Football is back, and to celebrate the start of the 2025 NFL season, we’ve come up with 25 questions about the teams, players, and coaches who will shape the next five months. We’ll try our best to answer those questions and figure out what the hell will happen this year in this wacky league.
1. Will Micah Parsons make the Green Bay Packers a Super Bowl contender?
Assuming that Micah Parsons’s back allows it, he’ll make his debut in a Packers uniform against the Lions on Sunday. Detroit averaged 29 points in its two matchups with Green Bay last season (both wins for the Lions) and should offer the new-look Packers defense a formidable early test. Last year—in Jeff Hafley’s first season as defensive coordinator—this unit was a revelation, finishing sixth in points allowed and fourth in expected points added per play. But something just felt off. It may have been the overreliance on turnovers and sacks or the fact that Green Bay finished 28th in dropback success rate allowed. It wasn’t a sustainable model, and this group struggled against good offenses that stayed ahead of the chains and out of obvious passing situations. The Packers weren’t going to suddenly elevate to championship-level defensive play by just running back the same unit this year. They needed to evolve and build a more sustainable approach.
Parsons, who cost Green Bay two first-round picks, Kenny Clark, and $188 million, could spearhead that evolution all on his own. My colleague Diante Lee explained how in his breakdown of the trade from the Packers’ perspective:
On the field, this Packers defense finally has the chess piece it’s been searching for: a player who doesn’t need any help from the defensive coordinator to strike fear into the hearts of opposing quarterbacks. Last year’s Green Bay defense recorded a lot of sacks (45), but its 35 percent pressure rate ranked just 13th—and eighth among teams that made the postseason. If you remove blitzes, that rate dips to 33 percent, which was also around the middle of the pack last year. To have produced that many sacks without consistently generating pressure speaks to the schematic advantages of defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, but because of how quickly opponents adapt to new play callers, it would have been tough to make that benchmark again in subsequent years.
Hafley was cooking opposing pass protections with blitzes and simulated pressures last season, but Green Bay’s standard pass rushes weren’t so effective. And well-coached offenses eventually even adapted to the stuff that had been working for Hafley. Take the Packers’ two games against Minnesota. In the first matchup, Green Bay’s defense found success using simulated pressures. Hafley called four of them in the second half of that game, resulting in two sacks of Sam Darnold and two incomplete passes.
Unsurprisingly, Hafley’s game plan for the Week 17 rematch called for even more simulated pressures. Green Bay ran six of them in the first 20 minutes of the game, with decent results. But then Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell adjusted, keeping in six and seven blockers to give Darnold more time to read the defense. Darnold completed his next three passes against simulated pressures, with all three completions going for first downs. Hafley didn’t call another one the rest of the game, and the Vikings won 27-25.
These wild coverage rotations can confuse the quarterback, but then defenders wind up in spots they’re not used to. The defense creates confusion at the cost of sound coverage. I’m guessing that Hafley will still blitz and dial up simulated pressures with Parsons in the fold this season. He just won’t have to do it as often as he did in 2024. The Packers likely won’t have as many interceptions this season as they did last year, and even matching their 2024 sack total could be difficult, but the defense should improve in games against the NFC’s top teams. Green Bay can’t make it to a Super Bowl without going through the offenses that gave it the most trouble last season.
2. Will the San Francisco 49ers stay healthy?
When Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers have been healthy, they’ve been contenders. So the road to recovery from last year’s disaster season starts with better injury luck. That’s an extremely low bar to clear, considering San Francisco led the NFL with 141.2 adjusted games lost due to injury in 2024, per FTN. At various points Shanahan lost his entire running back room, including Christian McCaffrey. In October Brandon Aiyuk went down for the rest of the year. Deebo Samuel and Jauan Jennings both missed a couple of games. Trent Williams was one of many injured players along the offensive line. George Kittle missed two games with a hamstring injury. Brock Purdy missed a game due to a shoulder injury and another late in the season with an elbow injury. And that’s just the offense. If I went through the entire list of last year’s 49ers ailments, we’d be here all day.
The injury bug struck again at the start of training camp, but this week a number of key contributors returned to practice, including Jennings and starting right guard Dominick Puni. Rookie receiver Jordan Watkins was the only player on the 53-man roster who missed Monday’s practice. The 49ers will be without Aiyuk for at least the first month of the season. But other than that, San Francisco is as healthy as it’s been since its Super Bowl run in 2023 … for now.
NFL 2025
3. Is Matthew Stafford’s back OK?
The Rams don’t stand a chance in 2025 without Stafford. They didn’t have him for the first month of training camp, as he was held out due to an aggravated disk in his back, but he returned to practice on August 18 and has been with the team ever since. Rams coach Sean McVay said that Stafford would be a full participant at practice this week and will start against the Texans on Sunday. According to camp reports, Stafford hasn’t been limited since returning to practice. Still, it’s never a good sign when your 37-year-old quarterback is dealing with a bad back. Back problems tend to linger at that age, and that could be problematic for a quarterback whose game is built around making highly difficult throws. I won’t speculate on Stafford’s true health or how it could affect his season, but it will be something to monitor all year.
4. Will Jalen Hurts’s playoff momentum carry over to this season?
Jalen Hurts saved his best for last in the 2024 season, capping off what had been an underwhelming campaign with two nearly flawless showings in wins over the Commanders in the NFC championship game and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Per PFF, he finished the NFC title game with a 91.4 grade (out of 100) and got an 86.7 grade in his Super Bowl MVP–winning performance. Those marked only the second and third instances when Hurts recorded an 80-plus grade that season and the first since a Week 8 win over the Bengals. The Hurts we saw in those last two games looked like a different quarterback than the one he’d been over the first three months of the season.
That regular-season version of Hurts had looked limited—and flawed. He threw four interceptions and lost three fumbles in September, and he averaged 33 pass attempts over the first four games. Philadelphia dramatically cut its pass usage after that, and Hurts topped 30 attempts just once across his final 11 regular-season starts. The $255 million quarterback had clearly taken a back seat to Saquon Barkley and Philly’s dominant run game. And his statistical volume plummeted—but he stopped turning the ball over. He had just three total turnovers over the last three months and coughed it up just once during the playoff run. But there was a downside: Hurts registered just one “big-time throw” from Week 11 to the divisional-round win over Los Angeles. The Eagles’ pass game wasn’t nearly as productive as it had been in previous seasons and was no longer generating big plays through the air. After a December win over Carolina, a frustrated A.J. Brown was asked what was holding the Eagles offense back, and he said: “Passing.”
Passing was not a problem in the team’s final two games, obviously. And it wasn’t just that Hurts played better football: He also played more aggressively. In the wins over Washington and Kansas City, he finished with seven big-time throws, matching his entire second-half total from the regular season. He didn’t just throw with more conviction; he seemed to be running with more confidence and speed, too. He looked more like the Hurts we saw during his breakout campaign in 2022, when he cemented his status as Philadelphia’s franchise quarterback.
If the Eagles are going to repeat as champions and avoid the Super Bowl hangover they suffered in 2023, they’ll need the championship version of Hurts to show up all season. It’s not a given that the defense will finish near the top of the league once again—as defensive performance is generally volatile from season to season—or that all the key components of the run game will stay healthy. So Hurts could be asked to do more to get Philadelphia back to the championship rounds of the playoffs.
5. Is Deebo Samuel washed up—or just what the Washington Commanders need?
Deebo Samuel was the second-biggest offseason acquisition for the Commanders offense behind left tackle Laremy Tunsil, but he’ll have the most obvious impact on how Washington builds on its 2024 success—at least, if he can still run as well as he did during his peak in San Francisco. By the end of last season, there were concerns about whether Samuel still had the same juice in his legs, to the point that Kyle Shanahan had to field questions about it. “I don’t think Deebo’s slowed down,” Shanahan said in December. “I think he got banged up earlier in the year [in a Week 2 game against Minnesota]. … But by no means do I think he’s lost it. His looks haven’t been quite as good this year, just like everybody [on our team]. When the 10 guys around you aren’t doing as good, whether it’s him, whether it’s the quarterback, whether it’s the O-line, you’re not going to do as good as you did the year before.”
While Samuel’s production suggests that he is slowing down—he caught 51 passes for 670 yards across 15 games in 2024, compared with 77 receptions for 1,405 yards in 16 games in 2021—the tracking data from Next Gen Stats says otherwise. Samuel reached a running speed of at least 20 mph four times last season, including in a 43-yard kick return in Week 7. On this long touchdown catch against Seattle in Week 6, he reached 20.9 mph, which is the fastest he’s run over the past five years.
Samuel was very good at generating yards after the catch, too. He was tied for fifth in the NFL in Next Gen’s YAC over expected metric at plus-120 yards, behind only Puka Nacua, A.J. Brown, CeeDee Lamb, and Ja’Marr Chase. And Samuel did it on significantly fewer targets. Even if he isn’t a downfield option for Jayden Daniels, he can still be a high-level underneath receiver. That could be huge for the Commanders offense, which spammed perimeter screens last year, finishing second in the league with 60 such plays, per Pro Football Focus. While the volume was there last season, Washington is hoping that Samuel will boost its efficiency on those screen plays. The other offenses that used them at a high rate last season were far more efficient than the Commanders.
NFL Leaders in Wide Screen Passes, 2024 (Pro Football Focus)
If Washington’s offense is going to stave off the regression monster—it can’t bank on its fourth-down dominance carrying over from last season—it will need to find new sources of efficient play. Targeting Samuel on those early-down screen passes should provide one. And if he can give the Commanders the boost they’re searching for, we’ll look back at the trade—which cost them only a fifth-round pick—as one of the biggest steals of the offseason.
6. Will Arch Manning end the season as QB1 in the 2026 draft class?
The Arch Manning QB1 campaign is off to a poor start after the Texas quarterback got pantsed by Ohio State’s defense in his first college start. It’ll be hard for him to come back from getting dunked on by Matt Patricia, but I’m still holding on to my Arch stock, despite what we all saw on Saturday. He was inaccurate on quick throws underneath, he threw a few passes into coverage, and he should have been picked off multiple times. It was a crappy performance through and through, but the young Manning showed enough flashes that pro scouts should still be interested. Most of those came at the end of the game, with Texas playing in desperation mode. Here are some of the highlights:
Unfortunately, there were far more lowlights, including sprayed throws, poor reads, and bad pocket movement.
This year’s quarterback class is deep with potential first-round picks, including LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Penn State’s Drew Allar, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. Manning doesn’t have a wide margin for error in the QB1 race, but he does have the option not to go into the draft and instead to return to Austin for another season. Based on what we saw in Columbus, he may need to.
7. How has Chip Kelly’s offense evolved in his time away from the NFL?
The Raiders are bringing Chip Kelly back to the NFL after an eight-year absence. Kelly didn’t leave the league with a stellar reputation—following his successful debut season with the Eagles in 2014, defenses caught up to his fast-paced attack, which traded complexity for speed. Opponents said that they knew what plays were coming before the snap, and once they shut down some of Philadelphia’s easy buttons, the Eagles had trouble sustaining drives.
"I don't think there's any secret," former Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner said after a win over Kelly’s Eagles in 2015. "There was a lot of talk about their fast-paced offense, but it doesn't matter. No matter how fast they ran a play, we were just on it. … We were ready for everything they had."
Wagner’s former coach Pete Carroll is the person welcoming Kelly back to the pro level after he won a national championship as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator last season. And Carroll obviously appreciates the changes that Kelly has made since his first stint in the NFL. The new Raiders OC has added some much-needed complexity to the run game, slowed down the pace to play more complementary football, and changed the look of his personnel since his time at Oregon, with the Eagles, and with the 49ers.
“Going from those five-wide [formations], fast, no-huddle, breakneck speed, shiny helmets to getting in a huddle and playing with 12 personnel is a little bit different,” Kelly said in February.
Now, Kelly is more prepared to take on the challenges posed by NFL defenses. And he’s also got some talent to work with. In Geno Smith, he’ll have his best-ever pro quarterback. The team drafted him a potential franchise running back in Ashton Jeanty. Plus, he has Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer, two talented tight ends he can deploy in those 12-personnel sets. Kelly will have to scheme around a mediocre offensive line and receiving corps, but that’s what the money’s for. If he earns his checks this season, the Raiders could have a top-10 offense, which might be enough to help them compete for a playoff spot if the defense isn’t a total disaster.
8. Can Travis Hunter really play both ways?
That’s still the plan, according to Jaguars general manager James Gladstone, even after Hunter missed the second half of camp with an upper body injury. "There hasn't been any shift on that front," Gladstone said last week. "We expect him to be who we know him to be, and that's somebody who impacts both sides of the football.”
Hunter played 19 snaps in his lone preseason appearance, a 31-25 loss to the Steelers, with 11 coming on offense and eight on defense, per PFF. According to ESPN’s Mike DiRocco, the split was similar in camp practices, 188-to-176 in both seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 drills. The Jags seem to be committed to the bit. There’s no telling how it will turn out or what the total volume of snaps he’ll get in real game action will be. But the preseason outing may have given us some clues. Hunter started the game at receiver, playing both in the slot and on the outside, and Jacksonville waited until the second quarter to give him his first defensive rep. He stayed at left cornerback for all of his snaps on that side of the ball and didn’t play another offensive snap after that.
Unfortunately, Hunter missed the team’s final two preseason games, so it’s unclear whether the Jaguars will stick to a similar substitution pattern for the first two-way skill player the NFL has seen since Deion Sanders in 1995. We’ve had other two-way players in recent years, but they’ve played in the trenches: Scott Mattlock split time between fullback and the defensive line for the Chargers last season; Patrick Ricard did the same for the Ravens but eventually made the switch to fullback full-time. And that’s not to mention that those big guys were in part-time roles on both sides of the ball. The Jaguars view Hunter as a foundational piece for the franchise. We’ve truly never seen anything like this in the modern era of the NFL, which makes it hard to predict how it might turn out. All we can do is watch.
9. Will the New York Giants keep Jaxson Dart on the bench all season?
That’ll be harder to do after Jaxson Dart lit it up in the preseason. The 25th pick in this year’s draft completed 68.1 percent of his passes for 372 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions across three games. Crucially, he took only two sacks on 52 dropbacks. Giants coach Brian Daboll didn’t overwhelm his rookie with a ton of complex reads—he called a lot of RPOs for Dart—but the quarterback still managed to flash some impressive pocket presence and downfield accuracy.
Giants fans are obviously excited, but they’ll have to wait a bit before they see Dart in a real game. Russell Wilson is starting, and the rookie will back him up after beating out Jameis Winston for the role during the preseason. That had not been the initial plan—the Giants had originally expected to give Dart a redshirt year behind the two veterans they acquired in free agency.
"We've been through this [in Buffalo]. We went through it with Josh Allen," said Giants general manager Joe Schoen in May. "We had a little bit different quarterback room at the time, but he was going to sit his rookie year and then halftime of the opening game we're getting smoked by Baltimore, so we put him in and the rest was history. So that plan didn't go as well, but we didn't have a Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston in the room. So again, Jaxson's going to come in, he's got to learn the offense … so the ability for him to learn and sit behind two consummate pros already will be beneficial for him."
In beating out Winston, Dart has already cleared one hurdle. But it might be more difficult to unseat Wilson with Daboll fighting for his job in 2025. If I were the Giants head coach, I’d keep the rookie on the bench. I don’t know whether Daboll can save his job without making an unlikely playoff run, but there’s no chance of it happening if the Giants struggle and Dart plays poorly. Bank that goodwill you built during Dart’s preseason run and hope it’s enough to convince ownership that the franchise is finally on the right track under center.
10. Can Dan Campbell keep the Detroit Lions rolling after losing both coordinators?
The Lions have won 27 regular-season games since 2023. That’s tops in the NFL, so it’s not surprising that Dan Campbell’s coaching staff got raided this offseason. Detroit lost a total of eight assistant coaches from last year’s staff, including offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. The Lions didn’t lose much on-field talent—outside of some offensive linemen—but the operation could look a lot different with two new play callers.
On the offensive side, former Jets coordinator and Sean Payton assistant John Morton replaces Johnson after serving as Denver’s pass game coordinator the past two seasons. Johnson and Morton have similar coaching influences, so don’t expect too many changes to the overall look of the Lions offense. But based on preseason comments from the players, the team could be committing more heavily to the pass than in recent years. Morton “knows [the receivers] can win one-on-one routes,” Jameson Williams said during a training camp interview in late July. “He knows how open we can get when we get those one-on-one coverages. He’s putting his faith in his guys, and I love that about him.” Fellow receiver Kalif Raymond said that Morton is giving the receivers more freedom to get “crafty” and doesn’t view them as just “robots or lines on paper,” which could be a change from Johnson’s approach.
Morton was brought over from Denver, but Campbell promoted from within to fill Glenn’s spot, elevating linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard to the role of defensive coordinator. So far, it sounds like Detroit’s defense will remain the same. Expect a lot of man coverage and an aggressive, attacking front. “My mentality is to get after you, play in and play out,” Sheppard said during training camp, and according to reports, the Lions sent a lot of blitzes during summer practices.
It won’t matter how Detroit deploys its defense, though, if the unit doesn’t get healthier. This group led the NFL in adjusted games lost in 2024 and had the sixth-most defensive games lost due to injury since 2001, per FTN. The list of injuries was long, but the two key injured players were Aidan Hutchinson (broken leg) and Alim McNeill (torn ACL). Both were central figures for the team’s defensive line, and both are back for the start of the 2025 season. Hutchinson has been tearing up camp, and linebacker Devon Kennard says that he looks even better than he did before the devastating leg injury. "I see a better player than we had last year," Kennard said at the start of camp. "I'm looking for Hutch to have a big season.”
Kennard was also impressed by 2024 first-round pick Terrion Arnold this offseason. If Detroit is going to play a lot of man coverage, as it did under Glenn, it’ll need the second-year pro to be stickier. So far, so good. “He's seeing it faster,” Kennard said. “He's feeling the routes faster. That's a guy I've already seen a leap in.”
Even if Detroit’s offense does take a step back with a new play caller and a young offensive line, improvement from a healthier defense (knock on wood) could make up the difference.
11. How will Caleb Williams fit in Ben Johnson’s offense?
The Bears brought Ben Johnson in to get Caleb Williams back on track following an uneven rookie season. Chicago’s offensive design did the 2024 first pick no favors last year, but Williams also had issues of his own. He was wildly inaccurate on downfield throws, even when receivers were open, and he hung on to the ball too long, which led to an NFL-leading 68 sacks. That won’t work in Johnson’s offense, which is predicated on good timing and quarterback accuracy.
Johnson has said that he wants Williams to complete at least 70 percent of his passes this season, and while he hasn’t set a public goal for sack numbers, I’m assuming that he wants those to improve as well. Results were mixed in the preseason. In Williams’s first appearance, he failed to hit the 70 percent completion benchmark, but he did show off better downfield accuracy and avoided any sacks. In his last appearance, he took a bad sack after holding on to the ball for five seconds in the pocket … although he did complete more than 70 percent of his passes.
Still, Johnson called that recent offensive performance “sloppy.” The first-year coach has set a high standard for Williams and this unit throughout camp, and there have been a few reports of Johnson ripping into the team after poor execution. He’s been particularly hard on his quarterback. But that’s the kind of coaching Williams wants, says Johnson. "The standard has been set, the bar has been set high," he said last week. "He has said he wants to not just be one of the best quarterbacks in this league, but he wants to have a legacy that lasts for a long time. So, we're coaching him that way. We're approaching that way, that's not going to change.”
Johnson also says he understands that Williams isn’t “a finished product” in his second season, so he will give his new quarterback “a little bit of grace.” “As long as we're not making the same mistake twice, we're going to be right on track and we'll be just fine,” Johnson said during a recent radio interview.
We know that Williams has the talent to play at a high level. There were plenty of flashes of that during his rookie season. But he’s got a lot to improve on if this partnership is going to work. According to Case Keenum, a veteran backup who’s doubling as a mentor for Williams, the young QB is putting in the effort. “He wants it, he wants it bad,” Keenum said, via The Athletic. “I’ve heard of young guys who just kind of show up and go, and he’s not one of those guys.”
Williams should also have more help this season. Johnson is one of the brightest offensive minds in the game, and the Bears have fortified the line with a whole new interior, led by Pro Bowl guard Joe Thuney, who came over in a trade with Kansas City. The question now is whether Williams can alter his playing style to fit what Johnson’s offense demands. The Bears can bring in all the reinforcements they want and Johnson can dial up amazing plays, but if Williams doesn’t cut down his average time to throw and inaccurate pass rate, it won’t matter.
12. Can the Cincinnati Bengals defense do its part?
After wasting Joe Burrow’s phenomenal 2024 season, the Bengals had no choice but to make changes to their defense, which ranked 29th or worse in yards allowed per play, EPA per play, and success rate, per TruMedia. That started with a change at the top. Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo was replaced by Notre Dame’s Al Golden. The Bengals drafted edge rusher Shemar Stewart in the first round—and finally got him to sign a contract after a long dispute concerning injury guarantees—and linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. in the second. They brought in defensive tackle Tedarrell Slaton to shore up the interior run defense. They also avoided having to replace Trey Hendrickson, who ended his offseason-long holdout after getting a $14 million raise.
Other than that, though, the 2025 Bengals defense looks awfully similar to the 2024 unit, which is especially concerning after a couple of brutal preseason showings—both Philly’s and Washington’s running backs found numerous wide-open holes to stroll through for big gains. Bengals safety Jordan Battle doesn’t seem too concerned, saying in late August, “I feel like we’re fine.”
But Battle also said, "Compared to last year, I feel like it's not too much of a difference”—and that probably isn’t a good thing. There’s plenty of potential for this to be another long, frustrating season for Burrow and the Bengals offense, which really just needs any defensive support to drag this team to AFC contention.
13. Is J.J. McCarthy ready?
For my extended thoughts on the challenges J.J. McCarthy is facing in his first full NFL season, check out this piece from last week. Here are the CliffsNotes: Last season, the Vikings put a ton of work into ensuring that McCarthy was mentally prepared to step into the starting role in 2025. That seems to have paid off, as McCarthy’s command of the offense has impressed both coaches and teammates in camp. Whether or not he will be able to execute at a high level in real contests is another matter. We know that the young signal caller, who won a championship at Michigan, can manage a game, but there are questions about his throwing ability. More specifically, he’ll need to show that he can make touch throws to the intermediate areas of the field if the Vikings passing game is going to remain as explosive as it was with Sam Darnold a year ago.
14. Does Aaron Rodgers have anything left?
To be fair to Aaron Rodgers, we’re mostly judging his current ability on the basis of last season, his first back after a significant injury. It’s plausible, if not likely, that Rodgers could regain some of his pre-injury mobility now that he’s two full years removed from a torn Achilles. But I’m skeptical, as Rodgers was already showing signs of slowing down in his final year with the Packers. In his one full season with the Jets, Rodgers appeared uninterested in extending plays against pressure, a previous trademark of his game. Nearly 24 percent of his pressured dropbacks ended with a sack, and he averaged 3.1 yards per play against pressure, which ranked 27th, per TruMedia. He also finished second in the NFL in checkdowns thrown, per Pro Football Focus. If Rodgers couldn’t get rid of the ball early, something bad usually happened for the Jets.
Maybe the Steelers will provide the 41-year-old with a better environment and he’ll look more comfortable working deep into a play. The Jets had no semblance of a running game last season, and the pass protection rarely held up. A more balanced approach from Pittsburgh under offensive coordinator Arthur Smith should mitigate some of the pressure Rodgers will face, but there are still questions about the veteran’s fit in a run-first play-action scheme. So far, there haven’t been any grumblings about things being awkward. We’ll see whether that continues should Rodgers and the Steelers get off to a slow start.
15. Can Patrick Mahomes get his deep ball back?
This is the second year in a row I’ve asked that question. It was a point of emphasis for Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid during the 2024 offseason, and then the Chiefs finished 32nd in explosive play rate, per TruMedia. So, obviously, Kansas City has made it a focus again.
“Coach Reid has challenged me this offseason to push the ball down the field,” Mahomes said at the start of training camp. “Let guys have chances to make plays, and then once we get that back to where we want to be in our standard that we believe we should have, then we can come back to the underneath stuff.”
Mahomes averaged just 6.3 air yards per attempt last season, per TruMedia. Only two quarterbacks posted a lower average. And if you go back to 2022, Mahomes ranks 35th in the same stat. That’s a crime against football. We need the old Mahomes back, and it’s up to Reid to figure out how to make it happen.
It starts with personnel. The Chiefs' receiving corps was banged up last year, so I’ll give the front office a pass. The team should have Hollywood Brown for the entire season after he missed most of 2024. Last year’s first-round pick Xavier Worthy should also be ready for an expanded role. And the team will eventually get Rashee Rice after he serves a six-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
Beyond the reinforcements to the receiving corps, Reid could help get Mahomes’s aDOT back up by calling fewer RPOs, which usually lead to shorter throws. Earlier I mentioned that Mahomes ranks 35th in aDOT since 2022, but when you exclude RPOs, he jumps up to 16th. I’m not saying that Reid should totally eliminate those plays from his call sheet, but he can dial back his usage after leading the NFL by a wide margin in 2024.
16. Can the Baltimore Ravens defense step up in the postseason?
Lamar Jackson’s postseason struggles have been thoroughly highlighted over the years, which has provided cover for the Ravens defense, which also hasn't played its best ball during the playoffs. One stat in particular stands out: Baltimore has forced just two turnovers in Jackson’s eight postseason starts. The defense didn’t have a single takeaway in its last two trips to the playoffs. So, yes, the two-time MVP needs to play better football when the games matter most, but the same can be said for the defense.
The leaders of the unit seem to agree. Creating more turnovers was an offseason focus for the defense after it forced just 17 takeaways during the 2024 regular season. "It doesn't really matter how good you play defensively,” veteran cornerback Marlon Humphrey said in June. “If you can't get the football, you're not playing good enough, and so that's the biggest thing to harp on. Like I said, that's got to be our identity. All 11 guys that's on the field—get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, get the ball.”
The lack of postseason turnovers could just be a product of poor luck. The 2023 defense tied for the regular-season lead with 31 takeaways before it got blanked during the playoff run. And we are talking about an extremely small sample size. But the same can be said for Jackson’s playoff performances. A little regression to the mean could be all it takes for Baltimore to finally break through in the postseason.
17. Can the Miami Dolphins get tougher?
It’s never a good sign when a team needs a culture shift four years into a coach’s tenure, but with Mike McDaniel entering the season as the betting favorite to be the first head coach fired, the Dolphins have taken desperate measures. Those included demanding more accountability from veteran leaders. Showing up late to team meetings no longer flies, apparently, although I’m not sure why it ever did. But at least Miami recognized the problem. The Dolphins are also intent on running the ball with more physicality after they struggled in short-yardage situations last season. And the team used two draft picks on defensive tackles to improve the run defense. I would be more eager to give McDaniel credit for recognizing a clear problem and addressing it, but this isn’t the first time Miami has said that it needs to change its culture under the head coach. It happened just last year, and defensive end Bradley Chubb put it bluntly: "I'm going to say last year, we were lying, honestly," Chubb said in June. "Point blank, period. We felt it. We put our toe in the water, but we didn't dive all the way in. We didn't get all the way there with each other. We weren't making the effort to go the extra mile, and I would say this year, we're doing that."
If the Dolphins are “lying” about the culture changes once again, this season will likely play out like the rest during the McDaniel era: A fast start for the offense will eventually fizzle out, and the team will be done in by a lack of toughness in the trenches. If Miami is in fact a changed team, it will be interesting to see how that manifests on the field. But until that happens, there’s no point in speculating.
18. Can Joe Flacco lead the Cleveland Browns to the playoffs again?
No.
19. Is this the year the Arizona Cardinals finally break out?
The football hipsters have been singing the praises of the Cardinals for two years now, and for good reason. Arizona is well coached on both sides of the ball. Offensive coordinator Drew Petzing has designed one of the league’s coolest run games, using multi–tight end sets and QB-powered option plays. The passing game hasn’t produced explosive plays at a high enough rate, but that could change with a second-year leap from receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who has shown a better rapport with Kyler Murray throughout camp. Getting a consistent year out of the infinitely talented Murray would also be huge for the offense.
Defensively, Jonathan Gannon seemed to finally figure things out down the stretch in 2024, as Arizona finished 10th in EPA allowed per play from Week 9 on. Gannon’s defense has been deploying interesting tactics—both with the pass rush and in coverage—throughout his tenure, but it finally achieved its desired ends late last season. After adding Josh Sweat in free agency and defensive tackle Walter Nolean and playmaking corner Will Johnson in the draft, Gannon has all the pieces he needs to field a top-10 defense.
I was a little skeptical about the Cardinals hype leading into last season, but I’m buying it this time around. What could go wrong?
20. Can the Denver Broncos defense improve against top quarterbacks?
A lot of Denver’s success will be based on the development of Bo Nix in his second season, but for the Broncos to contend, they’ll need Vance Joseph’s defense to continue to find success. After adding linebacker Dre Greenlaw and safety Talanoa Hufanga in free agency and drafting cornerback Jahdae Barron in the first round, the unit looks even stronger on paper than it did last season. All three additions should be perfect fits in Joseph’s attacking scheme, so improvement on last year’s surprising results isn’t out of the question.
The unit will have to get better against its toughest competition, though. The Broncos’ defensive splits don’t suggest any reason to expect regression—the team wasn’t overly reliant on forcing turnovers last year, which is typically a sign of fraudulent results—but they weren’t very good against top-tier quarterbacks. In losses to the Bengals, Ravens, and Bills, Denver’s blitzes didn’t have their typical effect. Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen had no problems carving them up.
I’m expecting Denver to post impressive season-long numbers by beating up on bad offenses, but unless the Broncos can provide top quarterbacks more of a challenge, it may not matter how much Nix and the offense progress.
21. Have we seen the last of Anthony Richardson with the Indianapolis Colts?
Another way of asking that question: Do we think that Daniel Jones will hold on to the starting quarterback job for the entirety of 2025? On the basis of his injury history and general performance, the answer is probably no. It’s been two full seasons since we’ve seen Jones play above-average football, and that 2022 campaign, when he led the Giants to a playoff win over the Vikings, looks like an aberration compared with the rest of his career. Jones suffered a neck injury after that breakout year, and it seems to have had a massive impact on his game. He hasn’t been the runner he was before the injury, when he was pretty dynamic with the ball in his hands. He hasn’t taken as many shots downfield, and he hasn’t been as accurate when he does. Plus, Jones never had great timing on quick throws, so building a viable pass game around him after his injury has been difficult. Even if Jones rediscovers his pre-2023 form, the ceiling for the Colts offense is still depressingly low. I’m betting that we’ll see Richardson get a second chance sooner rather than later.
22. Will Kirk Cousins get traded to a QB-needy team?
Somehow, Kirk Cousins is still a Falcon. The 37-year-old quarterback wants out of Atlanta, saying that he felt “misled” by the team before signing a four-year, $180 million contract during the 2024 offseason. Two months after he inked that deal, the Falcons drafted Michael Penix Jr. in the first round. And three months into the season, they benched Cousins for Penix while the team was fighting for a playoff spot. Many outside Atlanta assumed that the team would try to move Cousins and recoup some of the money left on his contract this offseason. But the Falcons insisted that the plan was to keep Cousins as a very expensive backup, and much to the surprise and frustration of their fans, they’ve done just that.
As awkward as things might get in the quarterback room, though—especially if Penix gets off to a bad start—Atlanta’s patience will pay off should any team decide it needs an upgrade at quarterback before the Week 9 trade deadline. Whether Cousins would provide much of an upgrade is up for debate: He was solid over the first half of last season, but then his play declined after he suffered an apparent shoulder injury (the veteran QB says that he hurt his shoulder in Week 10; Falcons head coach Raheem Morris has said that he was unaware of any injuries for Cousins).
Cousins is now healthy, though, and reports out of training camp say that he threw the ball well in practice. I don’t know whether a team is desperate enough to take the bait just yet, but there are several that could eventually get there. If Matthew Stafford’s back ends up being a problem, Sean McVay could reunite with the quarterback he previously coached in Washington. I don’t believe that J.J. McCarthy will struggle enough in Minnesota to get the Vikings interested in Cousins, but I also don’t believe that they’d be comfortable with starting Carson Wentz should the 22-year-old need to be replaced for any reason. Those might be the only logical landing spots that could convince Cousins to waive his no-trade clause, but more options could open up if a playoff contender loses its starting quarterback to injury.
23. Can C.J. Stroud recapture his 2023 form?
Another shameless content plug: A month ago, I wrote about the Texans handing the offensive keys to C.J. Stroud and what that could mean for his development after a rough 2024 campaign. Houston is allowing Stroud to adjust the pass protection and change plays for the first time in his career, and as you can read in that piece, there are very specific ways this could solve some of Houston’s most pressing issues. If the Texans can just stop letting unblocked rushers through at a league-high rate, we could see the best season of Stroud’s career. If not, or if this new responsibility proves to be too much for the third-year pro, we could see a repeat of last season’s uneven results.
24. Can Cam Ward make the Titans worth watching?
Eh, probably not, but he will give us a reason to watch the highlights every week. Ward, the first pick in this year’s draft, may need some time to adapt to the pro game, but he’ll be fun to watch from day one. The rookie is not afraid to put his talented arm to the test with highly difficult throws—as we saw throughout the preseason.
But that will eventually burn him in real games. And while I’m high on Ward as a prospect, I’m dubious that Tennessee can build a nurturing environment for a young quarterback. My primary concern is the coaching staff. Head coach Brian Callahan did not handle Will Levis’s development with care or grace—though the fact that Levis was a bad quarterback may have been the driving factor there—and he hasn’t shown that he’s capable of getting the Titans offense to work as designed. But if Callahan can improve in that regard, there is a decent supporting cast around the rookie. The offensive line looks average on paper after a few offseason upgrades, and Tyler Lockett joins Calvin Ridley in a solid receiving corps. It’s not the 2023 49ers, but there are just enough pieces here to allow Ward to make a splash play or two every week.
25. Who’s winning the Super Bowl?
I’m tempted to jump on the Packers bandwagon after the Parsons trade, but there’s still a significant gap between the Eagles and every other team in the NFC. The roster is too talented, the coaching staff is too good, and the floor is too high to pick against the reigning champs in that conference. But I’m going with my AFC pick to win the Super Bowl. I might be headed for the Fell for It Again Award, but I’ll take the Ravens to win it all.
