Today we wrap up our NFL season preview series with a look at the league’s diverse spread of Super Bowl contenders, led by everyone from Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton to Jimmy Garoppolo and Trevor Siemian.

All eight of these teams will have designs on playing in February. Seven of them already have in the (relatively) recent past. The one exception, of course, is the Bengals, who are never allowed nice things.

We start in Mile High with the Broncos, a team that just pulled off the rare double act of one of the most impressive and most blatantly fluky title seasons of all time.

8. Denver Broncos
2015 record: 12-4
2016 prediction: 10-6 (AFC West champions, third seed)

It’s a strange world where replacing Peyton Manning with Trevor Siemian is probably an upgrade. Manning was the worst quarterback in the league last season, and aside from a couple beauties to Owen Daniels in the AFC Championship Game, was largely unsighted in the playoffs, only doing the bare minimum that the Broncos required of his position.

When you’ve got a historically great defence, though, that’s all you need.

Denver’s defence might be a little less historic this year with the defections of Malik Jackson and Danny Trevathan, as well as Aqib Talib getting shot, but it’s still the most likely to end the season as the best in the game.

Pro Football Focus rates the Broncos front seven and secondary as both number one in the league, which is good, because those two elements comprise an entire defence. Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Derek Wolfe, Brandon Marshall, Chris Harris and co are going to make a lot of offences look bad this year.

Their hope will be that their own offence doesn’t look as bad. The Broncos have capable if unremarkable running backs, a star 1-2 wide receiver punch in Emmanuel Sanders and Demaryius Thomas, and then not much else. They’ll hope for the vague notion of competence from Siemian and probably not much more, and the offensive line will range from questionable to very, very bad.

Last season the Broncos rose above their standard in the playoffs, with a 25th-ranked offence and first-ranked defence leaving them eighth overall in DVOA. Eighth best in the league is likely where they’ll finish around again this season, and nobody will want to see Miller and Ware in the playoffs – although they’ll probably be fine seeing Siemian or Paxton Lynch.

7. Pittsburgh Steelers
2015 record: 10-6
2016 prediction: 10-6 (Wild card, fifth seed)

When the foundation of your offence is the best wide receiver in the game, the best running back, and an elite quarterback who has won two Super Bowls, you’re in a good place. We sometimes get caught up in stars and big names, but that’s where you have to get caught up in Pittsburgh. Antonio Brown, Le’Veon Bell and Ben Roethlisberger are all magnificent, and the Steelers will ride and die (not on a motorbike, Ben) with the three of them.

Bell with miss the first four games, including a vital divisional clash with Cincinnati, but DeAngelo Williams is a more than capable back-up. The offensive line has questions, but looks respectable enough behind Maurkice Pouncey to keep Roethlisberger upright, which is Pittsburgh’s annual biggest concern.

The offence has a chance to be the best in the league, which is good, because the defence definitely doesn’t. The Steelers finished with the 11th ranked defence by DVOA last season, but a lot of that was smoke and mirrors, built on an unsustainably high turnover rate.

They were 30th in DVOA the season before, and their reality likely lies somewhere in the middle. A transcendent offence and a middling to below average defence is still a recipe for a playoff team, and if they get there, that three-headed monster is going to eat.

6. Cincinnati Bengals
2015 record: 12-4
2016 prediction: 11-5 (AFC North champions, second seed)

It’s strange to consider the Bengals elite, a team that has made consistent excellence feel like mediocrity. That’s what happens when you make the playoffs five years in a row and never advance.

In fact, the Bengals haven’t won a playoff game since 1990. That cold streak likely would have ended if the Red Rocket and suddenly competent Andy Dalton didn’t get hurt and miss the heated playoff clash against Pittsburgh. Dalton didn’t just emerge as competent last season, though; he leaped straight past competence into brilliance. Dalton capably led the league’s best offence by DVOA and was a borderline MVP candidate – two parts to a sentence that seemed like a universal impossibility as recently as 12 months ago.

Dalton likely won’t be as good as he was last year – such quantum leaps are rarely sustainable – but if he can just approach last year’s heights, with a superb offensive line and the majestic A.J. Green, the Bengals can have a stellar offence once again.

Any problems are likely to come on defence, where there’s a lack of dynamic talent outside of Geno Atkins. But unlike the Saints and Cowboys, who could have excellent offences derailed by train-wreck defences, the Bengals should be perfectly competent defensively, and could skew to above-average.

That adds up to a Super Bowl contender. A Super Bowl contender led by Andy Dalton. Get used to it.

5. Arizona Cardinals
2015 record: 13-3
2016 prediction: 11-5 (Wild card, fifth seed)

The Cardinals could prove to be the most well rounded team in football. They finished last season fourth in offensive DVOA and third in defence, and there’s reason to believe they could be even better on both sides of the ball this year.

The secondary is majestic, led by superstars Patrick Peterson and Tyrann Mathieu, and the front seven, a question mark for a while, has been fortified with the trade for Chandler Jones.

The offence is even more explosive, with perhaps the best and deepest collection of wide receivers in the league in Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd, John Brown and J.J. Nelson. David Johnson is a dynamo, on the verge of being a star at running back, and the offensive line, the weakness of the team for so long, is now an above-average unit with veterans Mike Iupati, Evan Mathis and Jared Veldheer consistently reliable.

Arizona’s biggest question mark comes at the position where they got an MVP-calibre performance last season. Carson Palmer was a mediocre to actively bad quarterback from 2007 to 2013. He had a bizarre semi-retirement in 2011 and nobody cared. He had a dreadful 35-30 touchdown-interception rate in two years in Oakland, who were happy to ship him off to Arizona for a sixth round pick. It was much of the same his first year in red, tossing 22 interceptions, but he had a strong start to 2014 before going down after six games, and then a stellar 2015.

The reality is that Palmer is going to be 37 by the playoffs and has had one good full season in nine years. Quarterbacks can be reborn late in their careers – the Cardinals know this all too well (see: Warner, Kurt). Palmer is in the best possible position to succeed, with a coach intent on playing to his downfield strengths, strong protection, and an array of weapons. But there’s much more doubt surrounding him – doubt that was amplified by his woeful playoff performance last season – than any of the other quarterbacks of the top Super Bowl favourites.

4. Carolina Panthers
2015 record: 15-1
2016 prediction: 11-5 (NFC South champions, third seed)

The Super Bowl was supposed to be a formality for the Panthers. Cam Newton was about to receive his crown, Luke Kuechly his NFL knighthood. Then football happened.

Carolina didn’t ‘no-show’ the Super Bowl, but they didn’t exactly make their presence felt either. History suggests that they’ll have a hard time going one better this year – no Super Bowl loser since the 1972 Dolphins have won the title the following year. No team since the early 90s Bills has even made it back to the big dance the year after.

The lessons of history are imprecise, but reasons for Carolina to be worse this year are easy to find. They had the league’s easiest schedule last year and the point differential of a 12.4 win team, not a squad one game short of a perfect regular season. They also have worse players.

Losing Charles Tillman, and more to the point, Josh Norman, has decimated what was a competent secondary into maybe the worst in the league.

The Panthers are still going to be very, very good though. Newton is a world-beater, the offensive line keeps him upright and creates running lanes like few other lines can, and the return of Kelvin Benjamin to complement Greg Olsen – the second best tight end in the league – means that Carolina will have a potent aerial attack to add to a dominant ground game.

The front seven is a monster, led by the best linebacking rotation in the game and a defensive line that can cause mayhem.

The Panthers won’t be 15-1 again, but they’re still the runaway favourites to win the weak NFC South, and probably do it by two or three games.

3. New England Patriots
2015 record: 12-4
2016 prediction: 12-4 (AFC East champion, first seed)

Welcome to year two of this strange world where the Patriots are likeable, and the team of the people. The laws of science tell us that Deflategate is a farce, and Tom Brady’s four-game suspension to start the season is justice only to the idea that the NFL is a totalitarian regime. Brady gets four games for ‘more probably than not being at least generally aware’ of men letting air out of footballs – the same punishment as Greg Hardy, who beat up his girlfriend, threatened to kill her, and threw her onto a futon covered in assault rifles. You do you, Roger Goodell.

On the field, Brady’s suspension shouldn’t kill the Patriots. The schedule, after a brutal opener at Arizona, eases up with three home games against Miami, Houston and Buffalo, none of whom are likely to be contenders. The Patriots are loaded anyway, and Jimmy Garoppolo will have the dynamic tight end forces of Rob Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett to throw to, and the fleet feet of receivers Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola.

The defence is will what win the Patriots games in the first month, though, with an outstanding secondary anchored by Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler and star safety Devin McCourty. The loss of Chandler Jones will hurt the pass rush, but the Pats have lottery tickets throughout the front seven, some of whom should hit, supported by the ever-reliable linebacker duo of Jamie Collins and don’t’a Hightower.

If the Patriots can finish at least 2-2 in the first month, they’ll be set for a run at the AFC’s top seed. The NFL hath no fury like a Brady scorned.

2. Green Bay Packers
2015 record: 10-6
2016 prediction: 12-4 (NFC North champion, second seed)

2010 didn’t feel like lightning in a bottle. Green Bay’s title to cap off that season wasn’t like the 2013 Ravens or the Super Bowl-winning Giants teams, championships that were fully deserved, but also felt like a perfect confluence of factors – luck certainly included.

The Packers were young and Rodgers, coming off a Super Bowl MVP, a year before the first of his MVP awards, was 27 and in the middle of his prime. The 2010 title was going to be the first of many – the Packers were about to become Patriots Midwest. Or not.

Green Bay have been back to the playoffs in each of the past five seasons, but they haven’t featured in any Super Bowls, and their record in the playoffs is a disappointing 3-5, with none of those wins consecutive.

There’s reason to believe that streak of underwhelming excellence can end this season and the Cheeseheads can make it back to the big dance. Rodgers is still just 32 and the doubters can dab all they want – he’s the best quarterback in the NFL. (Click to Tweet)He gets Jordy Nelson back healthy this season, his number one weapon, and behind a sterling offensive line and with Eddie Lacy having bid adieu to Krispy Kremes and meat lovers pizza (we pray), Rodgers will lead what could be the best offence in the game.

The defence finished ninth last season in DVOA and changes in personnel have been minimal. The Packers defence isn’t game-breaking, but it’s rock solid, and with Rodgers and his liquid whip of an arm wreaking havoc on the other side of the ball that’s all it has to be for Green Bay to get back to the Super Bowl.

1. Seattle Seahawks
2015 record: 10-6
2016 prediction: 12-4 (NFC West champion, number one seed)

The best team in the NFL over the past four years, the Seahawks will feel hard done by that they only have one title for all their dominance. The Hawks have won playoff games in each of Russell Wilson’s four seasons, one moment of madness from a second Super Bowl championship, and one abominable collapse in the final 30 seconds against Atlanta from a third NFC title game.

Seattle will be as good as ever this season. On defence, you already know all the names. Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, K.J. Wright, Bobby Wagner. The pass rush goes bang, the secondary goes boom.

On offence, in the past Seattle have had to grind for points, eking out scores with a ground game that catered to Marshawn Lynch. With Lynch exiting stage right last season, the Seahawks became a much more dynamic offence, finishing second in DVOA.

2015 marked the transition from Seattle being the team of the defence and Marshawn Lynch to being the team of Russell Wilson. Wilson is one of the five best quarterbacks in the league, and he has his best ever set of receiving weapons this season. Doug Baldwin is a legitimate number one wideout now, Jimmy Graham is set for a bounce-back, and Tyler Lockett is lightning and hellfire.

The problem with Seattle is almost comically glaring – they have the worst offensive line in the league, and it’s not especially close. Wilson’s speed, awareness and dynamism with his feet prevent a dreadful offensive line from being a death sentence, and #3 is lethal when he scrambles – perhaps the game’s most punishing quarterback outside of the pocket. But the O-Line is so bad that is has to be worrying, and Wilson will be under pressure all season – always one knock away from Seattle being done as a contender.

The offensive line has been bad in the past though and it hasn’t stopped the Seahawks from finishing first in DVOA four years in a row. The rest of the offence has upgraded, and with a still elite defence the Seahawks are as good a bet as any to win the title.