Sports media does this thing where everyone gets excited for talking head predictions at the start of a season, but rarely does anyone hold their feet to the fire for the ones that go sideways. This is especially true when you start stacking years on top of one another—there are some “analysts” that wouldn’t be let near Lot A if they were truly held accountable for their awful takes.
Sure it’s entertainment, the shock value of bold predictions moves the needle and nobody really remembers what was said in August when the Super Bowl kicks off in February.
Fine. Got it.
But where does that leave you as the viewer? Should you be subjected to flawed analysis simply because the absurdity of it causes the general pubic stop and stare like a car wreck on the highway? And this is the rubber-necking content you’re going let drive your futures bets? Nah, we can be better.
With NFL 2025 kicking off this week, here are the top five signs of an NFL team prediction that is going nowhere fast.
#1 Elite quarterbacks are floor raisers, not ceiling raisers
And there’s less of them than you think. Exhibit A: Joe Burrow in Cincinnati.
The man we once stumped for on the #MarkDraft, Joey Burr’s passing stats dwarfed everyone’s last season. His talent is undeniable, but while he’s a consensus top four player at the possession, even he couldn’t will his team to the postseason in either of the last two years.
Today, you can only earnestly say that teams led by Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen will make the playoffs every year merely because of their presence. And even then, where does that get you? Allen and Jackson have yet to make a Super Bowl, while Mahomes has made several, yet gotten his ass handed to him on the biggest stage…twice, including earlier this year.
We all place more emphasis on the quarterback than we should, this site included; the best (and healthiest) team wins the Super Bowl 90% of the time. We’ve also seen Nick Foles, a comatose Peyton Manning and Jimmy Garoppolo (almost) hoist the Lombardi in the last decade. Anyone chauffeuring a team to a Super Bowl or Conference Championship appearance just because of the quarterback is mistaken.
Truthfully, the best quarterbacks guarantee you nothing except a trip to the playoffs at best. The other 25-28 starting QBs are stuck in the NFL blender with everyone else.
#2 Ignoring narrow results from the previous year
We know football is a game of inches. An inch, a blown call, a bobbled ball, or an impeccably-timed gust of wind often separates winners from losers on Sunday. If someone thinks a team will replicate success from the prior year because of their record alone, they had better make sure they did the research on how they compiled those wins.
Take the 2022 Minnesota Vikings, who miraculously went 11-0 in one score games. They ended up losing to Daniel Jones and the Giants in first round of the playoffs, then preceded to go 7-10 the following season. Maybe it was the absence of Lady Luck, or maybe they were never that good to begin with.
Whatever the case, the Vikes are a cautionary tale for any team that stumbled ass backwards into a bunch of wins that don’t have the Reid/Mahomes infrastructure. And even then, it’s dicey.
#3 Banking on defenses (especially takeaways) year over year
There’s a reason why you typically pick your D/ST at the end of your fantasy draft. Offenses tend to be pretty reliable year to year (see the above coach/quarterback comment), while defenses are far more fickle. Despite a defense having largely the same scheme and personnel, it’s not a lock that you’ll see their dominance repeated.
There’s no better evidence of this than takeaways, a critical stat when it comes to measuring a defense’s success. Teams within an individual season tend to have some special sauce when it comes to securing the football, for whatever reason. But it’s rare for a team live in the top of the league in this stat for consecutive years. Here’s a look at how teams fared in the last decade:
| Year | NFL Takeaway Leader | Takeaways | Next Year Takeaways (Rank) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Ravens/Giants | 31 | Ravens – 17 (T-20th) Giants – 15 (28th) |
| 2022 | Cowboys | 33 | 26 (T-12) |
| 2021 | Cowboys | 34 | 33 (1st) |
| 2020 | Dolphins | 29 | 26 (T-8th) |
| 2019 | Steelers | 38 | 27 (2nd) |
| 2018 | Bears | 36 | 19 (T-22nd) |
| 2017 | Ravens | 34 | 17 (T-22nd) |
| 2016 | Chiefs | 33 | 26 (T-7th) |
| 2015 | Panthers | 39 | 27 (T-7th) |
| 2014 | Texans | 34 | 25 (T-12th) |
Some items of note:
- Only two teams landed in the top five in consecutive years. In the third year, the Cowboys fell to tie for 12th in 2023, while the Steelers fell to tie for 14th in 2021.
- Other teams that didn’t see their ranking crater, like the 2016 Panthers, still saw a massive drop in total takeaways. Going down 13 fumbles and interceptions in a 16 game season is near a one turnover per game falloff. That can have a sizable impact on wins and losses—hence, the Panthers went from a 15-1 Super Bowl appearance in 2015 to 6-10 in 2016.
- Seeing this, how could you possibly rely on a team forcing over THIRTY turnovers consistently?
Plenty goes into these numbers over the course of a 2-3 season snapshot—most notably fumble luck, but the QBs a team faces, weather and player/coach attrition all play a role. But it’s evident that assuming a team will generate turnovers at a league-leading clip from one year to the next is grasping at straws. Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks the Steelers or Vikings will force 33 turnovers again in 2025.
#4 About the quarterbacks, which ones did your pick play again?
Remember how quarterbacks are floor raisers? Last year, the Commanders’ NFC Title Game run was propelled by a laughable QB schedule. They faced the gauntlet of Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones (twice), Andy Dalton, rookie Caleb Williams, Russell Wilson, Cooper Rush, Trey Lance, Deshaun Watson (who we’ll continue to defend, but it was a rough 2024), Will Levis, Kenny Pickett, rookie Michael Penix and Spencer Rattler. Suffice it to say these signal-callers raised their teams’ collective floor to the basement.
Ignore this fact when evaluating a team’s potential for the following season and you’ll likely regret it.
#5 Watch the “year from hell” thing
Bill Simmons has made this term famous, basically describing a team that dealt with horrific luck for an entire season from the word “go”. You can ascribe this term to a team who under-performed last year thinking that there’s no way they’ll be that bad again, but what if you pick the wrong “year form hell” team?
Simmons is convinced this team was the 49ers, and they are a worthy candidate. But no team fits this description better than the Cleveland Browns, who went from 11 wins (could’ve been 12 except they mailed in Week 18 against Cincinnati) to 3 in just one season!
How’d they do it?
For starters, the Browns were so injured in 2023, it bled over into their 2024. They began the year with both starting tackles on the injured list. Nick Chubb wouldn’t return from his knee that was destroyed early in 2023 until Week 7, then he broke his foot in Week 15. David Njoku had one of the few splash plays in Week 1, but hurt his ankle on said play and missed time. Defensive stalwart Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah injured his neck and missed the rest of last season (and all of this season). Deshaun Watson tore his Achilles in Week 7, then tore it again during his rehab. Also, Cleveland was among the league-leaders in pre-snap penalties and the sure-handed Amari Cooper was leading the NFL in drops when he was traded midseason. But sure, let’s focus on the 49ers.
The point is, dumb luck happens, but usually one team gets it worse than everyone else. And using that to explain away all of a team’s issues is a dangerous game.
You now have all the flags in the tuck as you sift through predictions from every podcaster and TV personality this week. Will we make our own predictions? Maybe. But it’s way more fun to trash everyone else’s.