The 2025 NFL season is almost upon us, and with it comes an entirely blank slate. We all have expectations for what will happen this year, but seldom do those preseason expectations carry water through 18 weeks of grueling, unpredictable football. There is always a surprise contender. Without fail, a couple teams we all "like" will regress and underperform. It's the nature of the game.
There will be injuries. There will breakouts and burnouts. And in this article, we will attempt to dig through the noise and project five NFL teams that the larger football-watching fandom is not paying enough attention to this season.
We can put these teams into different buckets. Some are accepted winners who can make the leap to bonafide Super Bowl contender. Others are written off as basement-dwellers, but have the necessary talent to upend those notions. Others might fall somewhere in the middle.
Let's dive in...
Jacksonville Jaguars
Never underestimate the potential impact of a new head coach. While Doug Pederson is rightfully respected for what he accomplished in Philly, he was also let go by the Eagles for a reason. Many of those reasons manifested with the Jacksonville Jaguars, a young group he could never successfully mold into his image.
So the Jags did what all the bad teams are doing nowadays: they hired the young, upstart offensive coordinator. Liam Coen was the mastermind behind one of the NFL's most consistently overperforming offenses in Tampa Bay. He helped elevated Baker Mayfield from a flunk journeyman on his last legs into a perennial Pro Bowl candidate. We can give Mayfield all the credit in the world — and he deserves it — but Coen was undeniably integral to Tampa's robust passing attack.
Now he gets to reshape Trevor Lawrence in his image. Talent alone earned Lawrence one of the guadiest contracts in the NFL. The former No. 1 pick has always be viewed as a superstar in waiting. He has every physical tool you could ask for at the position — size, arm talent, mobility. If Coen can install a more dynamic system that frees up Lawrence in the pocket and presents him with more open targets, what's to stop Jacksonville from taking off?
The Jags were, lest we forget, a postseason team in 2022. They had a winning record in 2023. Last season was a letdown, but with Travis Hunter in tow and one of the NFL's most lauded playcallers in charge, the Jaguars feel like a legitimate threat to blow up your preseason brackets.
Las Vegas Raiders
These aren't your father's Las Vegas Raiders. These are Tom Brady's Las Vegas Raiders. The influence of the seven-time Super Bowl champ turned minority owner has been touted ad nauseam this offseason. Brady, now a regular on NFL broadcasts, had his hand in just about every decision the Raiders made, from hiring ex-Bucs exec John Spytek as GM to bringing in one of the most respected head coaches in football, Pete Carroll.
It's not always wise to bet on the "established" coaches. The NFL is a constantly evolving organisms and a lot of great coaches get left behind as times change. Just as Bill Belichick. But Carroll feels like a potential exception. He likes things done a certain way, but winning in the trenches is hardly an outmoded strategy. The Raiders will run the ball a lot, but Chip Kelly has never been afraid to air it out, either. And Geno Smith is more than capable of leading a competitive offense, as he showed despite a deeply flawed supporting cast in Seattle.
Carroll is one of the great defensive minds of all time. He has won the championship in college and the NFL. Sure, he's about to become the NFL's oldest head coach, but the Raiders acted accordingly this summer, stockpiling defensive talent and extending Maxx Crosby without fanfare or a prolonged holdout. Ashton Jeanty, their No. 6 pick, qualifies as a risk. Not many teams pick running backs so high anymore. But he's also going to put up 1,500 yards and be one of the most productive rookies in recent NFL history, so it's hard to knock 'em.
This Raiders team was appropriately feisty under Antonio Pierce in the second half of 2023. It all feel apart last season, but with a new coach who commands the respect of his players and a metric ton of interesting new talent (not to mention the financial flexibility to engineer a big midseason addition or two), Las Vegas no longer feels like an afterthought in the rough-and-tumble AFC West.
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings won 14 games last season. Sam Darnold was unexpectedly spectacular, but he also fell apart down the stretch and laid an egg in the playoffs. We can't know what to expect from sophomore rookie J.J. McCarthy, but he's stepping into arguably the most favorable position for a quarterback in the NFL.
Minnesota is dealing with some injuries at wide receiver, which won't help his NFL welcome, but that should hopefully iron itself out by midseason. Otherwise, the Vikings are a QB's dream. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are one of the best one-two punches in the league. T.J. Hockenson is as good a tight end as you'll find when he's right. Aaron Jones and that O-line will produce plenty of voltage on the ground.
McCarthy will also benefit from the brilliant schemings of Kevin O'Connell, who tends to run circles around his peers. If the former No. 10 pick comes anywhere close to delivering on the hype — and Minnesota is pumping out McCarthy propaganda with extreme confidence — this Vikings offense should hum right along. The defense is excellent.
There is easily a world in which Detroit regresses without Ben Johnson and the Vikings wind up atop the NFC North. In fact, one could credibly argue that it's the most likely outcome. McCarthy is an unknown, so there's downside too. But if he steps up and delivers at a level befitting his draft position, the Vikings aren't going anywhere.
Chicago Bears
Perhaps the Chicago Bears' mediocrity is fated and any attempt to fight it will be in vain. But look at this roster, look at who's coaching it, and tell me the Bears can't make a bit of noise this season. Chicago was aggressive in free agency and made perhaps the biggest signing of the summer in Ben Johnson, who left a cushy job as Lions OC to run things in Chicago.
The wiz kid coordinator-to-head coach pipeline features its share of misfires, but Johnson's schemes in Detroit were dazzling. The Lions were absolutely stacked, but Johnson's scheme basically saved Jared Goff's career and turned him into an MVP candidate. Not long ago, Caleb Williams was viewed as the greatest QB prospect in recent memory and a surefire franchise cornerstone. Are we going to let one misbegotten season under Matt Eberflus change that?
Williams has a lot to prove. He needs to hold the ball less and pick up an extremely nuanced and complicated scheme. But the kid's not dumb and the (very brief) flashes we saw in preseason were highly encouraging.
The Bears seem destined to have at least an above-average defense with all the resources they've poured into this. If another year of development and a dramatically better setup brings about a second-year leap from Williams, the Bears are at least a postseason threat — maybe even a bonafide sleeper in the NFC.
Cincinnati Bengals
I think we all accept that the Cincinnati Bengals are good. They were above-.500 last season and the roster has not meaningfully changed. But are we wrong to pigeonhole the Bengals as a middling Wild Card threat this early in the process? Last season was a disappointment, to be sure. Much of the skepticism is justified. But man, there is so much talent at the top, and Joe Burrow might just be the best quarterback in the NFL.
If Cincinnati wins a couple more games in 2024, there's zero MVP debate. Burrow ran laps around the competition when it came to volume and efficiency. Both Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are still around. Andrei Iosivas is another year older and, hopefully, another year better. The Bengals are the best offense in the NFL on paper.
How can we not consider them at least a potential contender? The defense was exceedingly rough last season, but Trey Hendrickson re-signed after all and Cincy invested draft capital into its biggest weak points. The Bengals also brought in a new defensive coordinator, Al Golden, and we shan't ignore the potential ramifications of a new playcaller. Golden built a dominant defense at Notre Dame and he was the Bengals' linebackers coach for years, so there is pedigree.
Cincinnati feels like a real sleeping giant. Not long ago, Burrow led the Bengals to the Super Bowl. He's still the only AFC quarterback to take down Patrick Mahomes on the postseason stage. While it's popular to dump Bengals stock after last season, it's probably wise to keep just a little bit in your possession, just in case the defense can ascend to even league average heights in 2025.