The NFL playoffs here and we’re left with a very interesting, largely unexpected field of contenders! I put together the most info-packed preview of the tournament, introducing all 14 teams individually and breaking down each matchup, leading up to Super Bowl LX!
Happy holidays, everyone! As we approach Christmas eve and I didn’t have the time to write a full-fledged article, I thought this was a good time to talk about one critical area of growth for the Jaguars, Patriots, Bears and Panthers, who all won yet again this past weekend and are in the driver’s seats to home playoff games, after being projected to have losing records, based on betting odds. In fact, Carolina is the only one among those that hasn’t secured playoff berth yet.
The purpose of this isn’t to sing the praises of Drake Maye or talk about the Bears defense still leading the league in turnovers forced. Rather, I want to shine light on one piece of the puzzle for each of these teams, which has allowed them to get to this place, but is rarely ever being talked about.
The Chicago Bears currently lead the NFC North with a 10-4 record, thanks to timely big-time throws by their quarterback, an opportunistic defense, but most importantly, a smashmouth run game orchestrated by Ben Johnson. I want to illustrate how they’ve found this much success on the ground, thanks to all the different layers and great attention to detail.
We’re three quarters through the 2025 NFL season and it’s time for one more look at all 32 teams. As always, please bear in mind that these are power *rankings* rather than standings. So you may see one team be listed above another with a better record or even one they’ve already lost to head-to-head at some point – the objective is to weigh them against the rest of the league at large, and how many opponents I’d favor them over. Especially, as playoff seedings are starting to materialize, we’re somewhat looking ahead at who can go the distance, even though this is more meant to be a snapshot of this moment.
I took injuries into account and weighed current form more heavily, while compared to earlier in the season, we have a pretty good picture of what teams are in all three facets of the game. Although you’ll find a variety of statistics and advanced metrics to support my arguments, they’re all primarily grounded in having watched every single matchup up to this opponent, either on the broadcast, the All-22, or both.
Let’s get to the full rankings:
On the eve of Thanksgiving, I wanted to get out this video on four things I’m thankful for being able to watch around the league, on a weekly basis – including both players and coaches, two on offense and defense each.
Now with every NFL team having played double-digit games, I thought it was time to reflect on the current state of the league when it comes to quarterback play, by ranking and bucketing all 32 starters, as I ultimately settled on eight different categories.
For this exercise, I chose the players who have been fixtures in the lineup for multiple contests and largely are expected to be in those roles for the rest of the season. That means you won’t see names like Joe Burrow, Mac Jones, Kyler Murray and Spencer Rattler, who other than Burrow of course, would probably all end up around the top of the “starters with defined limitations” tier.
This is how I have everyone stacked up:
Buffalo came into the 2025 season as Super Bowl favorites. After ten weeks, they sit at 6-3 with the league’s reigning MVP and some big wins on their resume, but they’ve also shown a major weakness when it comes to defending the run. I want to break down some of their structural issues, personnel deficiencies and how opponents have challenged them so far.
With the NFL having adopted an 18-week format, this marks the exact midpoint of this season, and it’s time to hand out awards. I will go through each of them, presenting my top three candidates, before I finish up with my All-Pro teams.
Compared to my full-season predictions back in late August, there are no projections to these nominations, but rather just how I would vote for each award if the season ended today. So you will see some players show up, who won’t actually win any of these awards or be named All-Pro most likely because they’re currently injured and will miss the rest of the year in some cases.
Let’s get into them:
After brainstorming a few different ideas about videos I could work on, I decided to sort of combine them into a collection of the coolest things I saw across the NFL this past week – whether that’s the performance of an individual player, a unit or some schematic detail.
Despite multiple highly talented quarterbacks either being on bye or currently injured, we got to witness excellent play at the position in several games. I went back to watch all of them and now want to highlight my personal top five, by breaking down their top plays!
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