10 NFL Teams Whose 2025 Seasons Are Officially Over
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Hard to believe it, but we’re now through Week 14, and the NFL playoff picture is starting to crystalize this 2025 season. Some teams are gearing up for a January run; meanwhile, others are updating their draft boards in preparation for April.
Some got crushed by injuries, others had a swing and a miss on a couple of key front office decisions. And the rest are just… well, they’re the same incompetent teams they’ve always been.
Let’s take a look around the league at a few teams that have already been mathematically eliminated, and the handful more are hanging on by the thinnest of threads… The squads that nobody in their right minds actually believes in anymore.
So today, we’re running through 10 NFL teams whose 2025 seasons are officially over. Let’s get into it.
Is the 2025 season truly over for these 10 NFL teams?
Tennessee Titans
Nashville, the city formerly known as the Music City, is trending toward a new nickname… Rock Bottom. At least for football fans!
This is the worst start for this franchise since they were the Houston Oilers back in 1994. Let that sink in for a second. We’re talking three decades of football, and this is the lowest point.
This organization fired head coach Brian Callahan after just six games, giving him a grand total of four wins across nearly two seasons. Four.
He became the first coach fired in the 2025 NFL season, and honestly, most people are surprised he even made it to October. The locker room had checked out, the scheme wasn’t working, and ownership had seen enough.
The problems, however, have persisted beyond his firing.
Rookie quarterback Cam Ward, the first overall pick out of Miami, hasn’t exactly hit the ground running either. To be fair, he has been running for his life all year long, but there is definitely reason to be concerned there.
The silver lining? They’re in pole position for the number one overall pick again. And assuming that they are going to stick with Ward long-term, they should have a good opportunity to trade back and multiply their assets.
At this point, Tennessee’s season is less about wins and more about evaluating what they have… and figuring out what they desperately need. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.
New Orleans Saints
The Big Easy has become anything but for Saints fans. Officially eliminated from playoff contention, and staring down their fifth consecutive season without a postseason appearance. Five years.
The Drew Brees hangover just keeps getting worse, and there’s no end in sight.
This was supposed to be a fresh start under first-year head coach Kellen Moore, the former Cowboys offensive coordinator who was going to modernize this offense.
Instead, it’s been a disaster from the jump. Derek Carr retired in the offseason after discovering a torn labrum and degenerative rotator cuff issues… ending any hope of veteran stability. Spencer Rattler won the starting job in training camp but couldn’t hold onto it. And now rookie second-rounder Tyler Shough is just trying to survive back there, getting hit constantly behind a struggling offensive line.
The defense can’t stop anyone, the offense can’t sustain drives, and the whole operation feels rudderless. The Saints need a full-scale rebuild at the end of the 2025 NFL season, and everyone in that building knows it.
Now, all Saints fans have to look forward to is the draft board to see which signal-caller they want to put their faith in to right the ship!
Las Vegas Raiders
It is hard to believe that Pete Carroll came out of retirement for this… The 73-year-old Super Bowl winner was supposed to bring credibility and a winning culture to Vegas.
He and Geno Smith have looked like shells of themselves this year. The team has dropped ten consecutive AFC West matchups… a streak that dates back to last season.
It’s the kind of stat that makes you question why they even bother showing up against divisional matchups anymore. Why not spare yourselves the embarrassment?
It’s been chaos in the desert all year long, and heads are starting to roll.
First, it was offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, who got fired after the Week 12 loss to Cleveland.
When you’re losing to the Browns, and it costs someone their job, you know things have gone sideways.
And while he might play for the rest of the year, it feels like it will be Geno Smith that is up next on the chopping block, which is par for the course for the Raiders… The quarterback situation has been a revolving door.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg this year… The run game has been nonexistent, and the defense has regressed despite Maxx Crosby’s best effort.
Carroll was supposed to bring stability after years of dysfunction. Instead, he’s presiding over one of the worst seasons in recent memory. At his age, you have to wonder if he even has the energy to fix this.
This will mark the fourth straight year the Raiders miss the playoffs. The move to Vegas was supposed to signal a new era. But so far, it’s been the same old story with shinier buildings.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals started the season 2- 0, beat some decent teams, and looked like legitimate NFC contenders. The Kyler Murray redemption arc was in full swing. And then they watched it all fall apart in the most painful way possible.
Jonathan Gannon’s squad isn’t getting blown out. They’re just finding new and creative ways to lose close games… a missed field goal here, a late turnover there.
But now, the whole trajectory of the franchise has fundamentally changed.
All indications are that this latest failure marks the end of the Kyler era in the desert, as the team has signaled that it will be parting ways with the embattled dual-threat QB.
Where they go from here is not clear, but one thing is for certain: the Cardinals’ 2025 NFL season is OVER.
Cleveland Browns
The Factory of Sadness is open for business, as always.
Cleveland is 3 and 10, clinching their second straight losing season. This is now their 16th losing season in the last 18 years. At some point, you’d think the football gods would show some mercy on this franchise, considering their dedicated fan base, but they haven’t… They never do.
The truly cruel twist this year is that Myles Garrett is having a historically great season… and it’s completely going to waste legitimately chasing Michael Strahan’s single-season record of 22.5. He’s been a one-man wrecking crew, the best defensive player in football… and it doesn’t matter at all. The offense can’t score, the wins aren’t coming, and Garrett’s prime is ticking away on a team going nowhere fast.
That and the Shedeur Sanders experiment are really the only points of curiosity around this squad down the stretch of this season. Still, even that has gotten off to a rather questionable start.
He did win his first career start against the Raiders, becoming the first Browns quarterback to do so in a decade. However, he looked rough against San Fran in his second start.
Either way, all that’s left to do is evaluate the young guys, pray Garrett doesn’t demand another trade, and hope some miracle shakes out in the quarterback room. It’s the Browns. You know the drill by now.
New York Jets
Ten years. A full decade of losing seasons.
At this point, being a Jets fan should qualify as a clinical diagnosis.
First-year head coach Aaron Glenn walked into a nightmare scenario at quarterback.
The Jets benched Justin Fields after he couldn’t get anything going and turned to 36-year-old Tyrod Taylor, which tells you everything you need to know about where this season went. When your best option is a journeyman backup in his mid-thirties, the rebuild hasn’t even started yet.
This organization needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom. Again.
The Jets are the NFL’s laughingstock at this point, especially this 2025 season. They show up every Sunday, try their best, and still find new and creative ways to disappoint everyone who believes in them, while also providing laughs online as people roast them.
Washington Commanders
From the NFC Championship Game to 3 and 10. That’s the Commanders’ 2025 story in a nutshell, and it’s almost entirely about one devastating injury.
Remember the hype coming into this season? Jayden Daniels was supposed to take the leap. Dan Quinn had this defense humming. Washington was a legitimate Super Bowl dark horse. Then Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow in Week 4… and everything fell apart. He’s missed six games this season. Six. And without their franchise quarterback, Washington has looked completely lost.
Last year’s magic is long gone, and now it’s all about getting Daniels healthy for 2026 and hoping they can recapture that lightning in a bottle.
Atlanta Falcons
Tough year in Hotlanta… Michael Penix Jr., the second-year quarterback, tore his ACL in Week 11 against Carolina… his fifth season-ending injury between college and the pros.
Three torn ACLs across his career. At some point, you stop calling it bad luck and start wondering if his body just can’t hold up to the demands of professional football.
So now it’s Kirk Cousins again, which feels like football purgatory. Cousins isn’t bad… he threw for 234 yards against the Jets… but he’s not the future either. He’s 37 years old and signed here as an uber expensive bridge option. He’s just… there. Keeping the seat warm until the next plan materializes.
And the Falcons are 4 and 9, having lost seven of their last eight games since Penix first got banged up in Week 8.
The NFC South is a mess this 2025 NFL season, so technically, Atlanta isn’t mathematically eliminated yet. But come on. Nobody’s buying that. This team is set, and now it’s about figuring out what the quarterback situation looks like long-term. In Atlanta, that question never seems to get answered for more than a season at a time.
Minnesota Vikings
You want to talk about regret? You want to talk about a decision that’s going to haunt a front office for years?
How about the fact that the Vikings let Sam Darnold walk in free agency after he resurrected his career in Minnesota, watched him sign a three-year, $100 million deal with Seattle, and then got shut out 26 to 0 by his Seahawks in Week 13—for the first time in almost 20 years.
On the other hand, J.J. McCarthy, the 2024 first-round pick Minnesota chose to build around instead of re-signing Darnold, has been rough this season. Really rough.
He’s completing under 60% percent of his passes with 10 interceptions across six starts.
And if that weren’t bad enough, McCarthy entered concussion protocol after the Packers game, and undrafted rookie Max Brosmer had to make his NFL debut against Seattle. Brosmer threw four interceptions. Justin Jefferson… arguably the best receiver in football… had a career-low four receiving yards. Four. It was an absolute disaster on national television.
Sometimes the boring decision… paying the veteran who just went 14 and 3 for you… Is the right one.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers aren’t mathematically eliminated… but it feels like a wrap. They’re 6 and 6 and still technically control their destiny in the AFC North. On paper, they’re alive. But if you’ve watched this team over the last two months… You know the season is effectively over.
Pittsburgh started 4 and 1, looked like a legitimate playoff contender, and then completely collapsed. They’ve lost five of their last seven games, including an embarrassing 26 to 7 beatdown at home against Buffalo in Week 13, while fans audibly chanted for Mike Tomlin to be fired.
Rodgers has already said this is “pretty sure” his final season. And now it looks like it is Tomlin’s, too.
In Pittsburgh, mediocrity has never been tolerated, and at this point, ownership is going to say enough is enough—especially now that their 2025 NFL season is cooked.
