50s into the mid-60s once the seats weighed each other's read of last year's league-best point differential in the AFC. As GLM put it: "New England's +170 point differential — best in the AFC — and a 9.5 win total make them my top wild card despite regression from 14-3." — GLM
- The Vikings Firmed Off The Floor. Minnesota was the clearest riser on the NFC bubble, moving up roughly eight points as the panel converged on the North producing a wild card beyond its two favorites.
And one seat that held: Baltimore never moved off the top of the AFC across either round. "Baltimore is the safest bet on the board — its only North rival is Cincinnati at 9.5, so I make the Ravens a near-lock and give the North two likely bodies." — Opus
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
This board is priced on preseason information. Concrete developments that would move it, and the direction each pushes:
- A starting-QB Injury In Camp Or Week 1 To Baltimore, The Rams, Buffalo Or Philadelphia. Any of the four favorites losing its quarterback drops that team 15-to-25 points and lifts its division rivals into the vacated spot.
- The AFC West Logjam Resolving Early. Kansas City, Denver and the Chargers all sit at 9.5-to-10.5 wins for what is realistically about two tickets. A clear Week-1 statement, or a soft 0-3 start, from any of the three firms one and buries another.
- A Jacksonville Hot Start. The Jaguars are the panel's steepest regression call, marked down from a 13-4, No. 3-seed season to a 50% coin flip. A 3-0 opening pushes them back toward their 2025 form and away from that fade.
- A Bubble Team Starting 3-0. A hot open from Dallas, Chicago or Tampa Bay pulls it out of the pack and into division-favorite pricing, at the direct expense of the NFC also-rans the panel already has buried.
The Bottom Line
Give the panel and the crowd the same 32 markets and they agree on the shape of the field: the Ravens, Rams, Bills and Eagles at the top, the Cardinals, Jets and Dolphins as near-dead money. They part company in two specific places worth watching. The panel thinks the market is badly underrating Philadelphia and slow on the Baltimore and Kansas City bounce-backs; it thinks the crowd is propping up a too-crowded NFC bubble that only two of those teams will climb out of. None of this is a prediction of fact or financial advice, and Kalshi's event contracts are for adults (18+) on a CFTC-regulated exchange where availability varies by state. It is a record: a model panel, priced blind, graded in public once the season decides who was right.
