Unordered within tiers. I can explain any of this if prompted.
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NFL Thread: 2025-26 Season
- Thread starter adjectivenoun
- Start date
Unordered within tiers. I can explain any of this if prompted.
'afccg contenders' LOL
im a little curious about washington. i'm wary on them with how thoroughly they got hosed in philly and how they're a program generally less familiar with success. i think they could be sb contenders, but i lack the confidence that they'll repeat (let alone improve enough to avoid this year's end) to put them in det/phi land. curious how you're feeling there
i also think the broncos might be a bit fluky, their last season results don't hold well to the microscope, but i think the afc is pretty weak right now so i could definitely see at least a playoff spot
one of my pet stats is 'record vs teams above .500 at the time'
the broncos were 2-5 here, ignoring when the chiefs rested all their starters at end of season
im a little curious about washington. i'm wary on them with how thoroughly they got hosed in philly and how they're a program generally less familiar with success. i think they could be sb contenders, but i lack the confidence that they'll repeat (let alone improve enough to avoid this year's end) to put them in det/phi land. curious how you're feeling there
i also think the broncos might be a bit fluky, their last season results don't hold well to the microscope, but i think the afc is pretty weak right now so i could definitely see at least a playoff spot
one of my pet stats is 'record vs teams above .500 at the time'
the broncos were 2-5 here, ignoring when the chiefs rested all their starters at end of season
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Well, it really comes down to Jayden Daniels, I feel. Does he take the next step, or does he have a sophomore slump like Stroud? If it's the former, I reckon the team has enough talent around him (or, thanks to his rookie contract, could get enough talent) to be in the mix with the Lions and Eagles again. In my estimation, getting blasted by the Eagles was more about running out of gas after the huge upset against the Lions than it was about an enormous difference in ability between the two squads, and I'm buying into Daniels until he proves me wrong, so I'm putting them up there for now. This is the take I would be least surprised to be wrong about, though.
It's a similar story with the Broncos: I think it really comes down to whether Bo Nix can take that next step. That said, I think the AFC is weaker than the NFC and full of chokers right now, so this squad has a better opportunity to pounce than they would on the other side.
You know... I should really be going to bed right about now. It's past 1 AM where I'm at. But I don't care, because I just spent the last hour or two finalizing a top-secret project of mine. Well... kind of. I would love to say that I went ahead and picked every single game in the NFL schedule, but hitting on all 272 games plus every playoff game is... well... let's just say that's not going to happen. So. Knowing this, I turned my attention to something else. Recently I've been developing a new method to try and predict the championship winning teams of every major sports league that I can think of- for the sake of conversation let's focus in on the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL for now- and while I'm still finalizing the full method, it came to my statistics-loving attention that I could do something similar to that for all 32 NFL franchises. So, I got to work, trying for weeks to answer a question. Rather than focusing on what I think will happen, which I do still plan on making a full report on, why not start out by observing all of what could happen through every single game of the season based on the NFL scheduling format, previous season win/loss statistics, home and road records, and head-to-head matchups?
The methodology I used for this "experiment" was based on what kind of game I was looking at. For different games, I separated the 17-game regular season schedule for, let's use my Seahawks as an example, into a couple different categories:
Once that was set up, I went through and looked at all notable recent and contemporary game results, selecting the hypothetical "This team should win this game" using a slightly different method per category. The divisional rivalry games were determined by observing the most common home and road game victors over the past three or more seasons for every possible matchup (for instance, the Colts famously haven't won in Jacksonville for just over a decade!). For each of the four game categories, I used an oddly specific and complicated home and road strength prediction system that could take an entire other post to just try and explain it. The important part you need to know is some teams play better at home and some play better on the road, which directly buffs certain teams from within any given division while directly nerfing other teams from that same division based on who's playing who and where those games are happening. Finally, the three game divisional standing category is the easiest to explain, simply being based off of each division's total record from the previous season to determine which teams should win against which. The NFC East and NFC North scored the highest at a 3-0 game equivalent rating, while the AFC South was the only division to score the lowest at an 0-3 game equivalent rating.
After taking a look at every single game, regular season and playoffs, coming up with applicable tiebreakers for any games that could be considered a toss-up (notably, the AFC North and NFC West both finished with the same total record in 2024-25, and those divisions play standing games this year), I finally, after what feels like an eternity, have the results I need. And some of these results definitely surprised me, let's put it that way. Without further ado, here is the full tier list for all 32 NFL franchises in 2025-26 ranking them based on what could theoretically happen. I cannot state this enough, this experiment deals with hypotheticals. Just because something strange is here doesn't mean it will happen or I expect it to happen. Below the tier list, I will be listing every single team's "projected record" using this metric. Teams are in order of when they would pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, by the way.
Before I finally end this post off, I just want to take a moment to point out the Browns and what they did in this experiment. I knew going intro this that Cleveland was set up for one of, if not the easiest home game schedules out of any team, but I have absolutely no idea how this happened. Somehow, against all the odds, this metric gave the Browns a 9-0 home game equivalent rating and a 0-8 (0-9 counting their playoff loss to the Bills) road game projection rating. For those keeping score at home, that means that, according to this metric, whoever the home team is should win every single Browns game this season. Every single one. It's not like their 4-13 record during 2024-25 had implicit bias towards their schedule, either. Safe to say I might need to rework each of the two four game categories after the amount of whiplash I got when I saw that. Now you can have fun knowing this information too!
The methodology I used for this "experiment" was based on what kind of game I was looking at. For different games, I separated the 17-game regular season schedule for, let's use my Seahawks as an example, into a couple different categories:
- Six divisional rivalry games
- Four games against the teams from a division from the same conference
- Four games against the teams from a division from the other conference
- Three games against varying teams from other divisions based off of divisional standing (Seattle was third in the NFC West last year, so they would play a "third-place schedule")
Once that was set up, I went through and looked at all notable recent and contemporary game results, selecting the hypothetical "This team should win this game" using a slightly different method per category. The divisional rivalry games were determined by observing the most common home and road game victors over the past three or more seasons for every possible matchup (for instance, the Colts famously haven't won in Jacksonville for just over a decade!). For each of the four game categories, I used an oddly specific and complicated home and road strength prediction system that could take an entire other post to just try and explain it. The important part you need to know is some teams play better at home and some play better on the road, which directly buffs certain teams from within any given division while directly nerfing other teams from that same division based on who's playing who and where those games are happening. Finally, the three game divisional standing category is the easiest to explain, simply being based off of each division's total record from the previous season to determine which teams should win against which. The NFC East and NFC North scored the highest at a 3-0 game equivalent rating, while the AFC South was the only division to score the lowest at an 0-3 game equivalent rating.
After taking a look at every single game, regular season and playoffs, coming up with applicable tiebreakers for any games that could be considered a toss-up (notably, the AFC North and NFC West both finished with the same total record in 2024-25, and those divisions play standing games this year), I finally, after what feels like an eternity, have the results I need. And some of these results definitely surprised me, let's put it that way. Without further ado, here is the full tier list for all 32 NFL franchises in 2025-26 ranking them based on what could theoretically happen. I cannot state this enough, this experiment deals with hypotheticals. Just because something strange is here doesn't mean it will happen or I expect it to happen. Below the tier list, I will be listing every single team's "projected record" using this metric. Teams are in order of when they would pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, by the way.
- AFC East: #3 Bills (9-8), Dolphins (8-9), Jets (7-10), Patriots (6-11)
- AFC North: #2 Steelers (10-7), #6 Browns (9-8), #7 Ravens (9-8), Bengals (7-10)
- AFC South: #4 Colts (8-9), Texans (8-9), Jaguars (7-10), Titans (2-15)
- AFC West: #1 Chiefs (13-4), #5 Chargers (11-6), Broncos (8-9), Raiders (7-10)
- NFC East: #2 Eagles (12-5), #6 Cowboys (11-6), Commanders (7-10), Giants (6-11)
- NFC North: #1 Lions (13-4), #5 Vikings (13-4), #7 Packers (10-7), Bears (6-11)
- NFC South: #4 Buccaneers (10-7), Falcons (8-9), Saints (8-9), Panthers (6-11)
- NFC West: #3 Rams (11-6), 49ers (9-8), Seahawks (9-8), Cardinals (4-13)
Before I finally end this post off, I just want to take a moment to point out the Browns and what they did in this experiment. I knew going intro this that Cleveland was set up for one of, if not the easiest home game schedules out of any team, but I have absolutely no idea how this happened. Somehow, against all the odds, this metric gave the Browns a 9-0 home game equivalent rating and a 0-8 (0-9 counting their playoff loss to the Bills) road game projection rating. For those keeping score at home, that means that, according to this metric, whoever the home team is should win every single Browns game this season. Every single one. It's not like their 4-13 record during 2024-25 had implicit bias towards their schedule, either. Safe to say I might need to rework each of the two four game categories after the amount of whiplash I got when I saw that. Now you can have fun knowing this information too!
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Instead of doing a tier list, I decided to pick the outcome of every single game this upcoming season. Here's my 2025 NFL Season.
WARNING!: I'm very wrong (and a little pats biased). Yes, my friends have already let me know, though I do accept and appreciate discussion and/or flaming of my rankings. I also forgot to pick the winner of saints vs. rams and phins vs. falcs so add 1 win to whichever team you like in those.
Regular season records:
Playoff Bracket:
WARNING!: I'm very wrong (and a little pats biased). Yes, my friends have already let me know, though I do accept and appreciate discussion and/or flaming of my rankings. I also forgot to pick the winner of saints vs. rams and phins vs. falcs so add 1 win to whichever team you like in those.
Regular season records:
Playoff Bracket:
(woah! I depicted myself as the... uh... chad? Like, that follows the saying, but I guess I depicted myself as the soyjack in this specific meme. Makes you think.)
Bears last won a playoff game in 2010 with Jay Cutler. Similarly, Mahomes is 4-0 against the Bills, and especially to lose at home, where he is 3-0. I'll have to disagree with your picks - I'll believe these teams when I see them. If Chiefs were to lose, on the road in Baltimore would be where I'd expect it to happen.
Also, Bears have a killer schedule this year, 2nd hardest by average 2024 record. Any of the following stretches could be a team's most brutal, grueling stretch of the season, but this is just, the entire Bears schedule in full.
Look again and you'll see every hardest game is on the road.
I can see the Bears going WORSE than their 5-12 record last year. The media press surrounding this team is delusional, as it is every year.
However, if the Bears do get in, a 4-way WC tie that lets in all NFC North teams, except the Packers, would be the funniest possible way to do it. As a Packers fan.
Jags AFC south is interesting. Sure why not. That division is ass.
Baker Mayfield winning 15 games would be a sight to behold.
Eagles look terrifying. I get Washington has legitimate hype but they're riding off one big win into a horrific loss. Into said Eagles. We'll see if they hit a sophmore slump. Would potentially be a hype CF rematch though.
Fellow Bengals believer. Fun. We will see.
I do not blame you LOL. Those games sure involve some Teams.
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The Bears have a tough schedule, but I also think they're a squad with the potential to rise to the challenge. Caleb flashed the potential that made him the first pick last year despite having a blocking sled as a head coach, and the offense is flush with talent around him. The defense is making fewer headlines, but I seem to remember them being a solid unit, too. In my view, it comes down to Ben Johnson as a head coach. We know he can call plays behind the best offensive line in football; can he do it with a worse one? Beyond that, can he rise to the challenge of being responsible for so much more as HC? If he lives up to the people skills of his mentor, I could see the Bears getting in as a wild card, but I think it's more likely that they'll be just short this year, and he'll need another year to cook before they make it to January football.
Knowing someone whose older sister’s boyfriend is a big Tampa Bay fan, we did actually get a brief chance to talk about what his team could look like going into 2025. Based off his experience watching the team and my current projections, I think 11-6 is where I’d put them right now. I really like what I’ve seen from Baker since he joined them and they’ve got a lot of playmakers around him. Their defense has a couple of overlooked guys too, but I don’t think I trust them and the division’s easy schedule enough to put their win total as high as some other projections I’ve seen. I’ll have to take a look at their preseason roster or something specifically on the defensive side to see if they have enough talent and specifically returning production to go the distance.
Edit: That someone is me, by the way.
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Honestly, I wouldn't take it as a given that the Bucs are going to farm the NFCS. The Falcons are loading up with Penix looking promising after Cousins hit the bench, and the Panthers might be turning into a real football team. The Saints are cooked, but you can always steal one in these divisional matchups. The difference between what's supposed to happen on paper and what actually happens could be quite a bit bigger than people think. 11-6 certainly feels more correct to me than 15-2, at any rate.
i just hope that for this upcoming season, the Patriots finish with a record better than the Buttfumble (Jets)
It remains to be seen whether we can do anything in the playoffs for once, but short of catastrophic injuries, there is absolutely no way I see the Ravens finishing with a 9-8 record lol.
I choose to subscribe to this timeline of events as being 100% predictive and accurate, 10/10 no notes. My favourite part was the Ravens winning it all.
As long as you have Lamar Jackson at quarterback, your floor is probably ten wins, and that's if a lot of things go wrong. Nobody is better than low-stakes Lamar.
I'll do you one better. The Ravens in the preseason specifically were out there looking like Brawl Meta Knight for a stretch of time. Or whatever broken top tier you can think of from a game you like. Incidentally, since I spotted another Jaguars fan in this thread, they seem to be the closet thing we have now to that, obviously less "dominant" overall, but with the preseason a week away, adjectivenoun's Lions playing in the Hall of Fame game (The state of Michigan might actually explode between the Lions and Harbaugh being present) and me hoping to go to my first NFL game in October if all goes according to plan- spoiler alert, it is actually a Jaguars game- I for one am pretty excited to see the AFC go crazy in the preseason yet again this year.
...wait, the preseason's officially one week away? Holy crap, this offseason went by fast.
I like the Jags as a sneaky division dark horse in the South. The south is UBER weak this year, with the Texans getting worse, the Colts still suffering the effects of the Anthony Richardson pick, and the Titans in full rebuild. If Liam Coen performs as advertised, the Jags have real playoff odds as a 4 seed. The Jags have a young, halfway decent defense spearheaded by that monstrous edge duo of Walker + Hines-Allen, and Travis Hunter certainly helps. Their season, however, will really be decided on if Trevor Lawrence finally proves himself as a franchise caliber QB. If Lawrence turns in a Pro Bowl season, there’s potential for the Jags to take the South for sure. That said I don’t see them getting past any of the AFC top dogs this year at least.
I think the AFC South is among the most balanced divisions in the league going into 2025, and that's both a good and a bad thing for Jacksonville. No team has won this division three or more consecutive seasons since the Colts won five straight division titles back from 2003 to 2007, and while a similar statement can be made about the AFC North- as a matter of fact, they've never had anyone win three straight division titles at all since the 2002 realignment- I have a feeling the Ravens might be the first to do that this year anyway and I feel more confident in the Ravens taking the AFC North again than I do about the Texans taking the AFC South again. Consistently weaker strength of schedules across the division means the talent across each roster can fluctuate a lot from season to season- in practice, what this means is that while Jacksonville's had decent draft picks in recent memory as far as the draft order is concerned, the same can also be said for the rest of the division, and I don't think Jacksonville has as much going for them as some might hope for. Granted, I also said the same thing going into 2022, but the "metagame" of the AFC looks particularly daunting for them this year.
To succeed and more importantly maintain that success in this conference, AFC teams need a couple of things. Strong quarterback play combined with a strong defensive core has been the highlight of the AFC for most of the 21st century- that's not to say the NFC hasn't had any good 21st century quarterbacks, far from it, but I don't trust Trevor Lawrence to be able to play at the same level as the AFC's current "Big 3" and I'd even go as far as to say that I trust a rookie Cam Ward and a returning CJ Stroud more than him on a week-by-week basis, though we'll have to see if Cam Ward is what the media wants us to believe. I actually think the Colts are the worst team in the AFC South at this point in time, but that's definitely not Johnathan Taylor's fault at RB1, and while they have lost their RB2 in Nyheim Hines I don't think the head-to-head matchup will change that much especially since the Colts can't win in Jacksonville if their lives depended on it. Defensively things aren't looking much better even with Travis Hunter probably getting some reps at both receiver and cornerback- while the secondary and possibly the off-ball linebackers could do well in 2025, the defensive line and more specifically defensive tackle remains a massive question mark to me coming off of what might be the best DT draft class we've had... maybe ever?. We're looking at a team whose highest projected draft need was the top rated position overall in the entire class and they didn't draft a single guy. THAT is embarrassing.
The disparity at defensive tackle alone is enough to make me question the Jaguars' ability to win the division this year. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how absolutely stacked the defensive line is in the "NFL metagame" right now. Those dominant two-high safety looks wouldn't be nearly as effective for teams like, say, the Eagles if the defensive line can't do all the grunt work and let seven people drop into coverage for the entire Super Bowl. (No, I'm not joking, the Eagles didn't run a single man blitz call the entire game and they STILL won by 18.) But. If this team can figure out the trenches, the Jaguars probably also have the highest ceiling in the AFC South while still having a very slightly higher floor than the Colts in my opinion. We'll have to see how the Texans play and if the Titans are as bad as we think, but if both of those go in Jacksonville's favor, this division is in the bag for them.
PRESEASON TIME BABY!
Also remind me when Fantasy starts
Also remind me when Fantasy starts
Well, after last season's ending, I certainly did not need another demonstration of the fact that a team consisting entirely of backups isn't very good, but I sure got it!
In your team's defense, I think things are going to look better later down the line. Defensive injuries last late season screwed you guys over against the Commanders (specifically on the defensive side) and I still think you guys have some questions right now at QB2 and with the new coordinators. I don't think one preseason game against the Chargers is going to tell us as much as the regular season slate will, and last season I thought you guys had the hardest schedule in the NFC going into 2024 and look how that turned out.
lool cowboys amirite (parsons want out)
This Cowboys team bothers me. I want to like this franchise, but the ownership continues to make me question things. They're up there with the Bengals in my opinion for worst ownership in the league right now. In fact, it might still be too early to say this just in case Jayden Daniels does have a sophomore slump, but when WASHINGTON'S ownership is looking better than you, in your own division, no less, that should be a sign that you messed up. Big time. The, er, "Football Team" was at a recent point my single least favorite NFL franchise, but there's been a lot of movement in how I'd rank the NFC East from least to most favorite in the past two years specifically and that sucks as someone who has multiple friends from college who are really good people and not at all the stereotypical toxic Cowboys fans you might expect to see.
Dallas having so many night games every year is just... blatantly stupid and pretty biased if I'm being honest; they've done nothing significant in the NFC since the '90s dynasty run and as good as they were in that stretch, I don't think it's healthy for what are arguably some of the most historic "blue bloods" in the NFL to hold on to that piece of history for so long. This ownership team keeps trying to make their teams into something they're not, and if they keep this up they might drop to third or even last place in that NFC East ranking I mentioned. If you're a Washington NFL fan or know any good friends or family that is, you know how bad the organization was in shambles for so long. Let's just say a lot of it wasn't on the field, either. Getting me to think your ownership is... maybe not as bad, but getting dangerously close to how bad things were with your division rivals is just depressing. But, because Dallas is such a big media market, and because ESPN and all the other big companies have a freaking fetish for big-market teams at this point, I don't they or the NFL is ever going to shut up about this team. The Thanksgiving game is fine. That can stay. That's a yearly tradition and has been for a long while now. But get (most of) their primetime games out of here. They don't deserve THAT many each season.
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I mean, they have won playoff games during the Dak era. Most recently, they beat the Bucs to finally drive the last nail in Brady's coffin. They've just never come close to living up to the yearly cries that they're going to the Super Bowl.
I put the Cowboys in my LOL tier back when I made my prediction tier list because I think this is finally the year when the bottom completely falls out for that organization. Jerry Jones is a meddlesome, ineffectual owner who has been an anchor on his own team for going on three decades because he would rather lose his way than win anyone else's way. He may have extended an olive branch to Jimmy Johnson, but he's still the guy who fired Jimmy Johnson because his ego wouldn't let him share the credit for the Cowboys dynasty with anyone else. He's not a serious owner, and they're not a serious franchise; they've been buoyed up by talented draft picks for years, and they only get so much love from the media because they're a legacy franchise that captures a massive market share no matter how dire they are as a team. When he hired Brian Schottenheimer as his new head coach, I knew they were properly cooked. Now, he's beginning to totally alienate the talented players that have kept his worthless franchise in the spotlight for so long (even when he probably extends Parsons, is Parsons gonna give everything he has to this team?), which only cements my belief that the Cowboys are going to be at the absolute bottom of the barrel this season. I, for one, cannot wait. The Cowboys embody unearned haughtiness and arrogance; watching them get taken out back and shot by the Eagles (by the way, fuck Saquon Barkley, too) to open the regular season will provide me with ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude, as will every subsequent disaster they will no doubt face on those primetime games they keep shoving their way into at the expense of vastly more deserving franchises.