The 2025 NFL regular season will certainly go down as one of the more interesting campaigns in the league’s modern history. There were numerous games with stirring comebacks, several game of the year candidates posted by mid-season, and there were enough shocks across the season to make it more than memorable.
Yet, while the campaign was thrilling for most of the few months leading into the Playoffs and, hopefully, Super Bowl LX, there were also some disappointments. Below, we discuss five of those that stood out:
After 193 wins and 18 seasons, John Harbaugh and the Ravens have parted company. It seems strange to think they were most commonly cited as favorites in major sportsbooks’ Super Bowl odds just a few months ago, but the season started with a big psychological loss to the Buffalo Bills and never really got going after that. Perhaps the worst criticism we can give is that the Ravens were simply forgettable, never really looking like making an impression on the narrative of the season. The question now is what happens next to a team that was built for success but delivered failure?
It’s not really fair to say that young Daniels was a disappointment. Moreover, he was unlucky with injuries. However, it is fair to say there was a bit of a comedown after posting one of the greatest rookie seasons ever by a quarterback. Daniels still has a great future, should he stay injury-free, and at 25, he has plenty of peak years to look forward to, but the Washington Commanders must do everything they can to build a team around him. He didn’t get enough protection during the regular season, and that’s going to have to change, too.
Like Daniels, we hope that Jeanty’s talent shines through to allow him to kick-start his career in the NFL. Hopes were insanely high for the running back, drafted 6th overall by the Raiders, but the rookie failed to live up to his promise. It caused a huge upheaval in Las Vegas, including the sacking of OC Chip Kelly. It was all in a bid to get Jeanty to fire up the Raiders’ offense. It didn’t work, as the Raiders ended up with the worst points scored tally in the NFL.
It was not uncommon to see pundits predict that the Chiefs would decline this season, but most assumed they would still make the Playoffs. The disappointment came with the steepness of the decline, with just six wins and six losses on the bounce to complete the regular season. They did not always have the rub of the green, and the injury to Patrick Mahomes was seriously unfortunate, but this was a limp way for a dynasty to come to an end.
You can look at the NFC South in two ways, perhaps. First, you can say that it was ultra-competitive, given that the team that finished bottom, the New Orleans Saints, finished just two wins behind the teams that finished top, the Carolina Panthers. Yet, every team finished with a losing record. That’s not completely uncommon in an NFL season, but the mediocrity of the four teams was apparent most of the season. Overall, the NFC South had the lowest points scored tally across the league, coming in at an average of 19.9 PPG for each team. It just lacked any sense of excitement.
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