Footballs have been broken in and the grass has been manicured at NFL facilities across the country as the 2025 season approaches. By the end of Tuesday, every team’s full roster will have reported to its practice location, and practices will be underway this week, with all 32 teams hoping to make a run at Super Bowl LX.
There is an abundance of interesting story lines—both national and local—for fans to sink their teeth into as the preseason begins. There are five first-time head coaches, and 21 of the league’s 32 head coaches have been in their current jobs for less than five years—a sea change from the way things were just a decade ago. As it stands now, there are only five projected starting quarterbacks who were drafted in or before 2013 (Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco, Geno Smith, and Russell Wilson). The league has been fully turned over to the current generation, and with that comes a race to see who’ll be the next quarterback under 30 to join Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts as champions in this era.
We’ll see several rookies, including no. 1 pick Cam Ward in Tennessee and two-way star Travis Hunter in Jacksonville, try to carve out early roles for themselves, while veterans battle for playing time and roster spots. Of course, there are a few players still embroiled in contract drama that could be resolved in the next few weeks. As the pros lace up their cleats and tighten their chin straps, here are a handful of the most interesting story lines I’ll be watching over the next month.
Who will win the open quarterback jobs?
Nothing speaks more to the rising level of quarterback play around the league than the relative stability of the position for most franchises. There will be only a handful of teams with uncertainty about who their starter will be—or what we can expect from them—by the time training camp opens this week. With that in mind, let’s take a peek at some of those teams and establish where things stand and what we can glean from their first few weeks of practice.
In Tennessee, Cam Ward enters training camp with a clear path to be the Week 1 starter, especially after Monday’s news that Will Levis will miss the entire season. It now seems likely that Ward will have to be given leeway to make mistakes and learn on the fly. When I reviewed Ward’s film ahead of the draft, I left thinking that I was watching a slim Ben Roethlisberger with around 85 percent of Jordan Love’s raw arm talent. In layman’s terms, Ward is a quarterback who’ll take some risks to push the ball downfield, even if it comes at the cost of sacks and turnovers. Head coach Brian Callahan needs a quarterback who’s able to straddle that line between ruthless and reckless, so over the next few weeks, I expect to hear that Ward has some bad days with multiple turnovers, teaching him when to tamp things down. The bigger thing for us to keep an eye on, though, is how the offensive line is holding up. Bringing in veterans like tackle Dan Moore and guard Kevin Zeitler should shore things up, but this unit projects to play poorly in pass protection, so if Ward takes sacks or has to escape pressure too often, it may be a signal that this offense can’t give him enough time to be the best version of himself.
Elsewhere, we’ll be watching quarterback battles in New York, Cleveland, New Orleans, and Indianapolis.
I get the impression that Giants head coach Brian Daboll has set up a Mortal Kombat–esque ladder for first-round pick Jaxson Dart to climb during training camp: If Dart can show that he’s able to balance taking care of the ball with taking chances within the structure of Daboll’s offense, he can pass Jameis Winston on the depth chart and become the backup. If Dart can navigate the pocket efficiently and solve problems with his playmaking, then perhaps there’s a chance that he could take the starting job from Russell Wilson.
Cleveland’s quarterback room includes players with a total hodgepodge of skill sets and developmental timelines, from 40-year-old Joe Flacco to 23-year-old Shedeur Sanders—and I can’t tell which direction this franchise wants to go in quite yet. I want to see whether rookies Sanders and Dillon Gabriel can prove themselves competent enough to supplant Kenny Pickett as Flacco’s backup.
In New Orleans, the competition to replace the retired Derek Carr is between second-round pick Tyler Shough and second-year passer Spencer Rattler, each of whom has a talented arm and an interesting physical profile but serious issues with handling pressure. Both players like to throw into tight windows, though, so this camp should help the Saints’ new coaching staff determine which quarterback is a better decision-maker.
Finally, there’s Indianapolis, where the competition between former first-round pick Anthony Richardson and former Giants starter Daniel Jones seems like a referendum on Shane Steichen’s era as Colts head coach. Steichen still hasn’t delivered the kind of efficient and innovative scheme we saw during his time as offensive coordinator in Philadelphia (when he orchestrated one of the league’s best units en route to an NFC championship in the 2022 season), and he hasn’t coaxed any improvements in accuracy or decision-making out of Richardson. Jones might have an early leg up on the competition because Richardson missed practice in the spring due to a shoulder injury. But if Richardson can’t snatch the job back from Jones on the basis of his raw athletic talent alone, that’s a serious indictment of Steichen and the current Colts regime.
Which offense in the AFC West will be good enough to challenge Kansas City in 2025?
Since the Broncos won Super Bowl 50 and Peyton Manning retired in 2016, the AFC West has belonged to Kansas City. Not only have the Chiefs run away with the division, but their rivals haven’t even been contenders, combining for a 1-6 record in the playoffs over the same span. And often, an inconsistent passing game that has broken down against elite competition has held the Chargers, Raiders, and Broncos back. Fixing that problem will be key to closing the gap between them and Kansas City.
This season may bring different fortunes for those teams, though. Las Vegas has brought in a steady veteran quarterback in Geno Smith and a trusted head coach in Pete Carroll. Denver’s offense found its stride in the second half of last season, and Sean Payton has built a roster that’s capable of causing problems for Kansas City—Denver would have upset the Chiefs last November if not for a blocked field goal. The Chargers lack top-end talent, but the combination of coach Jim Harbaugh and quarterback Justin Herbert should allow the offense to grow in the coming years. As training camp opens, each of these offenses has its own problems to solve to improve its passing game:
- Las Vegas will need new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly to prove that after a successful stint in the college ranks with Ohio State and UCLA, he has a better understanding of how to maximize his personnel than he did in his earlier NFL stints and is prepared to attack more complex pro defenses, especially as his opponents adjust to his unique tendencies.
- Los Angeles needs to prove that it can design a comprehensive and efficient dropback passing game; things broke down around Herbert on passing downs far too often last season.
- Of these AFC West challengers, I’m most bullish on Denver’s passing game, which ought to break out because of Payton’s track record of developing a scheme around his quarterback’s abilities. But Bo Nix had some serious limitations with managing the pocket as a rookie, and the only way he can thrive with Payton’s play calling is to be better at managing the game within structure. I’m interested in what year two will look like for Nix, especially after Denver added some necessary upgrades at running back and tight end.
Kansas City will be a contender as long as Mahomes is under center. But in 2025, the Chiefs are coming off a lopsided Super Bowl loss and are rebuilding their offensive line, so they may be as vulnerable as they’ve ever been in the Mahomes era. If any of these other teams can take a major offensive leap, there may finally be some suspense in this division again.
Will the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson find middle ground on a new contract?
The Bengals have a knack for backing themselves into a corner in their negotiations with their best players. As training camp opens, edge rusher Trey Hendrickson is still waiting for a contract extension. He is in the final year of his current deal, which has no guaranteed money remaining.
The whole thing is messy. The team prioritized finalizing new contracts with star receivers Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase in the spring, and then it drafted Shemar Stewart (another Bengal with an unresolved contract dispute!), who will likely be Hendrickson’s eventual replacement. The public stance from team officials seems to be that it’s Hendrickson’s fault that an agreement hasn’t been reached. During the owners meetings back in April, Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn said that the team presented a “competitive” offer and that Hendrickson “should be happy at certain rates that maybe he doesn’t think he’d be happy at.” Hendrickson clearly disagrees and held out from participating in offseason workouts. But will the start of camp and the clock ticking down spur action from both sides?
Hendrickson is in an unenviable spot right now, and he’s an instructive example for how dicey contract negotiations can be for players in their 30s—even highly productive ones. Hendrickson played the last couple of seasons on a contract that didn’t include big guarantees, which helped provide the Bengals the salary cap space needed for Chase, Higgins, and quarterback Joe Burrow to ink their respective extensions. Hendrickson clearly believed that he’d earn one more big payday from the Bengals if he produced at a high level. He far outshot expectations, with 17.5 sacks in each of the past two seasons. But Cincinnati seems to have responded by tightening its purse strings on what will likely be his final long-term contract.
Hendrickson’s contract drama comes as the market for elite edge rushers has ballooned in recent years, for both young stars and veterans exiting their primes. The Steelers just gave 30-year-old T.J. Watt a three-year, $123 million extension with a reported $108 million in guarantees. Watt is now the highest-paid non-quarterback by annual salary, topping the $40 million average from Myles Garrett’s deal that he signed in March (which included $123.5 million in guarantees). Dallas’s Micah Parsons will likely be the next edge rusher to cash in, and his new deal could top $42 million per year.
Hendrickson has been as productive as Watt, Garrett, and Parsons. The problem is that he’s dealing with a franchise that doesn’t typically hand out big guarantees spread over multiple years, especially for its foundational defensive players. Larry Ogunjobi left the Bengals in 2022 after career highs in sacks (seven) and tackles for loss (12), the interior defensive line continued to tank after D.J. Reader left last season, and the secondary has been an issue after the team lost cornerback Chidobe Awuzie and star safety Jessie Bates over the past couple of offseasons. Each of these players left for multiyear deals elsewhere, but none for market-topping money, sending a clear signal that the Bengals could have retained some of their veteran defensive players if they had so chosen.
It seems unlikely that Hendrickson would get more than a one-year commitment from the team—but there’s no way that he should cave on contract length after playing last season on essentially a prove-it deal. Earlier in the offseason (and in response to Blackburn’s comments), Hendrickson made it clear what he’s not interested in: “I don’t think I want to play on a short-term contract and see where [a future negotiation] goes.” At this stage, I wouldn’t expect Hendrickson to show up to training camp until things are resolved. And if I were running the Bengals, I’d have to think hard about whether it best serves their long-term interests to trade him for future draft capital that the team could use to get back into Super Bowl contention in the years to come.
Which young defense in the NFC will be the next to have an Eagles-esque breakout?
When Philadelphia’s offense was scuffling through the regular season, you couldn’t help but notice young star defensive lineman Jalen Carter and the rookie cornerback duo of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean becoming the foundation of what would be the best defense in the league by the playoffs. If any team has hopes of challenging the Eagles in the NFC, it will likely need to follow in the reigning champs’ footsteps and embrace a youth movement on defense. I see the Rams, Packers, and 49ers as the three teams that are most likely to take that next step. Each of these defenses has ascending young players on the verge of stardom. Training camp will give us our first opportunity to gauge what our expectations should be for each unit.
Los Angeles tested Philadelphia more than anyone else last postseason, so we can expect the Rams to be the most likely candidate for a breakout. Edge rusher Jared Verse already looks like he has All-Pro potential, and if he has a Will Anderson–esque leap when it comes to generating pressure in year two, he could push the Rams defense from frisky to dangerous. Playing alongside Verse is one of the most underappreciated interior defenders in football, Kobie Turner. He already has a complete skill set just two seasons into his pro career, and while he isn’t as physically overwhelming as his predecessor Aaron Donald (and nobody ever will be), teams can’t afford to block him one-on-one very often. If there’s a hang-up to be found, it’s in the secondary. The Rams got away with playing a lot of soft zone coverage and limiting explosive plays, and offenses may adjust to start taking advantage of this defense underneath. But the ingredients are there to take a big step forward.
The Packers put up good defensive numbers last season, but they belied some of the down-to-down issues that still exist for this front seven. Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley put together one of the best schemes in the NFL last season, using aggression and creativity to patch up the holes that have existed in the Packers’ run defense for years. That opened up some opportunities for opposing offenses to attack some vulnerable areas in coverage, but Green Bay forced enough turnovers to paper over those issues. If there’s any regression in the Packers’ turnover luck, though, there will be fewer opportunities to hide a pass rush unit that’s been disappointing over the past half decade. It’s time for early draft picks like Lukas Van Ness and Devonte Wyatt to take a big step forward to make this unit more complete on a down-to-down basis. If the defense can make a leap, this team has a Super Bowl ceiling.
Roster attrition in San Francisco has hit this side of the ball hard over the past few offseasons, and the 49ers will get a lot of snaps from rookies and former backups to fill in the gaps left by departing players. Chief among the players under this spotlight is first-round pick Mykel Williams, a Georgia edge rusher with impressive physical traits whose ceiling is as high as that of any player drafted this spring. He won’t have to be the no. 1 rusher—that’s still Nick Bosa—but if he ends up being the next young phenom on the edge, he could catapult the 49ers right back among the legitimate challengers in the conference. A strong front four would mean that defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, back for a second stint with the 49ers after getting fired by the Jets last season, can call his favorite zone defenses more often. And that means that star linebacker Fred Warner can still roam in the middle of the field to take away passing lanes. This 49ers defense might be able to play like Philadelphia did during its championship run last season and consistently generate pass rush without blitzing, but it’ll need major contributions from Williams early on to make it happen.
Can Houston stabilize its offense around C.J. Stroud?
C.J. Stroud has had quite the peak and valley experience in his career already. After tearing defenses up and protecting the ball at an elite level as a rookie in 2023, he struggled at times in 2024 because of the failings of his offensive line and play caller Bobby Slowik. The Texans were too committed to an ineffective run game, which constantly left the offense behind the chains and demanded that Stroud work magic while opposing rushers were able to pin their ears back. Houston allowed 16 sacks within 2.5 seconds of the snap last season, a number that would effectively break even the best-designed offenses.
With Slowik out and former Rams assistant Nick Caley at the helm, the challenge for Stroud and the offense will be putting forth a more functional scheme behind what might be the worst offensive line in the league this season. There are two reasons for optimism: First, Caley’s history under Sean McVay means that he might be able to design a more diverse and comprehensive run game than Slowik did; any other reason for hope is faith in Stroud, who may be prepared to take the responsibility for directing traffic at the line of scrimmage, giving him the control to make changes and get out of bad play calls in a way that he couldn’t under Slowik. We’ll get to see whether Stroud is ready to make that leap over the next few weeks.
When you look at the quarterback, receiving corps, and defense, this team should be a major headache for the top contenders in the league. That’s what we saw in the divisional round against Kansas City in last year’s playoffs. If this offensive line (whose best player is probably Cam Robinson) can perform at a league-average level, the Texans have an easy enough schedule and should rack up wins. If we see breakdowns in Houston’s blocking again, though, I’ll be concerned about whether this team is doing irreversible damage to Stroud, one of the NFL’s brightest young stars.
Will the third regime be the charm for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars?
As a former Trevor Lawrence apologist, I’ve come around and swung the hammer on the Jaguars quarterback’s shortcomings as hard as anyone. The sacks he takes and his inconsistent accuracy don’t align with his natural gifts. Still, he’s been severely underserved by his former coaching staff and the franchise’s directionless approach to building around him since he was chosen with the first pick in the 2021 draft. In 2024, Doug Pederson had the visage of a man playing out the string and awaiting an inevitable firing, and the Jaguars also had to ultimately fire general manager Trent Baalke to turn the page and usher in a new era in Jacksonville.
Now, as the big money from the $275 million deal Lawrence signed last year starts rolling in, his development has been entrusted to a new head coach, Liam Coen. Coen is the latest in a long line of offensive coaches who have bolstered their résumés by working for McVay, and he most recently called plays for the highly efficient offense in Tampa. I’m intrigued to see Lawrence play in a smartly designed offense that asks less of its quarterback, although Jacksonville doesn’t boast the same kind of roster talent that Coen enjoyed in Tampa, particularly on the offensive line and at running back.
Even if you believe that young receivers Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter are dynamic enough to paper over some of this team’s problems, there’s still a lot that Coen needs to iron out for Jacksonville to get back into the playoff picture in the tough AFC. FanDuel gives Jacksonville the 10th-best odds to make the playoffs in the conference and currently has it in a dead heat with Indianapolis, a divisional rival that’s also hoping to unmoor its offense and help its young quarterback turn a corner this year.
Lawrence can come into training camp healthy, wipe the slate clean for the third time, and embrace an offensive system that prioritizes getting the ball out of his hands quickly. We all know that the physical talent and potential are there, and we’ve seen glimpses of that potential throughout his career, but I want to hear about how sharp and in command Lawrence is from the beginning of camp—in terms of both his arm and his understanding of the scheme. If we get good reports going into the season, I may buy back all the stock in him that I sold.
Diante Lee
Diante Lee joined The Ringer as an NFL writer and podcaster in 2024. Before that, he served as a staff writer at The Athletic, covering the NFL and college football. He currently coaches at the high school level in his hometown of San Diego.Source link
