There are teams in the NFL who began the 2025 season with high hopes. Maybe the teams didn't expect to win a Super Bowl, but a playoff berth was clearly in the original plans. Those plans, however, have changed.
But why have they changed? Why, for example, is Houston four wins back of Indianapolis? Why are the Raiders the only bad team in the AFC West? What happened to the hopes and dreams of these franchises?
Let's talk about where it all went wrong for five of the NFL's most disappointing teams.
Houston Texans: Not investing heavily in the offensive line
Houston Texans general manager Nick Caserio seems to believe you can just piece together an offensive line. Nothing really speaks to how piecemeal things are than something I noticed last weekend, as the Texans had some offensive line injuries, which led to them starting two different linemen who the Patriots drafted in 2023 and gave up on after two seasons.
I mean, just look at how Houston acquired its current offensive linemen. Tytus Howard is the only former Texans first-round pick. The other starters were either taken later in the draft or signed to relatively cheap deals. There's no big-money left tackle. There's just a hodgepodge assortment of pieces, and it's clearly not working. Quarterback C.J. Stroud feels like he's under pressure the moment the ball touches his hand.
Cincinnati Bengals: Letting the defense deteriorate this much
Yes, the Joe Burrow injury sucks and the fact that Jake Browning was so bad as his replacement was an issue, but the Cincinnati Bengals are also just 1-3 since trading for Joe Flacco, who is playing well enough that the team should be winning these games. I mean...the team put up a combined 80 points against the Jets and Bears and somehow lost both games. The Jets — like, the Justin Fields Jets!!! — scored 39 points against the Bengals!
Overall, the Bengals allow 33.3 points per game, the worst mark in the NFL. The issue is that the team's spent plenty of draft capital on defense over the past few years, but those players haven't really panned out. It's like this front office is somehow really, really good at identifying young offensive talent while being absolutely awful at finding young defensive talent. And no matter how good the offense is, it's hard to win with a defense that's historically bad and is currently tied with the 1981 Colts for most points allowed per game in NFL history.
Las Vegas Raiders: Trusting Geno Smith
The Las Vegas Raiders decided they had a roster that could contend now if they just added a veteran quarterback to the roster, so the team traded for Geno Smith. Smith wasn't an elite quarterback in Seattle, but he was good enough that it seemed, at the time, to be a good move for Vegas.
Turns out, it very much was not a good move. Smith's interception rate has jumped from 2.6 percent last year to 4.5 percent this year, and through nine games he's thrown more picks than touchdowns. His adjusted net yards per pass attempt are his lowest as a full-time starter since 2013, and his yards per game have plummeted from 254.1 last season to 204.9 this season.
Add in that the AFC West is super competitive this year and you get a disaster for Vegas, which is probably better off just drafting a new quarterback this offseason. The problem with that? Vegas might not be quite bad enough to land Fernando Mendoza or Ty Simpson without giving up assets to move up. Settling for someone like Dante Moore seems like it will keep this team in purgatory.
Washington Commanders: Trying to win now without a win now roster
Like...it's 2025, and you're bringing in Von Miller and George Fant? You're relying on a relatively anonymous defensive secondary? You're content to make your big splash offensive addition be Deebo Samuel, who was coming off his worst season?
I understand the desire to win while your quarterback is on his rookie deal, but Washington built a flawed roster that just couldn't hold up when Daniels struggled a bit early in the year, and it especially couldn't hold up when Daniels got hurt and the team had to turn to Marcus Mariota.
Minnesota Vikings: Letting Sam Darnold walk
Minnesota made the decision this offseason to turn things over to 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy. Obviously, McCarthy's injury concerns this year have hampered him a bit, but even when he's been out there healthy, he's been...fine.
The Vikings were in a tough position this offseason. Sam Darnold was very, very good in 2024 as he led Minnesota to a 14-3 record in the regular season, but it was also a one-year sample in a career that's been very uneven. Darnold wasn't even supposed to to play last year — he won the starting job by default after McCarthy tore his meniscus in the preseason.
But Darnold played so well for the Vikings that it probably should have changed their plans. You can draft a quarterback early and be wrong while still being a good football team if you manage to luck into a quarterback some other way. Look at the 49ers — the Trey Lance pick was awful, but you don't really hear it talked about much because the team managed to hit on Brock Purdy as a seventh-round pick, solving the quarterback issue a different way.
Minnesota had a window to contend for Super Bowls with adequate quarterback play. Instead, the team let Darnold go to Seattle, where he's led the Seahawks to a 7-2 start while the Vikings are in the muck at 4-5, putting them last in a very tough NFC North.