Three teams that could be set for significant regression in the 2025 NFL season

If there’s one thing football fans know about the NFL, it’s that things can change extremely quickly from year to year. A team can live at the top of the standings in one season and struggle mightily to reach .500 the following season.

We will look at three teams that were the talk of the NFL in 2024, but should be worried about taking a significant step back in 2025.

Minnesota Vikings

If the Vikings weren’t in the NFC North, there’s an excellent chance they would have hosted a playoff game a year ago. A 14-3 record had Minnesota right up there with the league’s best, as they defeated everyone on their schedule, not named the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams.

Head coach Kevin O’Connell deserves a ton of credit for engineering a season that saw Sam Darnold play like a legitimate MVP candidate. O’Connell deserves the benefit of the doubt, given how quarterbacks play under him in Minnesota. Still, it would be a mistake to assume J.J. McCarthy will automatically pick up where they left off.

Minnesota might still be a playoff team, but they would still be tagged as a major regression candidate if they won four or five fewer games this season, which is entirely possible.

Detroit Lions

Lions head coach Dan Campbell has not expressed outward concern about losing his offensive and defensive coordinators to head coaching jobs this offseason. He feels that Detroit has enough knowledge in the building to keep moving forward, even without Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn.

The roster is still as talented as any in the NFL, but the departure of both coordinators could affect how the team plays in 2025. We saw a similar exodus 2023 from the Philadelphia Eagles, as the team lost offensive coordinator Shane Steichen and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon to head coaching positions. It took the Eagles a year to restock those roles, and, of course, they won the Super Bowl after they did.

Most sportsbook NFL odds projections still have Detroit as the king of the jungle in the NFC North, but there are some major red flags to watch in the coming months.

Seattle Seahawks

Seattle had a solid season under new head coach Mike MacDonald in 2024, going 10-7. However, that record would seem like a pipe dream heading into the 2025 campaign.

The Seahawks decided to part ways with quarterback Geno Smith, sending him to the Las Vegas Raiders to reunite him with former Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. Seattle also traded D.K. Metcalf. The team moved swiftly to replace those two players with Sam Darnold and Cooper Kupp, but it might be asking a lot for them to replace that production.

Without the offensive schemes of Kevin O’Connell, many believe that Darnold isn’t going to fare as well in his new city. Additionally, Kupp has battled injuries that have sapped him of his effectiveness. The Seahawks may be lucky to sniff a .500 record in 2025.