NFL 2025 preview guide: Season predictions, power rankings, how to watch and so much more

The NFL is back this week! The offseason was long but eventful, and we’ve got everything you need to know right here as the 2025 season kicks off. The Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles host the Dallas Cowboys — who just traded Micah Parsons, you might’ve heard — at 8:20 p.m. ET on Thursday.

What can we expect from that game, and this exciting and unpredictable NFL season as a whole? The answers await.

Season predictions

The 2025 NFL season is almost here. We’ve loaded up with all sorts of preview content across our NFL writers, fantasy, betting and more. You can find it all in our guide.

But who will end up with the major hardware, from individual awards to the Lombardi Trophy? Who will surprise us? And who is destined to disappoint?

Here’s what our panel says about the Super Bowl champion. You can find our full expert predictions right here.

(Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports)

And here are some season predictions from Nate Tice, Matt Harmon, Justin Boone and Ben Fawkes as part of our season preview show from the Yahoo Sportsbook at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

MVP
Biggest surprises
Biggest disappointment

How to watch the 2025 NFL season

Full guide to watching the NFL season

This season, NFL games will air across 10+ channels and streaming platforms. Here’s your playbook for how to watch the 2025-26 NFL season.

And here’s a handy glimpse at the Week 1 broadcast schedule (all times Eastern):

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025

Eagles vs. Cowboys: 8:20 p.m. (NBC, Peacock)

Friday, Sept. 5, 2025

Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025

Las Vegas Raiders vs. New England Patriots: 1 p.m. (CBS)
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New York Jets: 1 p.m. (CBS)
Miami Dolphins vs. Indianapolis Colts: 1 p.m. (CBS)
Arizona Cardinals vs. New Orleans Saints: 1 p.m. (CBS)
New York Giants vs. Washington Commanders: 1 p.m. (FOX)
Carolina Panthers vs. Jacksonville Jaguars: 1 p.m. (FOX)
Cincinnati Bengals vs. Cleveland Browns: 1 p.m. (FOX)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Atlanta Falcons: 1 p.m. (FOX)
Tennessee Titans vs. Denver Broncos: 4:05 p.m. (FOX)
San Francisco 49ers vs. Seattle Seahawks: 4:05 p.m. (FOX)
Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers: 4:25 p.m. (FOX)
Houston Texans vs. Los Angeles Rams: 4:25 p.m. (CBS)
Baltimore Ravens vs. Buffalo Bills: 8:20 p.m. (NBC)

Monday, Sept. 8, 2024

Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears: 8:15 p.m. (ESPN/ABC)

NFL power rankings

Frank Schwab’s kickoff power rankings

The reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles enter the season at No. 1, but the Green Bay Packers got themselves a game changer. Micah Parsons came to Green Bay at a cost that doesn’t really hurt the Packers this season and given the fantastic depth on the team’s roster, might not be a big issue in future years either. Kenny Clark went to the Cowboys in the trade and while he’s a good player, Parsons will have a bigger impact. Green Bay isn’t in desperate need of the first-round draft picks they’ll lose in 2026 and 2027. For a reasonable cost, the Packers landed one of the best players in football. And with that, expectations change.

The Packers can’t think about a Super Bowl yet because they play in one of the best divisions in recent memory. The Lions and Vikings combined to go 29-5 last regular season and the Bears believe they’re improving. The Packers might be a Super Bowl contender and finish second or third in their division. It’s that tough.

But the Packers do look like a true Super Bowl contender now, and there aren’t many in that group going into the season. Parsons changed Green Bay’s ceiling. The Packers can win a championship with Parsons. They just have to navigate the NFC North first.

Yahoo Sports NFL shows

Our full lineup of shows is now streaming with Yahoo Sports Network, our first free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel.

Yahoo Sports Network features more than 60 hours of original programming a week, with live programming including “Inside Coverage” as well as recorded episodes of “Football 301.” You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Tuesdays with Nate Tice, Charles McDonald and Matt Harmon

Thursdays with Nate Tice and Charles McDonald

Sundays with Nate Tice and Charles McDonald

Inside Coverage

Monday through Thursday, 6:30 p.m. ET

Andrew Siciliano is joined by Yahoo Sports NFL reporters Jori Epstein, Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab for in-depth conversations about what’s happening inside NFL locker rooms and front offices.

What’s new this NFL season?

Frank Schwab takes you through the info you need to know.

Star players on new teams

The player who had the biggest impact on last season was a 2024 free agent who switched teams.

Saquon Barkley moved from the New York Giants to Philadelphia Eagles, ran for 2,000 yards, won NFL Offensive Player of the Year and helped the Eagles win a Super Bowl. He immediately went on the list of the greatest free-agent signings of all time.

It’s unlikely any player who changed teams this offseason will have that kind of impact, but each team that added a big-name player is hoping for it. Here are some of the biggest names among veterans to switch teams this offseason.

Micah Parsons is now a Green Bay Packer. (Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports)

New head coaches and changes they can make

The right NFL coaching hire can change a franchise overnight.

DeMeco Ryans transformed the Houston Texans two years ago. The days of everyone laughing at the Texans for being the worst franchise in the league seem a lot longer ago than they actually are. Ryans won games and improved the level of professionalism in the organization.

That’s what every sad-sack team that fires its head coach is shooting for with its new hire. Here is one specific way each of the NFL’s new coaches for this season can change their franchise.

Scheduling and broadcast changes

YouTube will stream a game for the first time this season, adding to the growing list of networks and streaming services you’ll need to have to catch every NFL game this season.

The YouTube game will be the second one of the season from São Paulo when the Kansas City Chiefs face the Los Angeles Chargers.

And there’s more to know.

New rules

The tush push survived for at least another season.

The oft-debated quarterback sneak, made famous by the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, almost was banned. There weren’t enough votes to abolish the play, so it stays. But plenty of rules for this season will be new.

Here’s a look at the key rule changes for this season.

25 in 2025: NFL from the past to present to future

We are a quarter of the way through this century of NFL football. How has the game evolved? How will it impact the 2025 season? And what does it mean for the future of the league and the sport?

Yahoo Sports’ NFL writers Charles Robinson, Jori Epstein, Nate Tice and Charles McDonald help locate the answers.

25 game changers to watch

Twenty-five years into this century, the NFL shows no signs of slowing down. Popularity is stretching into new broadcast platforms and its reach is extending well beyond American borders.

While strength and physicality remain the game’s bedrock, the sport itself is evolving rapidly as innovative coaches, talent evaluators and trend-setting players redefine winning paradigms on and off the field.

So who — or in some cases, what — is influencing the NFL and its future?

Yahoo Sports senior NFL reporters Charles Robinson and Jori Epstein have identified the league’s most notable 25 Game Changers in 2025. During their training camp tours this summer, Epstein and Robinson each spoke with dozens of league sources to get a grasp of the NFL’s emerging power brokers and their influence on the league. They considered: Whose work in the NFL has created such an impact that the league is compelled to respond, and at times also emulate? Whose cutting-edge ideas will shift the direction of competitive norms and entertainment landscapes?

Their list includes: two general managers, two star quarterbacks, a QB family dynasty, a pioneering referee, the game’s most powerful player agent and a champion of gender equity.

25 trends shaping the NFL

The NFL’s popularity has been buoyed by the passing game boom, and the drama from week to week, matchup to matchup. It’s something we can’t take our eyes off.

The sport itself is innovating rapidly across coaches and talent evaluators, scheme and strategy, and even how we present and consume the game.

So what trends are shaping the NFL itself, from the past 25 years to the present to the future?

Yahoo Sports NFL writers Nate Tice and Charles McDonald have identified 25 of them, poring over film, talking to sources and studying the sport from different angles. They considered: What elements shape how the game is played, consumed and presented the most in 2025?

Their list includes: rule changes that led to a passing boom; a pair of dynasties that sprung up right next to each other; several high-impact strategy shifts; the signature coaching tree of this century; a pair of defenses that defined both their eras and today; and so much more.

What’s the succession plan for Jerry Jones’ Cowboys, Robert Kraft’s Patriots and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell?

Nearly eight hours deep into the recent Netflix series on Jerry Jones and his Dallas Cowboys, the end began to creep. Not so much the end of the eight-episode project, but the end of Jerry Jones himself.

“I can’t help but be thankful for the time that I’ve owned the Dallas Cowboys,” Jones said in the final minutes of the series “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.”

“It is impossible for me to think about doing something different. And I’ll probably continue right on out until the end.”

It’s a stark reminder that when you look at the wide angle of the NFL over the next decade, change is likely coming to at least two of three very powerful seats at the league’s table of dealmakers, consensus builders and direction-setters. Specifically, the Jerry-led Cowboys and the Robert Kraft-led New England Patriots. And then there’s the next NFL commissioner after the retirement of Roger Goodell.

“I don’t think we’ll see some influential owners still [running] franchises in 10 years,” said one executive in the NFL Players Association. “Jerry and Kraft — and there’s Roger. The next [Cowboys and Patriots] owners and then whoever replaces Roger could have a big impact on where the league goes.”

With that in mind, we looked at the succession positions of all three.

How the famed Shanahan tree has evolved

The “Shanahan offense” has turned into a phrase that has entered the vernacular of NFL fans over the past decade. The disciples of the Shanahan tree have long been associated with the outside zone run concept, which emphasizes linemen moving laterally and the running back reading blocks to find an open lane, as their preferred offensive hub, with the bootleg, screen and play action spokes sprouting off of the core run concept that could, in theory, be run against any type of defensive front.

What we call the “Shanahan offense” was a merger of West Coast passing principles and an Alex Gibbs-coached outside zone scheme that was introduced in Denver by Mike Shanahan in the ’90s and early 2000s, and polished by Klint Kubiak in Houston a few years later. When Shanahan went on to coach Washington, the young staff that he assembled ended up being full of future NFL head coaches.

The names on that staff — Kyle Shanahan (49ers), Sean McVay (Rams), Matt LaFleur (Packers) and Mike McDaniel (Dolphins) — are still currently head coaches and have been in the football cultural zeitgeist long enough that their staff photos in Washington are at a meme level by this point.

The growth of the Shanahan offense, and the names involved, has been discussed and dissected ad nauseam. But as the branches continue to sprout from this coaching tree, it’s interesting to see how some have evolved to survive as the NFL ecosystem adapted to attack back.

How Rex Ryan’s influence reverberates across NFL defenses

The NFL is a league where the 32 team brands reign supreme over just about every player or coach who’s able to don their colors, but every so often there are teams or players who seem to transcend the popularity of the shield. The right mixture of talent and direction can cause ordinary men to be immortalized in the social fabric and history of the sport — or in this case, a scheme.

When the Jets hired Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan to be the face of their organization in 2009, they were able to build a unit that stamped its place in NFL history by doing the one thing every fan wishes their defense could do: Beat the absolute crap out of every opposing offense.

When Ryan arrived as the head coach of the Jets, they weren’t a rudderless ship. Eric Mangini had just taken the Jets to a 9-7 season, but was fired because they collapsed after an 8-3 start. So Ryan replaced Mangini, and the rest was history, at least on defense, which skyrocketed to the best in the league with every Madden player’s ideal defense: blitzing the quarterback until he’s crosseyed with sticky man coverage on the back end.

It’s a strenuous style of defense for the players executing, but when it works well, a bunch of X’s and O’s on a chalkboard can feel as if they have a story of their own to tell.

How Falcons’ incorporation of Michael Vick laid foundation for QBs of today

Listen. In 2001, the world changed forever. When the Falcons traded up from pick No. 5 to the top of the NFL Draft, excitement hit the league as the city of Atlanta received a quarterback that perfectly represented its ethos: captivating, dramatic, a little rough around the edges and Black as all can be. It was lightning in a bottle as Michael Vick immediately became one of the faces of the league, and he was just different from all the other quarterbacks with his 4.3 speed and cannon arm that let him make top 1% plays when he was dialed in.

Vick’s athleticism had been known and fawned over the entire time he was at Virginia Tech, but harnessing that level of horsepower for the NFL quarterback position was a completely different animal. However, Vick, for a brief moment in time, was arguably the first modern example of a team embracing a truly rare skill set at quarterback from the second the draft card was turned in — and building the whole damn plane centered around a superhuman center of gravity.

Seahawks’ Legion of Boom was an NFL phenomenon that’s been imitated for years but never matched

It was a defensive system that was at the same time simple and complicated. The Seattle Seahawks defenses of the 2010s, particularly the 2013 version, didn’t run a wide variety of coverages. Defensive call sheets could essentially fit on a Post-it note. But most importantly, they did what any all-time team or unit does: show the opposing team what you’re doing every single play and dare them to beat it. Over and over again. No gimmicks needed.

It was a system that did what any good system does: highlight its best players and let them play freely. And with a Seahawks defense that was littered with Hall of Fame talent, the results were league-altering. Several assistants were hired to emulate the success of the Pete Carroll-led defenses, which was often imitated. But never duplicated.

What the Legion of Boom Seahawks did seemed almost like a paradox. Here’s why.

Jayden Daniels and the Commanders’ support system will change the NFL

ASHBURN, Va. — Each practice day, right around 6 a.m., Jayden Daniels’ phone rings.

Kliff Kingsbury is calling.

The Washington Commanders offensive coordinator is not placing a long-distance call.

Instead, Kingsbury calls his quarterback from the same indoor practice field at the same line of scrimmage. Kingsbury delivers a play-call to Daniels via headphones and awaits quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard snapping the ball in one hand while holding the day’s practice script in his other.

Sometimes, this early-morning session lasts 10 minutes. Other days, the trio breaks down the day’s call sheet for 30. They don’t miss a practice day.

“Super, super helpful. Super,” Daniels told Yahoo Sports. “I have a walkthrough before the walkthrough, where I already kind of been over it.”

Cue better clarity in team meetings and on gamedays.

Teams will not find an exact replica of the quarterback who made the Commanders’ engine hum. But the infrastructure around Daniels has caught the attention of clubs determining how to mold their young quarterbacks, from the Tennessee Titans who drafted Cam Ward first overall this year to the Cleveland Browns who selected Dillon Gabriel in the third round and Shedeur Sanders in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

Staff hires, extra walkthroughs and a calculated playbook progression contributed to Washington’s rapid turnaround. The Commanders modeled how to support and elevate a quarterback in a league where franchises often fail their most impactful player.

As Daniels considers his second act and looks to avoid a sophomore slump, coaches, players and executives across the league expect Daniels’ talent and an unusually solid coaching foundation to spark growth rather than regression.

Names to know

Frank Schwab with everyone you need to know heading into this season.

Coaches on the hot seat

This season, there will be seven new head coaches. That means seven head coaches were replaced since the start of last season.

Last year, there were eight new NFL head coaches. It was five the year before that, and a stunning 10 in 2022.

In other words, it’s inevitable that some of the head coaches at the start of this season will be replaced by the start of the 2026 season. That’s the nature of an impatient league. Here are the seven coaches on the hot seat to start the season.

Brewing controversies

The NFL never lacks for drama or storylines. Some of them we can see coming.

Whether it’s quarterback controversies, rivalries that have gotten a little too personal or rifts within a team, the high-stress world of the NFL always leads to a soap opera feel in between the games themselves.

Here are the 10 biggest brewing controversies heading into the NFL season.

Make-or-break seasons

Most NFL players have short careers. They only have a few seasons to prove they can be difference makers at their positions, or their teams and then the rest of the league moves on fast.

It’s a stressful world, and each season just about every player needs to prove his worth all over again. But to some players, there is extra pressure to perform this season to establish themselves as impact players or earn a big new contract.

Here are the top 10 players facing make or break seasons.

Breakout players

Nobody saw Zack Baun’s breakout coming last season.

The Philadelphia Eagles signed him to a one-year deal and turned the career special teamer into a starting inside linebacker. Baun ended up being the most unlikely member of last season’s All-Pro team, and he was a big part of the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory. In the offseason, he signed a three-year, $51 million deal.

That type of extreme breakout is rare and hard to predict, but there will be plenty of players who will go from virtual unknowns or unproven commodities to stars. Here are the top 10 breakout candidates for this season.

Key injuries, suspensions and holdouts

Coming Thursday

28 Days of Fantasy

To celebrate our 28th year of Yahoo delivering fantasy football, we dropped 28 BIG NEW features over 28 straight days.

We kicked things off with the launch of guillotine-style leagues on August 4. In this killer fantasy football game, fans compete for survival every week.You can learn more about guillotine-style leagues and look back at each of the 28 Days of Fantasy as we released new features daily throughout August.

Check each of them out, and make sure to join or create a Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football league today.

2025 NFL betting guide

Looking to get in on the action? Here’s everything you need to know from Ben Fawkes and our betting experts. Check out our overall betting guide here, and Yahoo Sports’ betting hub here.

Super Bowl odds for every team

All 32 starting QBs ranked by point spread value

13 tips before the season

Three over/unders to bet right now

Three value bets for MVP

Playoff makes/misses to bet

NFL Coach of the Year bets

Bills only team favored in every game

One bet for every NFL team

2026 NFL Draft

Nate Tice’s big board 1.0

Wow, so confident in your NFL team that you’re already looking ahead to 2026, eh?

We kid. But in case you are, Yahoo Sports NFL Draft expert Nate Tice has delivered his first big board of the season, with the top 30 players plus five more to keep an eye on.

Be sure to check back throughout the season for more big boards, mock drafts and things to prepare you for next spring’s marquee offseason event.

Read the full article here

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