The worst thing that can happen in sports is predictability. There’s a malaise that falls over a league when there’s such a clear delineation between the good and bad that the best we can do is pray for an upset, before fatalistically accepting that the Dodgers will win another World Series. It saps the joy out of contest and makes everything regress to the point where a season might as well be scripted television, and hell, there are entire message boards of conspiracy theorists who already think sports are predetermined.
This year in the NFL has been buck wild. It’s infuriating, and frustrating, with nothing really making sense. It rocks. As we enter Week 15 there are still no teams who have secured a playoff spot. Granted, we do have five teams across the NFC and AFC who currently have a 95% chance of better of making the postseason, but there’s still the slimmest of chances that even the best teams in the league could have everything implode.
Conversely there are only nine teams who have been eliminated from playoff contention, with a bubble spanning a huge percentage of the league. This is extremely abnormal for football, which normally has the majority of the playoff spots wrapped up by now — with only a few teams left with anything to play for as they fight for the bubble.
This is what the playoff picture looked like entering Week 15 in 2024:
- Chiefs: 12-1 (1st round bye, AFC West Champions)
- Bills: 10-3 (AFC East Champions)
- Steelers: 10-3
- Texans: 8-5
- Ravens: 8-5
- Chargers: 8-5
- Broncos: 8-5
Three teams had a chance of getting a spot: The Colts, Dolphins and Bengals
- Lions: 12-1 (Clinched berth)
- Eagles: 11-2 (Clinched berth)
- Seahawks: 8-5
- Buccaneers: 7-6
- Vikings: 11-2
- Packers: 9-4
- Commanders: 8-5
Eight teams had a chance of getting a spot: Rams, Falcons, Cardinals, 49ers, Saints, Cowboys, Bears, Panthers
The biggest core difference between 2024 and 2025 isn’t the amount of teams who could make the playoffs, but how slim the margins are between the top of the conference, and the bottom of the bubble. This time last year the Chiefs and Bills had wrapped up their divisions with weeks to spare, having their next nearest opponents three games or more behind them. The Eagles hadn’t claimed the NFC East yet because of divisional games to be played, but they still were three games ahead of their next nearest competition.
This year, everything is still up in the air. The biggest divisional disparity comes from the AFC East and AFC West where the edge is two games, but more importantly we have five of the league’s eight divisions with opponents all within one game of each other. These last four weeks will settle almost every division, decide each playoff spot, and determine who has home field advantage in the playoffs. There won’t be a “will they bench Saquon?” moment in 2025, because there isn’t any margin for teams not to put the hammer down from here to the finish line.
The generally accepted thought this season is that “nobody is good,” and I’ve fallen into this trap as well. It’s a glass-half-empty approach to the season. Instead of prescribing to the idea that nobody is good, what if we accept that everyone is good. I mean, not the Titans, Raiders, Jets or Browns — they stink, but everyone else is a shade of good — and because there’s league-wide competency at every position, particularly on defense, nobody is really able to shine.
- Nine teams are allowed 4.0 yards or less per carry (up from three in 2024)
- 13 teams are allowing 6.0 yards or less per pass attempt (up from 10 in 2024)
- 29.5% of drives are ending in a score (down from 38.8% in 2024)
- Quarterbacks are completing 64% of their passes on average (down from 65%)
This is all happening despite average QB pressure rates being down. Quarterbacks are under less pressure than last year, and they’re still completing their passes at roughly the same rate, but were seeing fewer explosive plays, fewer missed tackles, and less scoring. This means that defensive scheming has improved, as well as football fundamentals. It’s not a factor of offenses getting explicitly worse but more that teams have caught up, and this is happening league wide at the same time.
It’s for this reason games are so much more unpredictable now. This is a season where passing windows are smaller, making skill become more important for a quarterback. Similarly, not every running back is shining, meaning that a premium is being put on vision rather than raw power or strength.
When these shifts happen around the entire NFL we have a scenario where any team has the chance of winning in any given week. Coaching and game planning are more of a deciding element in 2025 than in past years, which brings us closer to the ideal of the NFL as a whole.
So I say: Enjoy the ride. Sure, nothing is predictable — but this rules. It’s fun to turn on a game and have literally no idea which team will win. It’s fun to see upsets, and shootouts, and defensive duels. It’s fun to see every team be forced to have an individual identity, because there isn’t one prevailing strategy serving as a catch-all.
This season rules, and I have no idea who is going to win it all.
