This would certainly be a disappointing result for the Rams
No one knows how the 2025 season will go. Not the experts, not fans, not even AI.
It’s still fun to predict who will be the best teams, who will be the worst and who will win the Super Bowl. Parity is what makes the NFL great.
For in this exercise, ESPN used a computer simulation to predict each team’s record and playoff fate. Seth Walder picked out one single simulation out of 10,000 run by ESPN for its Football Power Index, and it starts off promising for the Los Angeles Rams.
It predicts that Los Angeles will go 8-6 in its first 14 games and finish with an overall record of 11-6. That’s good enough to earn the No. 1 seed over the Detroit Lions thanks to a tiebreaker, giving the Rams a first-round bye and home playoff game in the divisional round.
That’s where the fun ends. In the Rams’ first playoff game, ESPN’s simulation has them losing to the seventh-seeded Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 27-22, “thanks to a clinical Mayfield performance.”
Oh, how painful it would be for Mayfield, who played for the Rams in 2022, to knock the team that helped revive his career out of the playoffs.
The simulation then has the Bucs beating the fifth-seeded Vikings in the NFC title game before getting smoked by the Bills in the Super Bowl, 55-23.
The No. 1 seed would certainly be nice, but no Rams coach, player or fan would be satisfied with a first-round exit. Los Angeles is a Super Bowl contender in the NFC and anything short of a ring this season will be viewed as a disappointment – especially with the clock ticking on Stafford’s career.
There are a few other surprises in this simulation, with the Cowboys winning the NFC East, the Eagles and Chiefs missing the playoffs, the Cardinals winning a postseason game over the Falcons, and the Colts earning the No. 3 seed in the AFC.
Again, no one can accurately predict what will happen this season, and this single simulation shows how crazy things could get.