It is time to be very mistaken. After six lengthy months with out the NFL, Week 1 is lastly upon us. And like everybody else, I’ve had all summer time to digest free company and the draft, learn all of the preseason hype, and kind sturdy opinions about what’s going to and will not occur in 2025. I’ve my 14 playoff groups and my Tremendous Bowl choose prepared.
I am simply getting there just a little in a different way. As fellow analysts and followers make their playoff predictions over the summer time, they’re normally far more conservative than what performs out in actuality, leaning closely on the groups that made the playoffs the earlier season. Whereas there actually are groups which might be perennial guests to the postseason, a whole lot of bizarre issues can occur in a 17-game season. If you happen to head to ESPN BET proper now, although, 13 of the 14 groups that made the playoffs final season are favorites to make it again once more, with the Steelers because the lone exception.
As an alternative, this column goes to attempt to use what historical past tells us to construction my predictions in a different way, even when it steers me to picks that really feel much less nice than the favorites from 2024. We’re coming into Yr 24 of the 32-team period, and whereas the NFL has added an additional regular-season recreation and a 3rd wild-card entry, groups have spent that point in the identical divisions and roughly the identical playoff format. We’ve an affordable concept of how a lot variance we’re prone to see from 12 months to 12 months and the way the playoff bracket is prone to shift. What if I lean into that as the idea for making my predictions?
That each one begins with one truth: From 2002 to 2023, a median of seven.9 of the 14 groups that certified for the playoffs — or that will have gone to the playoffs because the 7-seed if the league had moved to a 14-team playoff format in 2002 — made it again the next season. I will spherical that as much as eight. My first constraint for selecting playoff groups begins there: I am allowed to select solely eight groups from the 2024 playoffs to make it again.
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There might be a number of extra constraints and guidelines primarily based on historical past, and I will get to them in a minute. However first, let’s speak about final season, which was a catastrophe in one of the best form of method. I used that eight-team rule once I put collectively the 2024 playoff bracket, and it wasn’t a good time to take action. Ten groups made it again to the postseason, which was simply the fourth time since 2002 that 10 of the highest seven seeds in every convention did so. All 4 AFC division winners repeated, simply the third time every division winner had run it again in both convention throughout 44 tries.
In the meantime, the highest two seeds within the NFC from 2023 missed the postseason: The 49ers and Cowboys went from the highest of the convention to out of the playoffs fully. Simply two of the six groups I had leaving the postseason (the Dolphins and Browns) truly didn’t make it again to the playoffs. Crucially, I had the Eagles lacking the postseason, which turned out to be extraordinarily mistaken. I’ve already coated what I missed in my likely-to-decline column from mid-August, so I will not hit that once more.
And but, whereas I used to be unquestionably mistaken, the misses from final 12 months nonetheless reinforce why it is fascinating to consider issues this fashion. It appears absurd in hindsight to select the Eagles to overlook the playoffs. However it could have been much more ridiculous to select the 49ers — one other perennial NFC playoff contender coming off a visit to the Tremendous Bowl — to not make the postseason. Nonetheless, that is precisely what occurred, partially as a result of the Niners have been hit with probably the most accidents of any workforce.
Choosing the Bears to make the postseason wasn’t sensible, as proved by their disastrous 1-9 run after the Hail Mary loss to the Commanders on Oct. 27. However groups that add the proper younger quarterback can catch hearth and speed up sooner than anybody expects, as evidenced by the workforce that fatefully beat Chicago that day: Washington jumped from 4-13 to 12-5 and a spot within the NFC Championship Sport. Just like the Bears, the Commanders have been on my listing of groups seemingly to enhance in 2024, however I did not suppose Washington had the defensive firepower to make that form of leap. And because it turned out, Jayden Daniels was significantly better as a rookie than consensus high choose Caleb Williams.
OK, so 2024 was unhealthy. I will attempt to be higher. If eight of the 14 playoff groups from final season are making it again to the postseason, which eight ought to hold their calendars open in January? And what does historical past inform us about which unlikely groups have one of the best shot of rising up and becoming a member of the playoff area? Let’s take a shot at midnight at projecting how the 2025 playoff area may look.
Soar to a piece:
Eight 2024 division winners
Six 2024 wild playing cards
Three lengthy photographs to look at
Three different new playoff arrivals
Barnwell’s Tremendous Bowl choose
2024 division winners: Will they make it again?
As I discussed earlier, I am including some further constraints right here to additional emulate historical past. Whereas it is at all times unlikely that any given playoff bracket will look precisely just like the historic averages from the previous 20-plus years, this greatest guess goes to work off them as a baseline for making my 2025 playoff predictions.
Fast: Within the eight-division period, how usually have division winners made it again to the postseason? When serious about groups such because the Tom Brady-era Patriots and the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs profitable division titles yearly, it would really feel as if the overwhelming majority of champs make it again to the postseason.
Nicely, the groups with one of the best quarterbacks of their era do make it again, however they’re the exceptions, not the rule. Since 2002, simply over 44% of division winners received their division once more the next season, a determine that has risen barely to 47.5% over the previous 10 years. In different phrases, it is beneficiant to recommend that half of the groups that received their divisions in 2024 will accomplish that once more. Six of the eight division winners achieved that feat from 2023 to 2024, the primary time that has occurred since 2013 to 2014.
What about stepping into the playoffs in any respect? Since 2002, simply over 60% of groups that received their divisions made it again to the postseason the next season, both by profitable their division once more or ending because the 5-, 6- or 7-seed of their convention. Whereas I perceive groups did not actually deal with the 7-seed as significantly significant earlier than the league moved to the 14-team playoff format, these groups have been typically aggressive and have been within the playoff race till late within the season, so I am keen to incorporate them for this evaluation.
Conveniently, these numbers divide into eight fairly comfortably, which makes it straightforward so as to add two extra constraints from historical past to our listing as we put collectively our predictions. If the division winners rise and fall the way in which latest historical past suggests, I want to select 4 division winners to retain their crowns and keep atop their divisions and yet another division winner from 2024 to say a wild-card spot. Sure, if historical past’s right, that leaves three 2024 division winners that can miss the 2025 postseason fully.
Nicely, no higher time than now to start out making picks. I will run by these eight division winners and kind them into these three pots.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC West champions)
You in all probability may have guessed the place I would begin. Whereas I perceive considerations that the Chiefs are weak to a push by the Broncos or the Chargers — and I’ve Mahomes & Co. because the most definitely workforce to say no — I am not about to select some other workforce to win the AFC West.
Even when Kansas Metropolis is not fairly as dominant in one-score video games, the arrival of two real-life left tackles in Josh Simmons and Jaylon Moore means main upgrades on what was a turnstile state of affairs on Mahomes’ blind aspect final season. I am just a little involved concerning the secondary with the departure of Justin Reid, however the Chiefs might be simply high-quality. They will not go 15-2 once more, however something wanting 11 wins could be a significant shock.
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Why Foxworth likes new Chiefs O-line
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My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC East champions)
One other workforce in the course of a prolonged streak as divisional champs, the Payments will intention to say their sixth straight AFC East title. There is a a lot bigger hole between Sean McDermott’s squad and the remainder of the division on paper, which ought to give the Payments extra of a cushion for issues to go mistaken. Groups with outlier turnover margins normally decline, which must be regarding on condition that Buffalo posted a league-best plus-24 turnover ratio final season, however the mixture of taking part in from forward and McDermott’s teaching has turned this protection into one which breaks guidelines.
Defenses constructed on creating a whole lot of takeaways usually wrestle to maintain that up 12 months after 12 months, however the Payments have been an exception. They led the league in turnover price on protection in 2023 and 2024, and so they have not been out of the highest seven since 2019, regardless of altering the overwhelming majority of their defensive personnel over that span. It could be unrealistic to count on Josh Allen and the offense to show the ball over simply eight instances all season once more, however even with that turnover margin regression, Buffalo must be all good atop its division.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC East champions)
There is no higher instance of how blindly choosing division champs to retain their titles can go mistaken than the NFC East, the place no workforce has received back-to-back division championships since Philadelphia did it in 2003 and 2004. If you happen to suppose destiny is conspiring to contort this into actuality on an annual foundation, I would not blame you; do not forget that the Eagles made the Tremendous Bowl in 2022, began 10-1 in 2023 and nonetheless managed to overlook out on a division title after they went 1-5 down the stretch and opened the door for the Cowboys.
I am just a little extra skeptical of Philadelphia repeating than the general public. There must be actual considerations about its defensive depth. Linebacker Nakobe Dean is not going to be accessible to start out the season due to a torn patella. Plus, 44% of the defensive snaps performed by members of the Eagles final season went to gamers who aren’t on the 2025 roster, together with key contributors comparable to finish Josh Sweat, cornerback Darius Slay, security C.J. Gardner-Johnson and sort out Milton Williams. With the costliest offense in soccer historical past on the opposite aspect of the ball, the Eagles weren’t realistically in a position to exchange these veterans with skills of the same caliber this offseason.
In fact, common supervisor Howie Roseman can nonetheless name on one of many league’s most enjoyable younger cores of defensive expertise. The form of mind-melting collapse Philadelphia confirmed on protection within the second half of 2023 should not happen once more with Vic Fangio in cost. Outdoors of a dramatic rash of accidents, there’s nothing to be nervous about with the offense, which returns 10 of 11 starters. And I believe the hole between the Eagles and the remainder of the division could be larger than it appears, which ought to assist them ease into one other NFC East crown.
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Stephen A. Smith sounds off on the narrative that Jalen Hurts is not pretty much as good as a few of his friends and nonetheless has extra left to show after a Tremendous Bowl-winning marketing campaign.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC North champions)
If Lamar Jackson stays wholesome, the Ravens are profitable a whole lot of video games. He has gone a whopping 70-24 as a starter in his professional profession, good for 12.6 wins per 17 video games. In his seven seasons with the Ravens, he has received 4 division titles within the 5 by which he wasn’t sidelined by a late-season harm, arising one recreation wanting a fifth in 2020. Baltimore went 3-8 with Jackson sidelined down the stretch in 2021 and 2022, costing itself what might need been two extra divisional titles within the course of.
Jackson wasn’t the one one staying wholesome final season. The Ravens have been the league’s healthiest workforce by adjusted video games misplaced on each offense and protection, per the FTN Soccer Almanac. In actual fact, the 2024 Ravens have been the least-injured workforce since 2017. That is going to get misplaced within the shuffle — no fan has ever crowed after the season about how wholesome their favourite workforce was — however it is going to be nearly unimaginable for Baltimore to maintain.
This workforce’s ceiling and flooring are nonetheless excessive sufficient for it to be the favourite to win the AFC North once more, however count on extra accidents to be the trigger if it does fall brief.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC wild card)
With my 4 division retainers already claimed, I used to be left with one of many 4 remaining winners to push into the playoffs as a wild-card workforce. Of these 4, it appeared clear to select the Lions, who may fall off from their 15-win season and nonetheless have a lot left within the tank to make it to the postseason. Regardless of dropping nearly each go rusher and cornerback that they had on the roster by the point the protection lastly fell aside within the playoffs, an impressed effort from D-coordinator Aaron Glenn and an impressed offense fueled by O-coordinator Ben Johnson was sufficient to constantly get Detroit over the hump on a weekly foundation. It dominated unhealthy groups and reliably beat good ones.
The Lions ought to nonetheless be among the many league’s greatest groups, though they in all probability will not experience their luck to a different 7-2 mark in one-score contests. The protection cannot probably be as injured because it was a 12 months in the past, however the offense was one of many league’s healthiest, and there are actual questions concerning the new-look inside of their O-line. It is robust to check a situation by which Detroit does not take some form of hit after dropping each Glenn and Johnson to move teaching gigs. That may very well be simply sufficient to open the door for one of many groups under it within the NFC North, though I will not spoil which one simply but.
That leaves me to venture three 2024 division winners to overlook the postseason fully. Two of them defied that destiny final season. Can they stick with it once more?
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
I used to be skeptical of the Texans final season. And whereas they managed to carry on to their division title and win a playoff recreation for the second consecutive 12 months, I do not remorse holding that opinion. The hype concerning the additions of wideout Stefon Diggs and working again Joe Mixon overshadowed an underwhelming offensive line. Common supervisor Nick Caserio nailed a few his younger additions to the secondary, and edge rusher Danielle Hunter was wonderful in his debut season with Houston, however a workforce that was among the many league’s oldest in 2023 did not have as many breakout candidates because it appeared.
The Texans posted a zero level differential, fell from Twelfth to sixteenth in DVOA and went 5-6 outdoors their division. However whereas they weren’t nice, no person within the AFC South was in a position to give them any competitors. Houston went 5-1 contained in the division, with 4 of these 5 wins coming by 4 or fewer factors. A few these won’t have been fairly as shut as they appeared, however the Texans weren’t in a position to constantly separate from the Colts and Jaguars.
It is fully potential the AFC South does not provide any actual competitors this season, both, however I am (maybe foolishly) extra optimistic that the Jaguars and Titans can seem like competent groups. Caserio has fully turned over the offensive line, however Houston is counting on younger gamers who have not been good throughout their time within the league, unproven rookies and veterans who have been cap casualties or castoffs elsewhere.
In a vacuum, while not having to select three division winners to overlook the postseason, I would in all probability nonetheless peg the Texans because the favorites to win the AFC South, if solely as a result of C.J. Stroud gives such a excessive flooring at quarterback. If I am working underneath the concept that I want to select three division winners to overlook the postseason fully, although? Houston appears extra weak than any of the 5 groups I picked above.
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
The issue making the Rams so tough to venture is uncertainty. If you happen to may assure that we have been about to get a wholesome season from 37-year-old quarterback Matthew Stafford, there could be a a lot simpler dialog to have about Los Angeles making it again to the postseason. Sean McVay’s monitor report is nearly unimpeachable: The Rams have made six playoff appearances in eight years with the celebrity coach on the helm, together with 4 division titles over that span.
Whereas the group is saying the proper issues about Stafford’s again heading into Week 1, it performed the harm down all through the offseason, just for Stafford to repeatedly miss practices with the difficulty. On high of that, left sort out Alaric Jackson missed nearly all of coaching camp with blood clots in his legs earlier than returning to follow final week.
The Rams are a top-heavy workforce, and when these stars wrestle to remain wholesome, there’s the potential for a season like 2022, when the offensive line went to shambles and plenty of of L.A.’s highest-paid gamers have been accomplished for the 12 months by November. I am unsure that form of harm reckoning is coming for the Rams or some other workforce within the league, however I am involved sufficient about Stafford to go away this workforce out of the playoffs if I’ve to select three division winners to spend January at dwelling.
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
Here is the place I am stricken by my very own format and compelled to decide on one thing that does not really feel snug. The Buccaneers have been objectively one of the best workforce within the NFC South final season. Along with ending two video games forward of the Falcons for first place, Tampa Bay posted an 11.1-win Pythagorean expectation, suggesting it was truly higher on a snap-by-snap foundation than its 10-7 report. It was eleventh in DVOA amid a division the place the three different groups completed twentieth (Falcons), twenty second (Saints) and thirtieth (Panthers). Ask me who I believe will win the NFC South outdoors of this train and I would choose the Bucs.
Inside this course of, although, I’ve acquired to select the three division winners I’ve the least confidence in as those who will miss the postseason. And it is robust for me to have extra confidence within the Bucs than I do within the Lions, Ravens or some other workforce within the high 5, even when I am optimistic about what Tampa Bay is able to doing in 2025. Possibly historical past is telling me I am too locked in on a 10-win Bucs workforce holding on to the division title in an NFC South the place all people will get to play a straightforward schedule.
In fact, if I put my thoughts to it, it isn’t unimaginable to think about a situation the place the Bucs miss out on what could be their sixth consecutive playoff look. They’re already battling accidents to Tristan Wirfs, Chris Godwin Jr. and Jalen McMillan, and new offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard does not stay as much as the departed duo of Dave Canales and Liam Coen (each of whom have been hits as coordinator). A protection that was league-average final season does not make up the distinction. And whereas Tampa Bay is aggressive, the eventual NFC South champions land on main upgrades at key positions — however we’ll get to that workforce later.
So, we have 5 of our 14 playoff groups within the books. However after breaking down the divisional winners from 2024 and what traits say about their possibilities of making it again to the postseason, it is time to transfer on to final season’s wild playing cards.
What concerning the 2024 wild-card groups?
Going again to 2002, if we embrace that seventh-ranked workforce in every convention as a would-be playoff workforce, 53% of the groups that made it to the postseason as a wild card returned to the postseason the next 12 months. That determine contains groups that rise a step additional and win their division in addition to groups that once more end within the fifth, sixth or seventh spots. 4 of the six wild playing cards from 2023 made it again to the playoffs in 2024, with the Browns and Dolphins the exceptions.
With that 53% determine in thoughts, we’re near a pleasant spherical quantity for our subsequent constraint in choosing the playoff bracket: We will choose solely three of the six wild-card groups in 2024 to make it again in 2025. Three in, three out. This time I will alternate between groups which might be out and in.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC North champions)
Simply as I used to be starting to finalize this column late final week, the Micah Parsons commerce knocked the Cowboys out of my provisional playoff bracket and pushed the Packers forward of their competitors within the NFC North. As I discussed in my response on the Parsons commerce, the Packers weren’t far off from the Lions a 12 months in the past, ending one spot behind Dan Campbell’s workforce in DVOA. The Packers are the youngest workforce within the league on a snap-weighted age foundation, so there are many potential breakout candidates on the roster.
In the event that they have been lacking a little bit of star energy, they acquired all they wanted with the addition of Parsons, who is among the greatest defensive gamers in soccer. Assuming that Parsons does not miss important time together with his again situation, the Packers added the identical participant who made the Cowboys one of the best protection within the NFL when he was on the sphere and its worst when he wasn’t. The Packers did so whereas subtracting only one participant from the present roster in defensive sort out Kenny Clark.
The Packers aren’t good, in fact. Their run protection is abruptly a query mark after the departures of Clark and T.J. Slaton Jr. Jordan Love has been inconsistent, and whereas there are causes to speak your self into the man we noticed within the second half of 2023 and 2024 because the actual Love, it is fully potential we get one other 12 months with excessive highs and low lows from the 26-year-old signal-caller. If we get the post-Toyotathon model of Love for 17 video games, although, the Packers may very well be one of the best workforce within the league. With some reservations concerning the Lions and Vikings, I am pushing the Packers into first place within the NFC North.
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Schefter breaks down how Parsons to the Packers got here to be
Adam Schefter breaks down the large Micah Parsons commerce from Dallas to Inexperienced Bay.
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
Vikings followers are sick of listening to about their report in one-score video games, however whenever you go from 9-0 to 4-8 then to 8-1 throughout such video games in Kevin O’Connell’s first three seasons in cost, it is going to be a major a part of the dialog. We all know that is a significant predictor of what occurs subsequent, so it is robust to think about Minnesota taking part in on the similar stage and getting the identical outcomes.
Can the workforce sustain what we noticed final season? An exhilarating protection led the league in turnovers, because the Vikings jumped from nineteenth in turnover price to second. That is tough to maintain, particularly with Minnesota turning over a bit of its secondary. This was the oldest workforce in soccer on a snap-weighted age foundation, and after including a number of new starters in free company and making solely three top-100 picks over the previous two years, it is robust to rely on O’Connell’s workforce getting dramatically youthful this season.
One of many locations the place the workforce will get youthful, in fact, is at quarterback, with J.J. McCarthy taking on because the starter after lacking all of his rookie 12 months with a knee harm. The Vikings invested closely alongside the road of scrimmage this offseason, and so they in all probability will not must lean on their quarterback as a lot as they did on early downs with Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins. However we simply do not know whether or not McCarthy might be an improve on the passers who preceded him. My intuition is that he is one thing shut, however as a substitute, a defensive decline and a much less lucky 12 months in one-score contests push Minnesota again towards the center of the NFC pack.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC wild card)
Certainly one of final season’s success tales from my prediction columns, the Chargers have been a traditional case of a workforce whose underlying efficiency and offseason adjustments hinted at important enchancment. Whereas it wasn’t at all times fairly for Jim Harbaugh’s workforce, Los Angeles rode Justin Herbert and the league’s top-scoring protection to an 11-win season earlier than falling to Houston in a irritating playoff defeat.
To be trustworthy, the road between the Chargers and the workforce they’re preserving out has change into razor skinny because of accidents. Left sort out Rashawn Slater is already out for the season (ruptured patellar tendon), as is linebacker Junior Colson (shoulder). Guard Mekhi Becton, who missed coaching camp with a mysterious harm, was sidelined for a lot of the 2021 and 2022 seasons with knee points. Offseason addition Najee Harris’ standing to start out the season is unknown after he suffered a watch harm as a part of a fireworks mishap. If this appears like a worryingly Chargers begin to the season, effectively, you are proper.
I would not be shocked if the protection took a step backward this season, even when Jesse Minter seems like one of many finer D-coordinators within the league and could be on monitor for a head teaching gig. Even when that occurs, although, I’ve extra religion in Herbert and Harbaugh shouldering the load and profitable video games with the offense than I do with the subsequent workforce on this listing.
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
In 2024, the Broncos had the league’s greatest protection on a per-play foundation, main all groups in anticipated factors added (EPA) per snap. Nearly each significant participant returns from that unit, and Denver added Dre Greenlaw and first-round choose Jahdae Barron to the combination. However we all know protection is extra variable than offense from 12 months to 12 months. Even within the Broncos’ dominant 2024 marketing campaign, that they had the very best variance of any protection on a week-to-week foundation, per the FTN Soccer Almanac. The protection ought to nonetheless be good, in fact, however Vance Joseph’s group in all probability does not venture to high the league in 2025.
Can the offense make up for any decline? Possibly. There have been positives for Bo Nix final season, however the Broncos confronted one of many league’s simpler schedules of opposing defenses, and Nix’s successes usually aligned with the friendlier matchups on the docket. Coach Sean Payton was cautious to defend Nix from dropback passing conditions towards robust competitors, and with the good protection, Nix wasn’t usually requested to throw a ton from behind. When he was — together with towards the Payments and Ravens — the outcomes weren’t nice.
The Broncos went 1-7 versus groups with a profitable report earlier than their blowout victory at dwelling towards the Chiefs’ JV squad in Week 18; and after making it to the postseason, they may face a harder schedule in 2025. Additionally they went 1-6 in video games determined by seven or fewer factors — together with a loss that ought to have been an announcement win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium — though most of these slender video games seemed nearer than they have been due to late scores by Denver that did not materially influence the result. If you happen to suppose Nix takes the subsequent step, the Broncos must be forward of the Chargers. I am not as assured, which is why Denver narrowly misses out in my bracket.
0:54
Broncos have the most important roster retention
Jeff Legwold breaks down the Broncos having the most important roster retention and adjustments on the working again place.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC wild card)
Sure, after years of skepticism, I am lastly giving in and projecting the Steelers within the playoff bracket for 2025. No, I do not really feel assured about that call. I went backwards and forwards amongst all three of the AFC wild playing cards and had every of them out at one level or one other.
By latest Steelers requirements, although, final season’s efficiency was extra sustainable than typical. There was no stretch the place they received each recreation regardless of being outgained in whole yardage, and Pittsburgh went 4-4 in one-score contests. It acquired a exceptional season from Chris Boswell, who went a whopping 13-of-15 on area purpose makes an attempt of fifty yards or longer. And the Steelers continued to play groups shut whereas deciding video games by making fewer errors. Mike Tomlin’s squad received the turnover battle 12 instances, a determine topped solely by the Payments. With what could be charitably described as inconsistent quarterback play, Pittsburgh has received the turnover battle a league-high 39 instances over the previous 4 years — 5 extra instances than anyone else. It’s 30-9 in these video games however simply 8-20-1 when it loses or attracts the turnover battle.
Aaron Rodgers is not the quarterback he as soon as was, and the optimism surrounding his arrival with the Jets was clearly misplaced. However he additionally has one of the best interception price of any quarterback in NFL historical past. Over his remaining 10 video games in 2024, Rodgers threw 18 touchdowns towards 4 picks; I would not rely on him to win many shootouts this season, however the Steelers simply want the veteran to guard the soccer. That is one of many few strengths left in his recreation. If Pittsburgh’s younger offensive line can keep wholesome, the Steelers may also be capable to run the ball, which might be a welcome shock and their path to a extra well-rounded recreation mannequin. I am unsure that results in a playoff victory, however they’re the seventh seed in my AFC bracket.
My choose for 2025: Out of the playoffs
The Commanders are in all probability my controversial choose amongst groups to overlook the postseason. I already coated the unsustainable parts of what we noticed from them in 2024 in my likely-to-decline listing, together with a traditionally nice efficiency on fourth down, an previous roster with out many breakout candidates, an harm price that is prone to rise and a a lot harder schedule after a visit to the playoffs.
I might be shocked if Washington fell fully to the underside of the NFC East, in fact. This is not just like the workforce in 2013, when Robert Griffin III got here off of a critical harm and wasn’t the identical participant and the offense wasn’t fairly as sustainable. Outdoors of being spectacularly environment friendly and profitable on fourth down, nothing about Jayden Daniels’ success as a rookie hints towards mirage or flukiness. After including Laremy Tunsil and Deebo Samuel, it is fully potential the Commanders enhance on offense in 2025 and needn’t rely as usually on these fourth-down conversions.
Concurrently, there are actual 2024 Texans vibes right here, the place some splashy veteran offseason additions distract from considerations about how sustainable their efficiency was away from the quarterback place. There was no person within the AFC South who may problem the Texans as they struggled to take that subsequent step ahead, however issues are going to be harder within the NFC East with the Eagles in tow.
As promised, we have gone by the 14 playoff groups of final season and predicted eight to return to the playoffs in 2025: the Chiefs, Ravens, Payments, Chargers and Steelers within the AFC, and the Eagles, Lions and Packers within the NFC. We have nonetheless acquired six spots left to go, so which of final 12 months’s disappointing or underwhelming groups may make playoff runs?
Which lengthy photographs will make sudden journeys to the postseason?
Let’s take a look at the 5 worst groups in every convention. Since 2002, would you consider that 30% of these groups have made it to the playoffs (or been a seventh seed) the 12 months after their dismal campaigns? Three groups that ranked towards the underside of their respective conferences in 2023 managed to make all of it the way in which to the playoffs in 2024. The AFC’s Twelfth-ranked Broncos and Fifteenth-ranked Chargers pushed their method into the postseason, whereas the one workforce from the underside 5 to make it out of the common season within the NFC was the 14th-ranked Commanders.
So, time for one more rule. With 10 groups to select from and a 30% success price, I will want to select three groups that ranked within the backside 5 of the AFC or NFC a 12 months in the past to make it into the postseason in 2025. In different phrases, three groups that received six or fewer video games. Straightforward!
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC West champions)
If final 12 months’s Chargers have been the plain case for a fallen workforce seemingly to enhance and make it to the postseason, this 12 months’s 49ers are their pure successor. Along with being a perennial playoff workforce earlier than final 12 months’s 6-11 season, San Francisco has a powerful quantitative case for enchancment. It went 2-6 in one-score video games, confronted probably the most accidents of any workforce by adjusted video games misplaced and performed the NFL’s hardest schedule in 2024.
This season, the 49ers will as a substitute face the best schedule within the league. I am not offered on the concept that they’ve the identical ceiling because the 2022 and 2023 groups due to how their core superstars have aged and a few component of lacking expertise on account of the Brock Purdy extension. However a more healthy model of the workforce with Robert Saleh teaching up the protection must be a major improve. If the Rams do take a step backward due to their very own accidents, the 49ers could be the workforce greatest positioned to pounce.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC South champions)
I am working my 2024 prediction again within the AFC South, with the Jags taking on first place from Houston. They have been off by solely six video games final season, so it is laborious to determine that would go an excessive amount of worse in 2025.
Within the likely-to-improve column, I wrote about how the 2024 Jaguars have been one of many extra unfortunate groups within the league. They went 3-10 in one-score video games, turning into the primary workforce in NFL historical past to lose 10 video games by seven or fewer factors in a single season. Additionally they have been the second workforce in NFL historical past to supply just one multiple-turnover recreation all season and the primary to try this with the good thing about a 17-game marketing campaign. Jacksonville will win extra one-score video games and create extra takeaways in 2025, particularly with Travis Hunter becoming a member of the secondary.
It feels as if the Jaguars run into the Our new coach is clearly a significant improve on our previous coach cycle greater than some other workforce, however after Trevor Lawrence endured a static and irritating offense when wholesome in 2024, the hope must be that he will get again to his previous kind with Liam Coen on the helm and a extra trendy offensive assault. We’re not that far faraway from the halfway level of 2023, when the Jags have been in place to say the highest seed within the AFC in November earlier than a Lawrence harm despatched them right into a tailspin. Then once more, we have been even nearer to that second 12 months in the past, and Jacksonville actually did not seem like a 1-seed at any level in 2024.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC wild card)
The Cowboys have been going to be a wild-card workforce within the preliminary draft of those rankings, however after the Micah Parsons commerce, they dropped out. And that opened a spot for the Bears. Like San Francisco and Jacksonville, Chicago is on this 12 months’s likely-to-improve listing. Not like the 49ers and the Jaguars, although, its quantitative case is not fairly as sturdy. The Bears have been 3-7 in one-score video games, which is not preferrred, however they weren’t probably the most injured workforce, did not play the hardest schedule within the league and weren’t topic to many once-in-an-NFL-lifetime statistics.
What I believe they did do, although, is make a significant teaching improve by going from Matt Eberflus and Thomas Brown to Ben Johnson. If that seems to be the case and Johnson unlocks one of the best from Caleb Williams within the course of, Chicago might need considerably improved efficiency from the 2 most essential positions in soccer. I am unsure there’s sufficient within the tank to get the Bears previous the Lions and Packers, however with the Cowboys nobly sacrificing their greatest defensive participant two weeks earlier than the beginning of the season, I am keen to consider the Bears sneak in as a wild card in 2025.
And the ultimate three new arrivals …
With these three groups coming from towards the underside of their respective conferences to make sudden and unlikely postseason runs, we’re left with three open spots. They go to groups that did not make final 12 months’s spectacle. Two of them might be wild playing cards, however we nonetheless want any individual to win the NFC South. So, let’s begin there.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC South champions)
As I’ve talked about, I do not really feel nice about choosing towards the Buccaneers, however the constraints of making an attempt to emulate a typical postseason bracket lead me to some selections that do not really feel snug as we sit right here earlier than the beginning of the season. It is tough to make a critical case for the Saints, who look like the one ones who do not understand they’re tanking, in order that leaves the Falcons and the Panthers as the 2 choices left for the NFC South.
And if I am unable to choose the Bucs, it appears simpler to think about a situation the place the Falcons exceed expectations. Partly, that is as a result of they have been higher than the Panthers final season. Nevertheless it’s additionally as a result of we all know much less about their most essential participant in new quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who made three begins on the finish of his rookie season and led the NFL in air yards per try (10.1). What if Penix is a top-10 QB in his first full season as a starter? Which may not be the most definitely end result, particularly after Atlanta simply misplaced its high two choices on Penix’s blind aspect at proper sort out earlier than the season. However having a signal-caller with ability set whom we do not know very a lot about is a high-variance situation. Penix could be a significant disappointment. He additionally could be a star.
1:14
Yates: Penix a low-end fantasy QB, for now
Discipline Yates will not be speeding to draft Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr.
I wasn’t a fan of the choice to commerce a second-round choose and a 2026 first-rounder to maneuver again into the primary spherical and seize James Pearce Jr. as a roster-building philosophy. However solely serious about what it would imply in 2025, it isn’t laborious to consider Atlanta might be higher at speeding the quarterback with Pearce and fellow first-rounder Jalon Walker on the sting. The Falcons have been twenty ninth in stress price after they rushed 4 or fewer final season.
And when Atlanta blitzed, effectively, the 96.7 QBR it allowed was the worst mark any workforce has posted in a single season on blitzes since 2007. There have been solely seven situations of a quarterback posting a greater QBR in a single recreation final season. It is nearly unimaginable to be that unhealthy; groups with a QBR of 85 or larger when blitzing over that timeframe noticed their QBR with the blitz enhance by a median of greater than 21 factors the next season. If the Falcons even have fastened their go rush and landed on the proper quarterback, they may have an actual shot at topping Tampa Bay — even when I am reticent to totally consider in them proper now.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (AFC wild card)
This one should not be fairly as laborious to consider. Adjusting for period, Joe Burrow simply completed the third-best season in league historical past by passer score for an NFL quarterback who missed the playoffs. We won’t simply pencil in Burrow for a wholesome, identically productive season in 2025, however there’s little purpose to suppose his stage of play is abruptly about to dramatically decline. And quarterbacks who play at that stage nearly by no means miss the playoffs.
It takes a really horrific protection and a few unhealthy luck (or timing) to get there. Guess what? The Bengals had each final season. They went 4-7 in one-score video games, blowing leads they held over the Chiefs and the Ravens within the remaining two minutes. Cincinnati failed on a 2-point conversion try to win the sport with 38 seconds left towards the Ravens within the rematch. And the Bengals missed two area targets that will have given them a fourth-quarter lead towards the Chargers earlier than Los Angeles’ J.Ok. Dobbins broke a tie on a 29-yard landing run with 26 seconds to go.
Heck, the Bengals have been even terrible on protection and particular groups of their wins: Cincinnati acquired Mossed on a fourth-down prayer from Bo Nix to Marvin Mims Jr. with 14 seconds left to ship a recreation towards Denver to extra time, then missed a 33-yard area purpose that will have received it earlier than Burrow lastly took over and prevailed within the remaining minute of the additional body.
Might the Bengals take a step backward on offense, seemingly due to a Burrow harm? In fact. Might the protection, with the one notable veteran addition this offseason being sort out T.J. Slaton Jr., fail to flourish underneath new coordinator Al Golden? Positive. Cincinnati’s protection was actually terrible final season regardless of a mammoth season from Trey Hendrickson, who created 26 sacks for himself and his teammates — almost twice the quantity posted by some other edge rusher. What if Hendrickson battles nagging accidents all season after sitting out the offseason program? The Bengals may very well be even worse on protection in 2025.
On the similar time, what number of groups have the form of ceiling the Bengals have with Burrow at quarterback? Between the 2021 and 2022 campaigns, Cincinnati went 22-11 and made two deep playoff runs with him underneath middle. Even a middling protection would in all probability be sufficient to get it again into the postseason.
My choose for 2025: Within the playoffs (NFC wild card)
Our final playoff spot goes to the Cardinals, who made large upgrades on the defensive aspect of the ball this offseason. Coach Jonathan Gannon will get to work with Josh Sweat, Calais Campbell, Dalvin Tomlinson and second-round choose Will Johnson, who has seemed like a possible steal at cornerback in camp. First-rounder Walter Nolen III will begin the 12 months on the bodily unable to carry out listing with a calf harm. However the Playing cards will get 2024 first-rounder Darius Robinson again from his personal injury-abbreviated rookie 12 months, whereas BJ Ojulari returns from a torn ACL and Baron Browning settles in for his first full season with the group. There’s abruptly a ton to work with up entrance for Gannon, who needed to dial up every kind of unique seems final season to generate stress whereas coping with the league’s fourth-most-injured protection.
If the protection can enhance to league-average, the offense ought to be capable to do sufficient to push Arizona into the postseason for simply the second time since 2016. Drew Petzing’s group ranks tenth in EPA per play since Kyler Murray returned from a torn ACL in 2023. Murray posted profession highs in success price and Whole QBR final season, and there is nonetheless room for enchancment from extremely touted broad receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who had a muted rookie 12 months. If Harrison makes the leap in Yr 2, so does Arizona.
There we go! We’ve a 14-team playoff bracket. The Payments, Chiefs, Jaguars and Ravens are our division champs within the AFC, with the Bengals, Chargers and Steelers because the wild playing cards. Within the NFC, the 49ers, Eagles, Falcons and Packers win their respective divisions, whereas the Bears, Cardinals and Lions make it as wild-card groups. However who makes it to the Tremendous Bowl?
If you happen to’ve been paying consideration for a number of years now, you might need seen one thing constant about my Tremendous Bowl picks. I’ve picked the Chiefs to win the Tremendous Bowl every of the previous 5 seasons, each earlier than the common season begins and earlier than the playoffs start in addition to in my Tremendous Bowl previews after they’ve truly superior to the title recreation. They have not received each 12 months, in fact, however I do not remorse choosing the workforce that has received two titles and superior to 2 extra Tremendous Bowls over that span.
I am going again to that effectively once more in 2025, even after suggesting Kansas Metropolis will decline through the common season. I would not be shocked if the Chiefs truly enhance their underlying stage of play, particularly on the offensive aspect of the ball, just for that to be (greater than) offset by worse luck in one-score matchups. I am projecting a world the place the Chiefs win 12 or 13 video games, compete for the highest seed within the AFC, then run by the postseason to their fifth title.
0:49
RC: ‘We’re taking the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs with no consideration’
Ryan Clark makes a passionate protection of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs on “First Take.”
Which workforce will they beat within the large recreation? I wasn’t set on an NFC choose for a lot of the offseason. I attempt to keep away from choosing rematches, and whereas I nonetheless suppose the Eagles are among the many greatest groups within the convention, I am just a little involved about their protection taking a step backward in 2025. The Lions are a completely affordable choose, however I am anxious concerning the influence dropping each coordinators may have on the roster, particularly with regard to Jared Goff. I am projecting the Commanders and Vikings to overlook the playoffs fully, in order that they’re out too.
Then the Packers traded for Parsons. Including top-of-the-line gamers in soccer to a workforce I already was enthusiastic about this 12 months? That works for me. I projected a Chiefs-Packers Tremendous Bowl final season, just for accidents (and the Eagles) to waylay the Packers within the wild-card spherical. This model of the Packers must be higher. Simply not adequate to beat the Chiefs, whose offensive line additions will repay on the largest stage.
My choose: Chiefs 24, Packers 17
