At the NFL trade deadline, many of the league's fiercest Super Bowl contenders made moves to separate themselves from the pack. The midseason point and the personnel changes that come with it are often a fulcrum upon which the championship race hinges, and that may be the case again in 2026. Teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Chicago Bears are pushing their chips forward, and non-competitive teams are feeding them star players in exchange for draft capital.

Some postseason hopefuls were eerily quiet at the deadline, though. Why did the Los Angeles Rams not make a play for a wide receiver? How come the New England Patriots sat on their hands while their offense battles the injury bug? Time will tell whether the decisions to stand pat hurt those teams and others.

Week 10 offers a first look at many players on their new teams, which adds intrigue to a schedule that already includes a couple of massive divisional clashes and an important international matchup.

Here are the latest trends in the Super Bowl race coming out of the trade deadline and heading into Week 10.

Super Bowl odds entering Week 10

Odds via DraftKings, +2000 or better

• 49ers: +540
• Bills: +580
• Jaguars: +750
• Bears: +850
• Chiefs: +1000
• Bengals: +1200
• Rams: +1300
• Broncos: +1500
• Seahawks: +1600
• Lions: +1900

Stock up: Jaguars go all-in at trade deadline

James Gladstone had a field day a day before the deadline. The wunderkind general manager pulled off three trades on Nov. 9, which was tied for the most in the league. All of them project to make the Jaguars noticeably better in the immediate future, and one of them, the blockbuster deal for Jordan Davis, added another cornerstone standout to the roster for the long term. Gladstone parted with a first-round pick, two second-rounders and a pair of Day 3 selections to bolster a defense that already ranks second in scoring. That shows a commitment to winning now at the highest level.

Davis and Godchaux will shore up and likely even improve upon the run-stopping efforts while DaVon Hamilton watches the rest of the season from the sidelines with a torn quad. Bates is a plug-and-play replacement for Eric Murray at safety who brings All-Pro-caliber production to the pass defense. The Jaguars filled a couple of lineup holes in an emphatic fashion.

Jaguars trade deadline moves

These newcomers join a team that already holds a three-game lead in its division. They will also line up on the other side of the ball from an offense that is cooking with gas. The fourth-highest-scoring unit in the NFL has flat-out demolished half of its opponents. Trevor Lawrence, somehow, is still somewhat flying under the radar — probably because his offense keeps building such large leads that he does not need to rack up passing numbers in the second halves of these blowouts. Parker Washington has turned into a star, and Bhayshul Tuten emerged as a bona fide No. 1 running back. All of the pieces are in place.

An easy-peasy schedule over the second half of the season paves the way for the Jaguars to contend for the AFC's No. 1 seed. They face the one-win Tennessee Titans twice in the next three weeks, have matchups with three teams from the downtrodden NFC East and close the campaign with a trip to face the rebuilding Indianapolis Colts. The only real test that lies ahead is a Dec. 6 battle with the Bears. That might be a Super Bowl preview.

2026 NFL trade deadline grades for every team: Four teams earn an A, Rams and Chargers among disappointments

Zachary Pereles

Stock down: Patriots depleted on offense

Just when it seemed like the Patriots were starting to put everything back together, they hit another rough patch. Just like they did to open the season, they have lost two of their last three games. The only win in that stretch was a five-point squeaker against the lowly Miami Dolphins. The road ahead does not get a whole lot easier with five likely playoff teams on the schedule over the next eight weeks. It is going to be a battle to return to the postseason after last year's run to the Super Bowl.

Making matters more challenging is the decimation that occurred on the offensive side of the ball over the last couple of weeks. The Patriots will be without their top two running backs for the foreseeable future as Rhamondre Stevenson battles a knee injury and TreVeyon Henderson manages a mysterious illness. At wide receiver, Romeo Doubs remains on injured reserve, and A.J. Brown cannot seem to get quite right due to his ankle sprain and knee condition. Alijah Vera-Tucker is on IR, too, and represents a key missing piece on the offensive line.

All of those issues undoubtedly contributed to Drake Maye reverting to his early-season tendencies in Week 9. He is back in a tie for the league lead in turnovers on the heels of his three-interception disaster in the blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers.

Because of all these injuries, things might get worse before they get better. If and when the offense gets closer to full strength, time will be of the essence as New England seeks to lock up a playoff berth.

Long shot of the week: Texans (+4500)

Don't look now, but the Houston Texans are not out of it yet. The AFC South will remain out of reach so long as the Jaguars do not shockingly collapse, so it is Wild Card or bust for a squad that started the year at 0-4. At just 1.5 games back, the Texans are right in the mix.

Since that winless first month of the season, the Texans have won three of four and took two of those games in blowout fashion. They just put up a season-high 44 points on the bottom-dwelling Los Angeles Chargers in a game that emphasized how far C.J. Stroud has come as a quarterback. He continues to play the best football of his career and is not even remotely the reason why the Texans are still two games under .500. Tank Dell's return to the wide receiver group and Marvin Harrison Jr.'s addition about a month ago also gave him a deep stable of pass-catchers to target, and he is cashing in.

Nobody expected the story of the Texans' season to be the offense carrying the defense, but here they are. The defense has to click eventually, right? It is bizarre to watch Will Anderson Jr. lead the league in sacks and play at a Defensive Player of the Year level yet have the rest of the defense fail him. There are plenty of opportunities for that group to right itself against middling opponents in the weeks to come.

Week 10 games to watch

Vikings at Packers

Sunday, 1 p.m., Fox, stream on Fubo (try for free)

Losses are rare in the NFC North. At least one team has to add one to their tally in Week 10, though. The Packers are the only team with three losses, so every matchup means a little bit more to them as they try to work their way out of the shallow basement of the NFL's best division — one that could send all four teams to the postseason. They will have vengeance on their minds on Sunday as they seek to get payback for what the Minnesota Vikings did to them in a stunning second-half comeback in Week 1. But they will have to do so against a Vikings offense that should be far better the rest of the season now that Kirk Cousins is in at quarterback.

Patriots at Lions (in Munich)

Sunday, 9:30 a.m., NFL Network

Considering all of the Patriots' offensive deficiencies, there is a world in which the Detroit Lions post a number New England simply cannot match. But maybe this is the right kind of opponent for Mike Vrabel's squad at this juncture: One with a porous defense that they can move the ball against even when they are not at full strength. Detroit is squarely in the aforementioned NFC North battle and needs a win here, as it does every week, to keep up with the rest of the pack.

Steelers at Bengals

Sunday, 8:20 p.m., NBC, stream on Fubo (try for free)

Someone's four-game winning streak has to end on "Sunday Night Football." The victor between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals will secure sole possession of first place in the AFC North. The Steelers got the job done in the first meeting, which was a hotly contested 30-27 clash in Pittsburgh. Home-field advantage means a heck of a lot in this division and could lead to the opposite result this time around. Joe Burrow playing at an MVP level helps quite a lot, too.