NFC championship<\/a> game a year ago doesn\u2019t mean they are primed for success again in 2025. Washington was very fortunate to convert fourth downs at a high rate, the defense was below average under Dan Quinn, and I want to see Kliff Kingsbury replicate his success at offensive coordinator before I truly buy in.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to buck the consensus and pick the Dallas Cowboys to win the east. We go through these cycles all the time with Dak Prescott. He misses time with injury and we simply forget how consistently good he is. Fortunately for Prescott, CeeDee Lamb has help at receiver with George Pickens. This is a great stylistic fit for the Cowboys. The defense is talented enough.<\/p>\n
Rams fans know Brian Schottenheimer well. This was far from the sexiest head coaching pick this offseason. Still, Schottenheimer has remained an underrated offensive coach during his time in the NFL. You know the jet sweep that took the league by storm over the last decade? Well, Schottenheimer implemented the motion into the Rams\u2019 offensive during his time with the Rams to deploy Tavon Austin as a gadget player. Sean McVay continued the jet sweeps and it reached new heights with Todd Gurley in the backfield, catching fire across other NFL offenses.<\/p>\n
Winner: CowboysNFC North:<\/p>\n
I could honestly see any team in the NFC North emerge as the winner.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s hard not to be bullish on the Chicago Bears with Ben Johnson pulling the string for Caleb Williams. He knows his franchise quarterback needs to be protected and the team went to great lengths to rebuild the offensive line. Chicago has collected talent on defense and has given the Detroit Lions tough fits in recent years.<\/p>\n
The Green Bay Packers are a little too volatile for my liking. While Jordan Love has had his fair share of shining moments, he\u2019s overall one of the least accurate passers in the league.<\/p>\n
While I was a big fan of JJ McCarthy in the draft, it feels a year too early to jump onto the bandwagon for the Minnesota Vikings. I trust Kevin O\u2019Connell to get the most out of\u2014what is basically\u2014a rookie quarterback.<\/p>\n
That leaves us with the Lions. Jared Goff brings a high floor as a consistent signal caller. It will be a monumental year of his career to show he can have success without Johnson and work to shed the \u201csystem QB\u201d label. Simply put, the Lions have too much talent across the board under Dan Campbell\u2019s fiery leadership to bet against them.<\/p>\n
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Winner: LionsNFC South:<\/p>\n
The Carolina Panthers showed promise towards the end of last season amidst a career turnaround by Bryce Young. For 2025, we can probably right them off in regards to the postseason along with the New Orleans Saints.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m optimistic about both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons this season. I think both teams will make the playoffs, although the firepower of Tampa Bay gives them a slight initial edge.<\/p>\n
These are the Bucs\u2019 pass catchers. Impressive group.<\/p>\n
To give Atlanta some credit, when the sun sets on the season I think we will be talking about Michael Penix as the next great franchise quarterback. Most thought the Falcons were crazy when they surprised and took him in the top 10 last year, despite having a significant need for defensive help. I appreciate the conviction and am looking forward to the coming reconciliation.<\/p>\n
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Winner: BuccaneersNFC West:<\/p>\n
If you want my deep analysis on the NFC West, you can click Part 5 of the season preview above.<\/p>\n
I think the Rams will narrowly edge out the Arizona Cardinals for the division crown while the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks will disappoint. The ascent of the Cardinals comes at the expense of Kyle Shanahan and Sam Darnold.<\/p>\n
Winner: RamsWildcard teams:1 – Eagles2 – Cardinals3 – FalconsFull playoff seeding:1 – Lions<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tough to repeat as the one seed, but there might not be another team that has the week-to-week consistency of Detroit.<\/p>\n
2 – Buccaneers<\/p>\n
Think this is crazy? Well, Tampa finished as the three seed last year and only got better (outside of losing Liam Coen).<\/p>\n
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3 – Cowboys<\/p>\n
Dallas gets the edge over LA because of playing in a weaker division. Teams in the NFC West will beat up on each other to an extent, prevent one from emerging too far out in front.<\/p>\n
4 – Rams5 – Eagles<\/p>\n
A divisional round rematch in this year\u2019s wildcard. This time it\u2019s in Los Angeles and there is no reason to worry about snow.<\/p>\n
6 – Cardinals7 – Falcons<\/p>\n
More from turfshowtimes.com:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve walked through every stage of the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 2025 schedule. I gave my thoughts on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[390,254,2886,1476,9341,1036,260,1121,391,699,1370,257,113,702,7,467,345,492,4080,1029,734,1724,10308,1014,58,700,259,55,112,1593,6,84,12611,109,1878,252,894,261,6604,704,250,46449,8747,6605,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-223808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-arizona-cardinals","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-brian-schottenheimer","11":"tag-bryce-young","12":"tag-cade-otton","13":"tag-caleb-williams","14":"tag-carolina-panthers","15":"tag-ceedee-lamb","16":"tag-chicago-bears","17":"tag-chris-godwin","18":"tag-dak-prescott","19":"tag-dallas-cowboys","20":"tag-detroit-lions","21":"tag-emeka-egbuka","22":"tag-football","23":"tag-george-pickens","24":"tag-green-bay-packers","25":"tag-jalen-hurts","26":"tag-jalen-mcmillan","27":"tag-jared-goff","28":"tag-jayden-daniels","29":"tag-jordan-love","30":"tag-kliff-kingsbury","31":"tag-los-angeles","32":"tag-los-angeles-rams","33":"tag-mike-evans","34":"tag-minnesota-vikings","35":"tag-new-orleans-saints","36":"tag-nfc-championship","37":"tag-nfc-west","38":"tag-nfl","39":"tag-nfl-playoffs","40":"tag-offensive-coordinator","41":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","42":"tag-sam-darnold","43":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","44":"tag-saquon-barkley","45":"tag-seattle-seahawks","46":"tag-sterling-shepard","47":"tag-tampa-bay","48":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","49":"tag-tavon-austin","50":"tag-todd-gurley","51":"tag-trey-palmer","52":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}