As we roll towards another Super Bowl and the subsequent end of yet another NFL season, 30 teams are currently reflecting on what went wrong or what could’ve been done differently. Some of those teams had high hopes in August only for their seasons to end in disappointment. I’m taking some time on this cold January morning to look back at a few of the teams that I thought would have much better seasons than they did in 2025. And, no, you won’t find the Cincinnati Bengals or Detroit Lions on this list. I tried to tell y’all not to buy the hype on either of those teams heading into the season. Anyway…
The Most Disappointing Teams of the 2025 NFL Season
Arizona Cardinals – Maybe I was the lone inhabitant on an island in August thinking Arizona could make something happen in 2025, but I thought the roster construction that Monti Ossenfort had overseen was going to pay dividends. I’ve been a fan of Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing. The NFC West is a monster gauntlet, but I thought this was the year Arizona could finally start putting some things together. I love their defensive talent and the way that unit is built with hybrid players who can play multiple positions at each level. And, I love some of the offensive talent they’ve assembled. But, man – they have some serious soul searching to do at the quarterback position. After a 2-0 start, they won just one more game the rest of the season. What’s crazy is that every game of their first seven was decided by one score. This team could’ve easily been 7-0, but blunders against the 49ers, Seahawks, and Titans dropped them to 2-3. One-score losses to the Colts and Packers dropped them to 2-5, and from there, the bottom fell out. I do wonder how the close losses…games during which the Cardinals snatched defeat from the jaws of victory…wears on the psyche of a team. Regardless, it’s back to the drawing board with a new head coach in Arizona in 2026.
Atlanta Falcons – The 2025 Atlanta Falcons are one of the weirdest teams I’ve watched in quite some time. They started the season at a competitive 3-2 only to go 1-7 in their next eight before finishing the season at 4-0. They were eliminated from the playoffs at 4-9 in December, but finished tied for the best record in the NFC South. How do we make sense of this? I’m not entirely sure that Raheem Morris deserved to be fired, but if the NFL has taught us anything through the years, it’s that usually when the GM goes, the head coach goes too. The Falcons will be starting with a clean slate across the board heading into 2026. They may still have questions about Michael Penix Jr., but there’s way too much talent on that roster to be as middling as they’ve been in recent seasons. In a year when 8-9 was good enough to win the division, it’s a massive disappointment that the Falcons couldn’t capitalize on it.
Kansas City Chiefs – The last good draft class that the Chiefs had was in 2022. Hurl your tomatoes at me all you want, but I stand by it. You can’t sustain success in the NFL while enduring multiple bad classes in a row. I feel like most people want to make the Chiefs season about the injury to Patrick Mahomes, but signs of regression were showing up long before that happened. Kansas City’s stars are beginning to age, and they haven’t done a good enough job of replacing them to remain competitive. The results are clear – they haven’t been able to adequately address the wide receiver or offensive line positions in the last few years.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – The Bucs endured some catastrophic injuries throughout 2025, and it may be fair to explain away their failed postseason efforts accordingly. But, it’s still at least somewhat disappointing to see this team go from a 6-2 legitimate Super Bowl contender early in the season to a 2-7 squad that struggled to fend off the Saints and Panthers in tight games as their only two wins on the back nine. It appeared as though they were going to run away with the NFC South. Baker Mayfield was a bona fide MVP candidate, and then shit went sideways. Now, the Bucs are searching for a new offensive coordinator and head coach Todd Bowles’s seat is warming up heading into 2026.
Washington Commanders – It probably wouldn’t be so bad for Washington if they didn’t go on that run to the NFC Championship the season before, to be honest. Instead, they took a rookie quarterback, flipped that roster, and went on a run that head all of us looking at each other like, “okay, well how can our team do what they just did?” Sometimes, teams just get hot. I don’t remember a craze after the 2007 season during which every NFL team tried to model their process after the upstart New York Giants, but I digress. Expectations come with a run like that, and Washington couldn’t follow up on the success of 2024. An offense that couldn’t sustain drives and a defense that tired out led Washington to 5-12. All eyes on you next season, New England Patriots.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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