Looking ahead to the 2025 season

By Trevor Speetzen February 09, 2025 09:18 GMT+4 min read

As the 2024 season comes to a close, let's look ahead to the 2025 offseason and eventual regular season. Some teams could surpass expectations while others may fail to meet expectations.

One example of a team not meeting expectations is the 2024 San Francisco 49ers. After making the Super Bowl in 2023, the Niners suffered numerous injuries throughout the year and failed to make the playoffs in 2024.

It was a big surprise that San Francisco missed the playoffs after entering the year with high expectations, something that could very well replicate in 2025.

The Washington Commanders could be a team to not meet expectations in 2025. Jayden Daniels is coming off an historic rookie season that took Washington all the way to the NFC championship game.

However, as seen in the past many rookie quarterbacks have regressed heavily in their sophomore seasons. CJ Stroud was the most recent QB to struggle in their second season, but the Houston Texans were still able to make the playoffs.

Washington could very well make another run next barring any sophomore struggle from their franchise quarterback.

The 2025 season will be an odd year, which could mean that Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills could miss the Super Bowl once again. Ever since 2020, the Bills fail to meet expectations in odd numbered seasons.

The team always seems to limp into the playoffs during every odd numbered season and eventually get eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs.

While Allen is coming off his first MVP season and could very well put up MVP numbers the next season, it may not translate to playoff success.

The 2025 offseason will contain many starting quarterbacks that are entering free agency. Quarterbacks such as Sam Darnold, Russell Wilson and Justin Fields will be hitting the open market and likely change teams.

There has been recent talk that Wilson might be heading to Las Vegas to play for the Raiders. The Raiders recently just hired Wilson’s former head coach, Pete Carroll, to be Las Vegas’ next head coach.

Wilson had also been butting heads with Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, which may rule out a possibility of a return to Pittsburgh for Wilson.

While Pittsburgh may not re-sign Wilson, they may bring back Justin Fields. Fields went 4-2 as the Steelers starting QB during 2024. Whether he would be a bridge QB or a franchise player, all signs point to Fields returning to Pittsburgh.

The biggest free agent QB is none other than Sam Darnold. Darnold is coming off a career year with the Minnesota Vikings, where he led the team to the playoffs and was named to his first career pro bowl.

Minnesota will likely turn to JJ McCarthy to be the teams long-term answer at quarterback, which leaves Darnold open to signing a big contract anywhere he wants. People have pointed to Pittsburgh and Las Vegas as a prime destination, but that doesn’t seem likely.

The 2025 offseason has a lot of questions going in, unfortunately the answers won’t be available until next September.