There is just one more game left to be played in the 2025-26 NFL season. Either the New England Patriots or Seattle Seahawks will walk away as champions.<\/p>\n
Both teams are pretty big surprises this year. The Seahawks\u2019 odds to win the Super Bowl before the start of training camp were about 60-to-1. The Patriots were an ever bigger longshot to be here. Odds for them were around 80-to-1. For comparison\u2019s sake, the Lions had the fifth-best odds at 12-to-1.<\/p>\n
All of that is to say that it\u2019s been a very surprising year for everyone. Patrick Mahomes missed the playoffs, as did Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, and Dak Prescott.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Question of the Day is:<\/p>\n
What has been the biggest surprise of the 2025 NFL season?<\/p>\n
My answer: I could go in so many directions here. The Chicago Bears winning the NFC North is pretty high on the list, although I had a feeling they would at least compete for the division this year. The Chiefs going 6-11 was certainly shocking, but everyone knew they overachieved last year and were heading in the wrong direction. I\u2019m still having trouble believing that the Jaguars went 13-4 this year.<\/p>\n
But I think my biggest shock is that the Seahawks won the Geno Smith trade decisively.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be honest, I was extremely confused by the Seahawks\u2019 move at the time. It seemed like a rebuilding move when they had a roster capable of contending already. Smith wasn\u2019t outstanding in 2024, but he helped lead the Seahawks to a 10-7 record, threw for over 4,300 passes, and seemed like he could lead Seattle to another competitive season in 2025. Trading away a perfectly capable starting quarterback for just a third-round pick and no clear replacement was shocking at the time.<\/p>\n
But the Seahawks smartly outbid everyone for Sam Darnold, and the quarterback upgrade couldn\u2019t have been clearer. Check out the stats between 2025 Darnold and 2024 Smith.<\/p>\n
Geno Smith\u2019s 2024 season with Seahawks:<\/p>\n
Sam Darnold\u2019s 2025 season with Seahawks: <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Smith collapsed completely with the Raiders, throwing just 19 touchdowns to 17 interceptions for an 84.7 passer rating\u2014and now Las Vegas has a new head coach and will likely be looking for a new quarterback.<\/p>\n
My perception of the trade from when it happened to what it looks like now is a stark reminder that this game is very hard to predict.<\/p>\n
What was the biggest surprise of the 2025 NFL season to you? Share your answers in the comment section at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is just one more game left to be played in the 2025-26 NFL season. Either the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,52105,84539,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-720406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroit-lions-conversation-starters-and-community-questions","11":"tag-detroit-lions-discussion","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-lions","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115992845635763999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720406","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=720406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}