NFL 2025 Season Predictions: Who Will Make the Playoffs?
The wait is over! After six long months without NFL action, Week 1 is finally here. It’s time to dive into the predictions for the 2025 season. After analyzing free agency and the draft, as well as the preseason expectations, it’s time to form opinions on what will happen in 2025. We already have our 14 playoff teams and the choice for the Super Bowl. Unlike other analysts and fans who tend to be more conservative, we will base our predictions on history. In recent years, many teams that made the playoffs do not repeat the following year. That’s why at Alofoke Deportes, we will delve into the analysis to offer a different perspective. From 2002 to 2023, an average of 7.9 of the 14 teams that qualified for the playoffs returned to the postseason the following season. We’ll round that figure to eight. Our first constraint for choosing the playoff teams begins here: we can only select eight teams from the 2024 playoffs to return. The 2024 season was somewhat unexpected. Ten teams returned to the postseason, marking the fourth time since 2002 that 10 of the top seven seeds in each conference achieved this. Meanwhile, the top two seeds in the NFC in 2023 did not make the postseason. Although last season was a bit chaotic, the results reinforce the importance of analyzing things this way. For example, the 49ers, a perennial NFC contender, failed to make the postseason. Injuries played a crucial role. Now, which 2024 teams could be back in January 2025? What does history tell us about the unexpected teams with the best chance of joining the playoff party? Below, a projection of what the 2025 playoff field could look like.2024 Division Winners: Will They Repeat?
In the era of eight divisions, how often do division winners return to the postseason? If we think of teams like Tom Brady’s Patriots or the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs, it might seem that most division champions make the playoffs. But the reality is different.Since 2002, just over 44% of division winners repeated the title the following season, a figure that has increased slightly to 47.5% in the last 10 years. In other words, it is 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.
Fortunately, these numbers conveniently divide into eight, making it easy to add two more historical constraints to our list when assembling our predictions. If division winners go up and down the way recent history suggests, we need to choose four division winners to keep their crowns and stay at the top of their divisions and one more 2024 division winner to claim a wild card spot. Yes, if history is correct, that leaves three 2024 division winners who will miss the 2025 postseason entirely. Let’s look at the division winners and see who qualifies:Kansas City Chiefs
Our forecast for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC West champions) You’ve probably already guessed it. Although we understand the concerns that the Chiefs are vulnerable to the Broncos’ or Chargers’ push, we are not going to pick any other team to win the AFC West. Even if Kansas City isn’t as dominant in one-point games, the arrival of two real left tackles signifies major improvements in what was a problematic situation on Mahomes’ blind side last season. We’re a little concerned about the secondary with the departure of Justin Reid, but the Chiefs will be fine. They won’t have a 15-2 record again, but anything below 11 wins would be a big surprise.
Buffalo Bills
Our forecast for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC East champions) Another team in the midst of a long run as divisional champion, the Bills will aim to claim their sixth consecutive AFC East title. There is a much larger gap between Sean McDermott’s team and the rest of the division on paper, which should give the Bills more leeway for things to go wrong. Teams with atypical turnover margins generally decline, which should be concerning given that Buffalo recorded a turnover ratio of +24, the best in the league last season, but the combination of playing from ahead and McDermott’s coaching has turned this defense into one that breaks the rules. Defenses based on creating many turnovers often struggle to maintain that year after year, but the Bills have been an exception. They led the league in defensive turnover rate in 2023 and 2024, and haven’t been outside the top seven since 2019, despite changing the vast majority of their defensive personnel during that span. It might be unrealistic to expect Josh Allen and the offense to only turn the ball over eight times all season again, but even with that regression from the turnover margin, Buffalo should be well on top of their division.Philadelphia Eagles
Our forecast for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC East champions)There is no better example of how blindly choosing division champions to retain their titles can go wrong than the NFC East, where no team has won consecutive division championships since Philadelphia did it in 2003 and 2004. If you think fate is conspiring to distort this into reality annually, I wouldn’t blame you; remember that the Eagles reached the Super Bowl in 2022, started 10-1 in 2023, and still managed to miss a division title when they went 1-5 down the stretch and opened the door for the Cowboys.
We are a bit more skeptical that Philadelphia will repeat that public. There should be real concerns about their defensive depth. Linebacker Nakobe Dean will not be available to start the season due to a torn patellar tendon. In addition, 44% of the defensive snaps played by Eagles members last season were for players not on the 2025 roster, including key contributors such as defensive 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 were unable to replace those veterans with talents of a similar caliber this offseason.Of course, general manager Howie Roseman can still turn to one of the league’s most exciting young defensive talent cores. The kind of mental collapse that Philadelphia showed on defense in the second half of 2023 shouldn’t happen again with Vic Fangio in charge. Outside of a dramatic eruption of injuries, there’s nothing to worry about with the offense, which returns 10 of 11 starters. And we believe the gap between the Eagles and the rest of the division could be bigger than it seems, which should help them easily enter another NFC East crown.
Baltimore Ravens
Our forecast for 2025: In the playoffs (AFC North champions) If Lamar Jackson stays healthy, the Ravens will win a lot of games. He has had an astonishing 70-24 record as a starter in his professional career, which equates to 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 was not sidelined by a season-ending injury, finishing one game short of a fifth in 2020. Baltimore had a 3-8 record with Jackson sidelined in the final stretch of 2021 and 2022, costing them what could have been two more division titles in the process. Jackson wasn’t the only one who stayed healthy last season. The Ravens were the healthiest team in the league by adjusted games lost on both offense and defense, according to the FTN Football Almanac. In fact, the 2024 Ravens were the least injured team since 2017. That will be lost in the shuffle: no fan has boasted after the season about how healthy their favorite team was, but it will be almost impossible for Baltimore to maintain it. The ceiling and floor of this team are still high enough for them to be the favorite to win the AFC North again, but expect more injuries to be the cause if they don’t succeed.Detroit Lions
Our forecast for 2025: In the playoffs (NFC wildcard) With my four division retainers already claimed, I had one of the remaining four winners left to push into the playoffs as a wild card team. Of those four, it seemed clear to choose the Lions, who could fall from their 15-win season and still have plenty in the tank to make the postseason. Despite losing almost every pass rusher and cornerback they had on the roster by the time the defense finally collapsed in the playoffs, an inspired effort from defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn and an inspired offense fueled by offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was enough to consistently pull Detroit over the hump weekly. It dominated bad teams and reliably beat good ones. The Lions should still be among the league’s top teams, although they probably won’t be lucky enough for another 7-2 mark in one-score contests. The defense can’t be as injured as it was a year ago, but the offense was one of the healthiest in the league, and there are real questions about their new offensive line interior. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Detroit doesn’t take some kind of hit after losing both Glenn and Johnson to head coaching jobs. That could be enough to open the door for one of the teams below them in the NFC North, although I won’t reveal which one 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?Houston Texans
Our forecast for 2025: Out of the playoffs We were skeptical of the Texans last season. And although they managed to keep their division title and win a playoff game for the second consecutive year, I don’t regret maintaining that opinion. The hype about the additions of wide receiver Stefon Diggs and running back Joe Mixon overshadowed a mediocre offensive line. General Manager Nick Caserio hit with a couple of his young additions to the secondary, and defensive end Danielle Hunter was excellent in his debut season with Houston, but a team that was among the oldest in the league in 2023 didn’t have as many breakout candidates as it seemed. The Texans recorded a point differential of zero, fell from 12th to 16th in DVOA, and had a 5-6 record outside their division. But while they weren’t great, no one in the AFC South could give them any competition. Houston had a 5-1 record within the division, with four of those five wins coming by four points or less. A couple of them may not have been as close as it seemed, but the Texans couldn’t consistently pull away from the Colts and Jaguars.It’s entirely possible that the AFC South won’t offer any real competition this season either, but we’re (perhaps foolishly) more optimistic that the Jaguars and Titans can look like competent teams. Caserio has completely revamped the offensive line, but Houston is relying on young players who haven’t been good during their time in the league, unproven rookies, and veterans who were salary dumps or castoffs elsewhere.
In the void, without needing to choose three division winners to miss the postseason, we would probably still consider the Texans as the favorites to win the AFC South, even if only because C.J. Stroud offers such a high floor as a quarterback. If we are operating under the idea that we need to choose three division winners to completely miss the postseason, does Houston seem more vulnerable than any of the five teams we chose earlier?Los Angeles Rams
Our forecast for 2025: Out of the playoffs The factor that makes the Rams so difficult to project is uncertainty. If you could guarantee that we are about to have a healthy season from 37-year-old quarterback Matthew Stafford, it would be much easier to have a conversation about Los Angeles returning to the postseason. Sean McVay’s track record is practically impeccable: the Rams have made six playoff appearances in eight years with the star coach at the helm, including four division titles during that span. While the organization is saying the right things about Stafford’s back heading into Week 1, he played with the injury throughout the offseason, only for Stafford to repeatedly miss practices with the issue. On top of that, left tackle Alaric Jackson missed practically all of training camp with blood clots in his legs before returning to practice last week. The Rams are a top-tier team, and when those stars struggle to stay healthy, there’s the potential for a season like 2022, when the offensive line fell apart and many of L.A.’s highest-paid players ended the year in November. We’re not sure that kind of injury reckoning is looming for the Rams or any other team in the league, but we’re concerned enough about Stafford to leave this team out of the playoffs if we have to pick three division winners to spend January at home.Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Our forecast for 2025: Out of the playoffs Here’s where my own format torments me and I’m forced to choose something I’m not comfortable with. The Buccaneers were objectively the best team in the NFC South last season. In addition to finishing two games ahead of the Falcons in first place, Tampa Bay recorded a Pythagorean expectation of 11.1 wins, suggesting that it was actually better on a snap-by-snap basis than its 10-7 record. It was 11th in DVOA in the midst of a division where the other three 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, however, I have to choose the three division winners I trust the least as those who will miss the postseason. And it’s difficult 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. Perhaps history is telling me that I’m too locked into a 10-win Bucs team clinging to the division title in an NFC South where everyone has an easy schedule.
Of course, if I set my mind to it, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where the Bucs miss what would be their sixth consecutive playoff appearance. They are already battling injuries to Tristan Wirfs, Chris Godwin Jr., and Jalen McMillan, and new offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard is not up to the level of the outgoing duo of Dave Canales and Liam Coen (both were successful as coordinators). A defense that was average in the league last season doesn’t make up the difference. And while Tampa Bay is competitive, the eventual NFC South champions make significant improvements in key positions, but we’ll get to that team later. So we have five of our 14 playoff teams in the books. But after analyzing the 2024 division winners and what trends say about their chances of returning to the postseason, it’s time to move on to last season’s wild cards.What’s up with the 2024 wildcard teams?
Going back to 2002, if we include that seventh-place team in each conference as a possible playoff team, 53% of the teams that made the postseason as a wild card returned to the postseason the following year. That figure includes teams that take a step further and win their division, as well as teams that finish again in fifth, sixth, or seventh place. Four of the six wild cards from 2023 returned to the playoffs in 2024, with the Browns and Dolphins as exceptions. With that 53% figure in mind, we’re close to a nice round number for our next restriction when choosing the playoff picture: we can only choose three of the six wild card teams in 2024 to return in 2025. Three in, three out. This time we’ll alternate between teams entering and exiting.Green Bay Packers
Our forecast 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 picture and pushed the Packers ahead of their competition in the NFC North. As I mentioned in my reaction to the Parsons trade, the Packers weren’t far behind the Lions a year ago, finishing one spot behind Dan Campbell’s team in DVOA. The Packers are the youngest team in the league based on snap-weighted age, so there are many potential breakout candidates on the roster. If they were lacking a bit of star power, they got everything they needed with the addition of Parsons, who is one of the best defensive players in football. Assuming Parsons doesn’t miss significant time with his back issue, the Packers added the same player who turned the Cowboys into the best defense in the NFL when he was on the field and the worst when he wasn’t. The Packers did this while subtracting only 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 ups and downs from the 26-year-old quarterback. If we get the post-Toyotathon version of Love for 17 games, however, the Packers could be the best team in the league. With some reservations about the Lions and Vikings, we’re pushing the Packers to first place in the NFC North.
Minnesota Vikings
Our forecast for 2025: Out of the playoffs Vikings fans are tired of hearing about their record in one-score games, but when you go from 9-0 to 4-8 and then to 8-1 in those games in Kevin O’Connell’s first three seasons in charge, that’s going to be a big part of the conversation. We know it’s a significant predictor of what will happen next, so it’s hard to imagine Minnesota playing at the same level and getting the same results.Can the team sustain what we saw last season? An exciting defense led the league in turnovers, as the Vikings went from 19th in turnover rate to second. That’s difficult to maintain, especially with Minnesota changing a part of their secondary. This was the oldest team in football based on snap-weighted age, and after adding several new starters in free agency and making only three picks in the top 100 in the last two years, it’s difficult to count on O’Connell’s team being dramatically younger this season.
One of the places where the team will get younger, of course, is at quarterback, with J.J. McCarthy taking over as the starter after missing his entire rookie year with a knee injury. The Vikings invested heavily along the line of scrimmage this offseason, and they probably won’t need to rely on their quarterback as much as they did
