It’s time to be very wrong. After six long months without the NFL, Week 1 is finally upon us. And like everyone else, I’ve had all summer to digest free agency and the draft, read all the preseason hype and form strong opinions about what will and won’t happen in 2025. I have my 14 playoff teams and my Super Bowl pick ready.
I’m just getting there a little differently. As fellow analysts and fans make their playoff predictions over the summer, they’re usually way more conservative than what plays out in reality, leaning heavily on the teams that made the playoffs the previous season. While there certainly are teams that are perennial visitors to the postseason, a lot of weird things can happen in a 17-game season. If you head to ESPN BET right now, though, 13 of the 14 teams that made the playoffs last season are favorites to make it back again, with the Steelers as the lone exception.
Instead, this column is going to try to use what history tells us to structure my predictions differently, even if it steers me to picks that feel less pleasant than the favorites from 2024. We’re entering Year 24 of the 32-team era, and while the NFL has added an extra regular-season game and a third wild-card entry, teams have spent that time in the same divisions and roughly the same playoff format. We have a reasonable idea of how much variance we’re likely to see from year to year and how the playoff bracket is likely to shift. What if I lean into that as the basis for making my predictions?
That all starts with one fact: From 2002 to 2023, an average of 7.9 of the 14 teams that qualified for the playoffs — or that would have gone to the playoffs as the 7-seed if the league had moved to a 14-team playoff format in 2002 — made it back the following season. I’ll round that up to eight. My first constraint for picking playoff teams starts there: I’m allowed to pick only eight teams from the 2024 playoffs to make it back.
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There will be a few more constraints and rules based on history, and I’ll get to them in a minute. But first, let’s talk about last season, which was a disaster in the best sort of way. I used that eight-team rule when I put together the 2024 playoff bracket, and it wasn’t a great time to do so. Ten teams made it back to the postseason, which was just the fourth time since 2002 that 10 of the top seven seeds in each conference did so. All four AFC division winners repeated, just the third time each division winner had run it back in either conference across 44 tries.
Meanwhile, the top two seeds in the NFC from 2023 missed the postseason: The 49ers and Cowboys went from the top of the conference to out of the playoffs entirely. Just two of the six teams I had leaving the postseason (the Dolphins and Browns) actually failed to make it back to the playoffs. Crucially, I had the Eagles missing the postseason, which turned out to be extremely wrong. I’ve already covered what I missed in my likely-to-decline column from mid-August, so I won’t hit that again.
And yet, while I was unquestionably wrong, the misses from last year still reinforce why it’s interesting to think about things this way. It seems absurd in hindsight to pick the Eagles to miss the playoffs. But it would have been even more ridiculous to pick the 49ers — another perennial NFC playoff contender coming off a trip to the Super Bowl — to not make the postseason. However, that’s exactly what happened, in part because the Niners were hit with the most injuries of any team.
Picking the Bears to make the postseason wasn’t smart, as proved by their disastrous 1-9 run after the Hail Mary loss to the Commanders on Oct. 27. But teams that add the right young quarterback can catch fire and accelerate faster than anyone expects, as evidenced by the team that fatefully beat Chicago that day: Washington jumped from 4-13 to 12-5 and a spot in the NFC Championship Game. Like the Bears, the Commanders were on my list of teams likely to improve in 2024, but I didn’t think Washington had the defensive firepower to make that sort of leap. And as it turned out, Jayden Daniels was much better as a rookie than consensus top pick Caleb Williams.
OK, so 2024 was bad. I’ll try to be better. If eight of the 14 playoff teams from last season are making it back to the postseason, which eight should keep their calendars open in January? And what does history tell us about which unlikely teams have the best shot of rising up and joining the playoff field? Let’s take a shot in the dark at projecting how the 2025 playoff field could look.
Jump to a section:
Eight 2024 division winners
Six 2024 wild cards
Three long shots to watch
Three other new playoff arrivals
Barnwell’s Super Bowl pick
2024 division winners: Will they make it back?
As I mentioned earlier, I’m adding some extra constraints here to further emulate history. While it’s always unlikely that any given playoff bracket will look exactly like the historical averages from the past 20-plus years, this best guess is going to work off them as a baseline for making my 2025 playoff predictions.
Quick: In the eight-division era, how often have division winners made it back to the postseason? When thinking about teams such as the Tom Brady-era Patriots and the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs winning division titles every year, it might feel like the vast majority of champs make it back to the postseason.
Well, the teams with the best quarterbacks of their generation do make it back, but they’re the exceptions, not the rule. Since 2002, just over 44% of division winners won their division again the following season, a figure that has risen slightly to 47.5% over the past 10 years. In other words, it’s generous to suggest that half of the teams that won their divisions in 2024 will do so again. Six of the eight division winners achieved that feat from 2023 to 2024, the first time that has happened since 2013 to 2014.
What about getting into the playoffs whatsoever? Since 2002, just over 60% of teams that won their divisions made it back to the postseason the following season, either by winning their division again or finishing as the 5-, 6- or 7-seed in their conference. While I understand teams didn’t really treat the 7-seed as particularly meaningful before the league moved to the 14-team playoff format, those teams were generally competitive and were in the playoff race until late in the season, so I’m willing to include them for this analysis.
Conveniently, those numbers divide into eight quite comfortably, which makes it easy to add two more constraints from history to our list as we put together our predictions. If the division winners rise and fall the way recent history suggests, I need to pick four division winners to retain their crowns and stay atop their divisions and one more division winner from 2024 to claim a wild-card spot. Yes, if history’s correct, that leaves three 2024 division winners that will miss the 2025 postseason entirely.
Well, no better time than now to start making picks. I’ll run through those eight division winners and sort them into those three pots.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC West champions)
You probably could have guessed where I’d start. While I understand concerns that the Chiefs are vulnerable to a push by the Broncos or the Chargers — and I have Mahomes & Co. as the most likely team to decline — I’m not about to pick any other team to win the AFC West.
Even if the Chiefs aren’t quite as dominant in one-score games, the arrival of two real-life left tackles in Josh Simmons and Jaylon Moore means major upgrades on what was a turnstile situation on Mahomes’ blindside last season. I’m a little concerned about the secondary with the departure of Justin Reid, but the Chiefs will be just fine. They won’t go 15-2 again, but anything short of 11 wins would be a major surprise.
1:05
Why Foxworth likes new Chiefs O-line
Domonique Foxworth breaks down how the Chiefs’ improved offensive line will benefit Patrick Mahomes this season.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC East champions)
Another team in the middle of a lengthy streak as divisional champs, the Bills will aim to claim their sixth straight AFC East title. There’s a much larger gap between Sean McDermott’s squad and the rest of the division on paper, which should give the Bills more of a cushion for things to go wrong. Teams with outlier turnover margins usually decline, which should be concerning given that Buffalo posted a league-best plus-24 turnover ratio last season, but the combination of playing from ahead and McDermott’s coaching has turned this defense into one that breaks rules.
Defenses built on creating a lot of takeaways often struggle to keep that up year after year, but the Bills have been an exception. They led the league in turnover rate on defense in 2023 and 2024, and they haven’t been out of the top seven since 2019, despite changing the vast majority of their defensive personnel over that span. It might be unrealistic to expect Josh Allen and the offense to turn the ball over just eight times all season again, but even with that turnover margin regression, Buffalo should be all good atop its division.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC East champions)
There’s no better example of how blindly picking division champs to retain their titles can go wrong than the NFC East, where no team has won back-to-back division championships since the Eagles did it in 2003 and 2004. If you think fate is conspiring to contort this into reality on an annual basis, I wouldn’t blame you; remember that the Eagles made the Super Bowl in 2022, started 10-1 in 2023 and still managed to miss out on a division title when they went 1-5 down the stretch and opened the door for the Cowboys.
I’m a little more skeptical of the Eagles repeating than the public. There should be real concerns about their defensive depth. Linebacker Nakobe Dean isn’t going to be available to start the season because of a torn patella. Plus, 44% of the defensive snaps played by members of the Eagles last season went to players who aren’t on the 2025 roster, including key contributors such as end Josh Sweat, cornerback Darius Slay, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and tackle Milton Williams. With the most expensive offense in football history on the other side of the ball, the Eagles weren’t realistically able to replace those veterans with talents of a similar caliber this offseason.
Of course, general manager Howie Roseman can still call on one of the league’s most exciting young cores of defensive talent. The sort of mind-melting collapse Philadelphia showed on defense in the second half of 2023 shouldn’t occur again with Vic Fangio in charge. Outside of a dramatic rash of injuries, there’s nothing to be nervous about with the offense, which returns 10 of 11 starters. And I think the gap between the Eagles and the rest of the division might be bigger than it seems, which should help them ease into another NFC East crown.
1:50
Stephen A. calls Jalen Hurts ‘underestimated and underappreciated’
Stephen A. Smith sounds off on the narrative that Jalen Hurts isn’t as good as some of his peers and still has more left to prove after a Super Bowl-winning campaign.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC North champions)
If Lamar Jackson stays healthy, the Ravens are winning a lot of games. He has gone a whopping 70-24 as a starter in his pro career, good for 12.6 wins per 17 games. In his seven seasons with the Ravens, he has won four division titles in the five in which he wasn’t sidelined by a late-season injury, coming up one game short of a fifth in 2020. Baltimore went 3-8 with Jackson sidelined down the stretch in 2021 and 2022, costing itself what might have been two more divisional titles in the process.
Jackson wasn’t the only one staying healthy last season. The Ravens were the league’s healthiest team by adjusted games lost on both offense and defense, per the FTN Football Almanac. In fact, the 2024 Ravens were the least-injured team since 2017. That’s going to get lost in the shuffle — no fan has ever crowed after the season about how healthy their favorite team was — but it’s going to be almost impossible for the Ravens to sustain.
This team’s ceiling and floor are still high enough to be favorites to win the AFC North again, but expect more injuries to be the cause if they do fall short.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC wild card)
With my four division retainers already claimed, I was left with one of the four remaining winners to push into the playoffs as a wild-card team. Of those four, it seemed clear to pick the Lions, who could fall off from their 15-win season and still have plenty left in the tank to make it to the postseason. Despite losing just about every pass rusher and cornerback they had on the roster by the time the defense finally fell apart in the playoffs, an inspired effort from D-coordinator Aaron Glenn and an inspired offense fueled by coordinator Ben Johnson was enough to consistently get the Lions over the hump on a weekly basis. They dominated bad teams and reliably beat good ones.
The Lions should still be among the league’s best teams, although they probably won’t ride their luck to another 7-2 mark in one-score contests. The defense can’t possibly be as injured as it was a year ago, but the offense was one of the league’s healthiest, and there are real questions about the new-look interior of their O-line. It’s tough to envision a scenario in which the Lions don’t take some sort of hit after losing both Glenn and Johnson to head-coaching gigs. That could be just enough to open the door for one of the teams below them in the NFC North, although I won’t spoil which one just yet.
That leaves me to project three 2024 division winners to miss the postseason entirely. Two of them defied that fate last season. Can they keep it up again?
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
I was skeptical of the Texans last season. And while they managed to hold onto their division title and win a playoff game for the second consecutive year, I don’t regret holding that opinion. The hype about the additions of wideout Stefon Diggs and running back Joe Mixon overshadowed an underwhelming offensive line. General manager Nick Caserio nailed a couple of his young additions to the secondary, and edge rusher Danielle Hunter was excellent in his debut season with Houston, but a team that was among the league’s oldest in 2023 didn’t have as many breakout candidates as it seemed.
The Texans posted a zero point differential, fell from 12th to 16th in DVOA and went 5-6 outside their division. But while they weren’t great, nobody in the AFC South was able to give them any competition. The Texans went 5-1 inside the division, with four of those five wins coming by four or fewer points. A couple of those might not have been quite as close as they seemed, but they weren’t able to consistently separate from the Colts and Jaguars.
It’s entirely possible the AFC South doesn’t offer any real competition this season, either, but I’m (perhaps foolishly) more optimistic that the Jaguars and Titans can look like competent teams. Caserio has completely turned over the offensive line, but the Texans are relying on young players who haven’t been good during their time in the league, unproven rookies and veterans who were cap casualties or castoffs elsewhere.
In a vacuum, without needing to pick three division winners to miss the postseason, I’d probably still peg the Texans as the favorites to win the AFC South, if only because C.J. Stroud offers such a high floor at quarterback. If I’m operating under the idea I need to pick three division winners to miss the postseason entirely, though? Houston seems more vulnerable than any of the five teams I picked above.
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
The factor making the Rams so difficult to project is uncertainty. If you could guarantee that we were about to get a healthy season from 37-year-old quarterback Matthew Stafford, there would be a much easier conversation to have about the Rams making it back to the postseason. Sean McVay’s track record is virtually unimpeachable: The Rams have made six playoff appearances in eight years with the superstar coach at the helm, including four division titles over that span.
While the Rams are saying the right things about Stafford’s back heading into Week 1, the organization played the injury down throughout the offseason, only for Stafford to repeatedly miss practices with the issue. On top of that, left tackle Alaric Jackson missed virtually all of training camp with blood clots in his legs before returning to practice last week.
The Rams are a top-heavy team, and when those stars struggle to stay healthy, there’s the potential for a season like 2022, when the offensive line went to shambles and many of the Rams’ highest-paid players were done for the year by November. I’m not sure that sort of injury reckoning is coming for the Rams or any other team in the league, but I’m concerned enough about Stafford to leave the Rams out of the playoffs if I have to pick three division winners to spend January at home.
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
Here’s where I’m tormented by my own format and forced to choose something that doesn’t feel comfortable. The Buccaneers were objectively the best team in the NFC South last season. In addition to finishing two games ahead of the Falcons for first place, Tampa Bay posted an 11.1-win Pythagorean expectation, suggesting they were actually better on a snap-by-snap basis than their 10-7 record. They were 11th in DVOA amid a division where the three other teams finished 20th (Falcons), 22nd (Saints) and 30th (Panthers). Ask me who I think will win the NFC South outside of this exercise and I’d pick the Bucs.
Within this process, though, I’ve got to pick the three division winners I have the least confidence in as the ones who will miss the postseason. And it’s tough for me to have more confidence in the Bucs than I do in the Lions, Ravens or any other team in the top five, even if I’m optimistic about what Tampa Bay is capable of doing in 2025. Maybe history is telling me I’m too locked in on a 10-win Bucs team holding onto their division title in an NFC South where everybody gets to play an easy schedule.
Of course, if I put my mind to it, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where the Bucs miss out on what would be their sixth consecutive playoff appearance. They’re already battling injuries to Tristan Wirfs, Chris Godwin Jr. and Jalen McMillan, and new offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard doesn’t live up to the departed duo of Dave Canales and Liam Coen (both of whom were hits as coordinator). A defense that was league-average last season doesn’t make up the difference. And while the Bucs are competitive, the eventual NFC South champions land on major upgrades at key positions — but we’ll get to that team later.
So, we’ve got five of our 14 playoff teams in the books. But after breaking down the divisional winners from 2024 and what trends say about their chances of making it back to the postseason, it’s time to move on to last season’s wild cards.
What about the 2024 wild-card teams?
Going back to 2002, if we include that seventh-ranked team in each conference as a would-be playoff team, 53% of the teams that made it to the postseason as a wild card returned to the postseason the following year. That figure includes teams that rise a step further and win their division as well as teams that again finish in the fifth, sixth or seventh spots. Four of the six wild cards from 2023 made it back to the playoffs in 2024, with the Browns and Dolphins as the exceptions.
With that 53% figure in mind, we’re close to a nice round number for our next constraint in picking the playoff bracket: We can pick only three of the six wild-card teams in 2024 to make it back in 2025. Three in, three out. I’ll alternate between teams that are in and out.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC North champions)
Just as I was beginning to finalize this column late last week, the Micah Parsons trade knocked the Cowboys out of my provisional playoff bracket and pushed the Packers ahead of their competition in the NFC North. As I mentioned in my reaction on the Parsons trade, the Packers weren’t far off from the Lions a year ago, finishing one spot behind Dan Campbell’s team in DVOA. The Packers are the youngest team in the league on a snap-weighted age basis, so there are plenty of potential breakout candidates on the roster.
If they were missing a bit of star power, they got all they needed with the addition of Parsons, who is one of the best defensive players in football. Assuming that Parsons doesn’t miss significant time with his back issue, the Packers added the same player who made the Cowboys the best defense in the NFL when he was on the field and its worst when he wasn’t. The Packers did so while subtracting just one player from the current roster in defensive tackle Kenny Clark.
The Packers aren’t perfect, of course. Their run defense is suddenly a question mark after the departures of Clark and T.J. Slaton Jr. Jordan Love has been inconsistent, and while there are reasons to talk yourself into the guy we saw in the second half of 2023 and 2024 as the real Love, it’s entirely possible we get another year with high highs and low lows from the 26-year-old signal-caller. If we get the post-Toyotathon version of Love for 17 games, though, the Packers could be the best team in the league. With some reservations about the Lions and Vikings, I’m pushing the Packers into first place in the NFC North.
1:54
Schefter breaks down how Parsons to the Packers came to be
Adam Schefter breaks down the massive Micah Parsons trade from Dallas to Green Bay.
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
Vikings fans are sick of hearing about their record in one-score games, but when you go from 9-0 to 4-8 then to 8-1 across Kevin O’Connell’s first three seasons in charge, it’s going to be a significant part of the conversation. We know that’s a meaningful predictor of what happens next, so it’s tough to imagine the Vikings playing at the same level and getting the same results.
Can they keep up what we saw last season? A thrilling defense led the league in turnovers, as the Vikings jumped from 19th in turnover rate to second. That’s difficult to sustain, especially with the Vikings turning over a chunk of their secondary. This was the oldest team in football on a snap-weighted age basis, and after adding several new starters in free agency and making only three top-100 picks over the past two years, it’s tough to count on O’Connell’s team getting dramatically younger this season.
One of the places where they will get younger, of course, is at quarterback, with J.J. McCarthy taking over as the starter after missing all of his rookie year with a knee injury. The Vikings invested heavily along the line of scrimmage this offseason, and they probably won’t need to lean on their quarterback as much as they did on early downs with Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins. But we just don’t know whether McCarthy will be an upgrade on the passers who preceded him. My instinct is that he’s something close, but instead, a defensive decline and a less fortunate year in one-score contests push the Vikings back toward the middle of the NFC pack.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC wild card)
One of last season’s success stories from my prediction columns, the Chargers were a classic case of a team whose underlying performance and offseason changes hinted at significant improvement. While it wasn’t always pretty for Jim Harbaugh’s team, the Chargers rode Justin Herbert and the league’s top scoring defense to an 11-win season before falling to the Texans in a frustrating playoff defeat.
To be honest, the line between the Chargers and the team they’re keeping out has become razor-thin thanks to injuries. Left tackle Rashawn Slater is already out for the season (ruptured patellar tendon), as is linebacker Junior Colson (shoulder). Guard Mekhi Becton, who missed training camp with a mysterious injury, was sidelined for most of the 2021 and 2022 seasons with knee issues. Offseason addition Najee Harris‘ status to start the season is unknown after he suffered an eye injury as part of a fireworks mishap. If this feels like a worryingly Chargers start to the season, well, you’re right.
I wouldn’t be shocked if the defense took a step backward this season, even if Jesse Minter looks like one of the finer D-coordinators in the league and might be on track for a head-coaching gig. Even if that happens, though, I have more faith in Herbert and Harbaugh shouldering the load and winning games with the offense than I do with the next team on this list.
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
In 2024, the Broncos had the league’s best defense on a per-play basis, leading all teams in expected points added (EPA) per snap. Just about every meaningful player returns from that unit, and the Broncos added Dre Greenlaw and first-round pick Jahdae Barron to the mix. But we know defense is more variable than offense from year to year. Even in their dominant 2024 campaign, the Broncos had the highest variance of any defense on a week-to-week basis, per the FTN Football Almanac. The defense should still be good, of course, but Vance Joseph’s group probably doesn’t project to top the league in 2025.
Can the offense make up for any decline? Maybe. There were positives for Bo Nix last season, but the Broncos faced one of the league’s easier schedules of opposing defenses, and Nix’s successes often aligned with the friendlier matchups on the docket. Coach Sean Payton was careful to shield Nix from dropback passing situations against tough competition, and with the great defense, Nix wasn’t often asked to throw a ton from behind. When he was — including against the Bills and Ravens — the results weren’t great.
The Broncos went 1-7 versus teams with a winning record before their blowout victory at home against the Chiefs’ JV squad in Week 18; and after making it to the postseason, the Broncos will face a tougher schedule in 2025. They also went 1-6 in games decided by seven points or less — including a loss that should have been a statement win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium — although most of those narrow games looked closer than they were because of late scores by Denver that didn’t materially impact the outcome. If you think Nix takes the next step, the Broncos should be ahead of the Chargers. I’m not as confident, which is why the Broncos narrowly miss out in my bracket.
0:54
Broncos have the largest roster retention
Jeff Legwold breaks down the Broncos having the largest roster retention and changes at the running back position.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC wild card)
Yes, after years of skepticism, I’m finally giving in and projecting the Steelers in the playoff bracket for 2025. No, I don’t feel confident about that decision. I went back and forth between all three of the AFC wild cards and had each of them out at one point or another.
By recent Steelers standards, though, last season’s performance was more sustainable than usual. There was no stretch where they won every game despite being outgained in total yardage, and Pittsburgh went 4-4 in one-score contests. They got a remarkable season from Chris Boswell, who went a whopping 13-of-15 on field goal attempts of 50 yards or longer. And they continued to play teams close while deciding games by making fewer mistakes. Mike Tomlin’s squad won the turnover battle 12 times, a figure topped only by the Bills. With what might be charitably described as inconsistent quarterback play, they’ve won the turnover battle a league-high 39 times over the past four years — five more times than anybody else. Pittsburgh is 30-9 in those games but just 8-20-1 when they lose or draw the turnover battle.
Aaron Rodgers isn’t the quarterback he once was, and the optimism surrounding his arrival with the Jets was clearly misplaced. But he also has the best interception rate of any quarterback in NFL history. Over his final 10 games in 2024, Rodgers threw 18 touchdowns against four picks; I wouldn’t count on him to win many shootouts this season, but the Steelers just need the veteran to protect the football. That’s one of the few strengths left in his game. If Pittsburgh’s young offensive line can stay healthy, the Steelers might also be able to run the ball, which would be a welcome surprise and their path to a more well-rounded game model. I’m not sure that leads to a playoff victory, but they’re the seventh seed in my AFC bracket.
My pick for 2025: Out of the playoffs
The Commanders are probably my controversial pick among teams to miss the postseason. I already covered the unsustainable elements of what we saw from them in 2024 in my likely-to-decline list, including a historically great performance on fourth down, an old roster without many breakout candidates, an injury rate that’s likely to rise and a much tougher schedule after a trip to the playoffs.
I would be surprised if the Commanders fell entirely to the bottom of the NFC East, of course. This isn’t like the team in 2013, when Robert Griffin III came off of a serious injury and wasn’t the same player and the offense wasn’t quite as sustainable. Outside of being spectacularly efficient and successful on fourth down, nothing about Jayden Daniels‘ success as a rookie hints toward mirage or flukiness. After adding Laremy Tunsil and Deebo Samuel, it’s entirely possible the Commanders improve on offense in 2025 and don’t need to rely as often on those fourth-down conversions.
Simultaneously, there’s real 2024 Texans vibes here, where some splashy veteran offseason additions distract from concerns about how sustainable their performance was away from the quarterback position. There was nobody in the AFC South who could challenge the Texans as they struggled to take that next step forward, but things are going to be tougher in the NFC East with the Eagles in tow.
As promised, we’ve gone through the 14 playoff teams of last season and predicted eight to return to the playoffs in 2025: the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, Chargers and Steelers in the AFC, and the Eagles, Lions and Packers in the NFC. We’ve still got six spots left to go, so which of last year’s disappointing or underwhelming teams could make playoff runs?
Which long shots will make unexpected trips to the postseason?
Let’s look at the five worst teams in each conference. Since 2002, would you believe that 30% of those teams have made it to the playoffs (or been a seventh seed) the year after their dismal campaigns? Three teams that ranked toward the bottom of their respective conferences in 2023 managed to make it all the way to the playoffs in 2024. The AFC’s 12th-ranked Broncos and 15th-ranked Chargers pushed their way into the postseason, while the only team from the bottom five to make it out of the regular season in the NFC was the 14th-ranked Commanders.
So, time for another rule. With 10 teams to pick from and a 30% success rate, I’ll need to pick three teams that ranked in the bottom five of the AFC or NFC a year ago to make it into the postseason in 2025. In other words, three teams that won six games or less. Easy!
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC West champions)
If last year’s Chargers were the obvious case for a fallen team likely to improve and make it to the postseason, this year’s 49ers are their natural successor. In addition to being a perennial playoff team before last year’s 6-11 season, the 49ers have a strong quantitative case for improvement. They went 2-6 in one-score games, faced the most injuries of any team by adjusted games lost and played the NFL’s toughest schedule in 2024.
This season, they’ll instead face the easiest schedule in the league. I’m not sold they have the same ceiling as the 2022 and 20223 teams because of how their core superstars have aged and some element of missing talent as a result of the Brock Purdy extension. But a healthier version of the 49ers with Robert Saleh coaching up the defense should be a significant upgrade. If the Rams do take a step backward because of their own injuries, the 49ers would be the team best positioned to pounce.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC South champions)
I’m running my 2024 prediction back in the AFC South, with the Jags taking over first place from Houston. They were off by only six games last season, so it’s hard to figure that could go too much worse in 2025.
In the likely-to-improve column, I wrote about how the 2024 Jaguars were one of the more unlucky teams in the league. They went 3-10 in one-score games, becoming the first team in NFL history to lose 10 games by seven points or less in a single season. They also were the second team in NFL history to produce only one multiple-turnover game all season and the first to do that with the benefit of a 17-game campaign. They’ll win more one-score games and create more takeaways in 2025, especially with Travis Hunter joining the secondary.
It feels like the Jaguars run into the Our new coach is obviously a major upgrade on our old coach cycle more than any other team, but after Trevor Lawrence endured a static and frustrating offense when healthy in 2024, the hope has to be that he gets back to his old form with Liam Coen at the helm and a more modern offensive attack. We’re not that far removed from the midway point of 2023, when the Jags were in position to claim the top seed in the AFC in November before a Lawrence injury sent them into a tailspin. Then again, we were even closer to that moment 12 months ago, and the Jags certainly didn’t look like a 1-seed at any point in 2024.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC wild card)
The Cowboys were going to be a wild-card team in the initial draft of these rankings, but after the Micah Parsons trade, they dropped out. And that opened a spot for the Bears. Like the 49ers and the Jaguars, Chicago is on this year’s likely-to-improve list. Unlike the 49ers and the Jaguars, though, Chicago’s quantitative case isn’t quite as strong. The Bears were 3-7 in one-score games, which isn’t ideal, but they weren’t the most injured team, didn’t play the toughest schedule in the league and weren’t subject to many once-in-an-NFL-lifetime statistics.
What I think the Bears did do, though, is make a major coaching upgrade by going from Matt Eberflus and Thomas Brown to Ben Johnson. If that turns out to be the case and Johnson unlocks the best from Caleb Williams in the process, the Bears might have significantly improved performance from the two most important positions in football. I’m not sure there’s enough in the tank to get them past the Lions and Packers, but with the Cowboys nobly sacrificing their best defensive player two weeks before the start of the season, I’m willing to believe the Bears sneak in as a wild card in 2025.
And the final three new arrivals …
With those three teams coming from toward the bottom of their respective conferences to make unexpected and unlikely postseason runs, we’re left with three open spots. They go to teams that didn’t make last year’s spectacle. Two of them will be wild cards, but we still need somebody to win the NFC South. So, let’s start there.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC South champions)
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t feel great about picking against the Buccaneers, but the constraints of trying to emulate a typical postseason bracket lead me to some choices that don’t feel comfortable as we sit here before the start of the season. It’s difficult to make a serious case for the Saints, who appear to be the only ones who don’t realize they’re tanking, so that leaves the Falcons and the Panthers as the two options left for the NFC South.
And if I can’t pick the Bucs, it seems easier to imagine a scenario where the Falcons exceed expectations. In part, that’s because they were better than the Panthers last season. But it’s also because we know less about their most important player in new quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who made three starts at the end of his rookie season and led the NFL in air yards per attempt (10.1). What if Penix is a top-10 QB in his first full season as a starter? That might not be the most likely outcome, especially after the Falcons just lost their top two options on Penix’s blindside at right tackle before the season. But having a signal-caller with a good skill set whom we don’t know very much about is a high-variance scenario. Penix might be a major disappointment. He also might be a star.
1:14
Yates: Penix Jr. a low-end fantasy QB, for now
Field Yates won’t be rushing to draft Falcons’ QB Michael Penix Jr.
I wasn’t a fan of the decision to trade a second-round pick and a 2026 first-rounder to move back into the first round and grab James Pearce Jr. as a roster-building philosophy. But solely thinking about what it will mean in 2025, it’s not hard to believe the Falcons will be better at rushing the quarterback with Pearce and fellow first-rounder Jalon Walker on the edge. The Falcons were 29th in pressure rate when they rushed four or less last season.
And when Atlanta blitzed, well, the 96.7 QBR it allowed was the worst mark any team has posted in a single season on blitzes since 2007. There were only seven instances of a quarterback posting a better QBR in a single game last season. It’s almost impossible to be that bad; teams with a QBR of 85 or higher when blitzing over that time frame saw their QBR with the blitz improve by an average of more than 21 points the following season. If the Falcons actually have fixed their pass rush and landed on the right quarterback, they will have a real shot at topping Tampa Bay — even if I’m reticent to fully believe in them right now.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC wild card)
This one shouldn’t be quite as hard to believe. Adjusting for era, Joe Burrow just finished the third-best season in league history by passer rating for an NFL quarterback who missed the playoffs. We can’t just pencil in Burrow for a healthy, identically productive season in 2025, but there’s little reason to think his level of play is suddenly about to dramatically decline. And quarterbacks who play at that level almost never miss the playoffs.
It takes a truly horrific defense and some bad luck (or timing) to get there. Guess what? The Bengals had both last season. They went 4-7 in one-score games, blowing leads they held over the Chiefs and the Ravens in the final two minutes. Cincinnati failed on a 2-point conversion attempt to win the game with 38 seconds left against the Ravens in the rematch. And the Bengals missed two field goals that would have given them a fourth-quarter lead against the Chargers before Los Angeles’ J.K. Dobbins broke a tie on a 29-yard touchdown run with 26 seconds to go.
Heck, the Bengals were even awful on defense and special teams in their wins: They got Mossed on a fourth-down prayer from Bo Nix to Marvin Mims Jr. with 14 seconds left to send a game with the Broncos to overtime then missed a 33-yard field goal that would have won it before Burrow finally took over and prevailed in the final minute of the extra frame.
Could the Bengals take a step backward on offense, likely because of a Burrow injury? Of course. Could the defense, whose only notable veteran addition this offseason was tackle T.J. Slaton Jr., fail to flourish under new coordinator Al Golden? Sure. Cincinnati’s defense was truly awful last season despite a mammoth season from Trey Hendrickson, who created 26 sacks for himself and his teammates — nearly twice the number posted by any other edge rusher. What if Hendrickson battles nagging injuries all season after sitting out the offseason program? The Bengals could be even worse on defense in 2025.
At the same time, how many teams have the sort of ceiling the Bengals have with Burrow at quarterback? Between the 2021 and 2022 campaigns, the Bengals went 22-11 and made two deep playoff runs with him under center. Even a middling defense would probably be enough to get them back into the postseason.
My pick for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC wild card)
Our last playoff spot goes to the Cardinals, who made massive upgrades on the defensive side of the ball this offseason. Coach Jonathan Gannon will get to work with Josh Sweat, Calais Campbell, Dalvin Tomlinson and second-round pick Will Johnson, who has looked like a potential steal at cornerback in camp. First-rounder Walter Nolen III will start the year on the physically unable to perform list with a calf injury. But the Cards will get 2024 first-rounder Darius Robinson back from his own injury-abbreviated rookie year, while BJ Ojulari returns from a torn ACL and Baron Browning settles in for his first full season with the organization. There’s suddenly a ton to work with up front for Gannon, who had to dial up all kinds of exotic looks last season to generate pressure while dealing with the league’s fourth-most injured defense.
If the defense can improve to league-average, the offense should be able to do enough to push Arizona into the postseason for just the second time since 2016. Drew Petzing’s group ranks 10th in EPA per play since Kyler Murray returned from a torn ACL in 2023. Murray posted career highs in success rate and Total QBR last season, and there’s still room for improvement from highly touted wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who had a muted rookie year. If Harrison makes the leap in Year 2, so does Arizona.
There we go! We have a 14-team playoff bracket. The Bills, Chiefs, Jaguars and Ravens are our division champs in the AFC, with the Bengals, Chargers and Steelers as the wild cards. In the NFC, the 49ers, Eagles, Falcons and Packers win their respective divisions, while the Bears, Cardinals and Lions make it as wild-card teams. But who makes it to the Super Bowl?
If you’ve been paying attention for a few years now, you might have noticed something consistent about my Super Bowl selections. I’ve picked the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl each of the past five seasons, both before the regular season begins and before the playoffs begin as well as in my Super Bowl previews after they’ve actually advanced to the title game. They haven’t won every year, of course, but I don’t regret picking the team that has won two titles and advanced to two more Super Bowls over that span.
I’m going back to that well again in 2025, even after suggesting Kansas City will decline during the regular season. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chiefs actually improve their underlying level of play, especially on the offensive side of the ball, only for that to be (more than) offset by worse luck in one-score matchups. I’m projecting a world where the Chiefs win 12 or 13 games, compete for the top seed in the AFC then run through the postseason to their fifth title.
0:49
RC: ‘We are taking the Kansas City Chiefs for granted’
Ryan Clark makes a passionate defense of the Kansas City Chiefs on “First Take.”
Who will they beat in the big game? I wasn’t set on an NFC pick for most of the offseason. I try to avoid picking rematches, and while I still think the Eagles are among the best teams in the conference, I’m a little concerned about their defense taking a step backward in 2025. The Lions are a totally reasonable pick, but I’m worried about the impact losing both coordinators will have on the roster, especially with regard to Jared Goff. I’m projecting the Commanders and Vikings to miss the playoffs entirely, so they’re out too.
Then the Packers traded for Micah Parsons. Adding one of the best players in football to a team I already was excited about this year? That works for me. I projected a Chiefs-Packers Super Bowl last season, only for injuries (and the Eagles) to waylay the Packers in the wild-card round. This version of the Packers should be better. Just not good enough to beat the Chiefs, whose offensive line additions will pay off on the biggest stage.
My pick: Chiefs 24, Packers 17
