Unveiling the Shocking Surprises: 2025 NFL’s Greatest Overachievers and Devastating Underachievers Revealed!
Week 18 delivered one heart-stopping finale to an NFL season nobody’s gonna forget anytime soon. Now, here’s a kicker for you: how does a team like the Detroit Lions, stumbling to a 9-8 finish, somehow top the league’s talent rankings? Or the Falcons, limping to an 8-9 record, sneak into sixth place in those very same ratings? It’s a brain teaser wrapped in gridiron drama. These ratings don’t just track who’s winning—it’s all about the raw, unfiltered talent packed on the roster, dissected through pass catching, rushing, blocking — the whole nine yards. So, while some teams under-delivered close to home, others shockingly punched their ticket to the playoffs against all odds. Curious who truly overachieved or underachieved in 2025’s wild ride? Let’s dive into the numbers behind the narrative and make sense of this topsy-turvy NFL season. LEARN MORE.
Week 18 marked the end of a wild NFL season. Some teams with seemingly a ton of talent closed out disappointing campaigns, while several others are surprisingly on their way to the playoffs. We break down the top teams in each category.
It’s OK if one look at our 2025 NFL team ratings leads to some confusion.
The Detroit Lions wrapped up a disappointing 9-8 season but No. 1 in the league with a 14.52 rating heading into Week 18. The Atlanta Falcons finished strong but ended up 8-9 and are sixth in the rankings.
How about the 7-9-1 Dallas Cowboys? They ranked eighth in the NFL.
So we’d like to clear up some misconceptions about our team ratings while also having them help us identify the biggest overachievers and underachievers of the 2025 season.
First off, our team ratings aren’t meant to be power rankings or a snapshot of which teams are playing the best at the moment, or even who has the highest probability of winning the Super Bowl.
They’re different than, say, our college football TRACR rankings in that they’re a player-based rating system. For college football, our model uses advanced metrics and other factors to calculate how many points per 10 drives better or worse teams are or were compared to the league-average club in a given season.
For our NFL model, we use our player ratings to determine team quality for six categories: pass catching, pass defending, pass rushing, pass protecting, run blocking and run stopping. From there, we combine the six weighted by importance to winning and add in quarterbacks with their own rating to create team ratings for each squad.
It’s more of a measure of talent on the roster than team performance.
Even though it’d be tough to agree with the Lions being No. 1 or the Falcons ranking sixth in any type of team performance ratings because of their disappointing records, there aren’t many who would argue that those teams don’t have elite talent on the roster.
Does this make the Lions and Falcons the biggest underachieving teams in the league this season? Well, yes. And who else falls into the category?
What about the teams with the lowest team ratings who are headed to the postseason? We’d called them the biggest overachievers of 2025.
These are questions our ratings can answer as we close out the final week of the regular season. Let’s identify the biggest underachievers of the year by finding those with the lowest win percentage among the top 15 in our team ratings.
Biggest Underachieving Teams of 2025
1. Detroit Lions
- Team Rating: 14.52 (1st)
- Record: 9-8
What Happened: Sometimes it’s just not enough to call a team an underachiever. Most of the time, there’s some element of bad luck involved, whether it be injuries or a slew of one-score losses.
The Lions were 8-5 heading into Week 15 before dropping three straight games ahead of their regular season finale in Chicago. They ranked second in points per game (28.9) before their 19-16 win over the Bears and have the fourth-best point differential in the NFC, but they’ve lost five games by seven points or less.
2. Atlanta Falcons
- Team Rating: 11.48 (6th)
- Record: 8-9
What Happened: Bijan Robinson’s big year (first in the NFL in scrimmage yards) wasn’t enough to carry the Falcons. They lost starting quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and top wideout Drake London to injury during the season, and struggled offensively while losing seven of eight in the middle of the season.
Atlanta lost five games by six points or fewer, and a four-game winning streak down the stretch was too little, too late. The team’s shortcomings ultimately cost coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot their jobs.
3. Dallas Cowboys
- Team Rating: 11.27 (8th)
- Record: 7-9-1
What Happened: Behind Dak Prescott’s solid season and a big year from offseason addition George Pickens, the Cowboys ranked fourth in the NFL with 28.4 points per game before a 34-17 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday.
The Cowboys appeared to have a decent shot at the postseason after improving to 6-5-1 with three straight wins over the Las Vegas Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. But three consecutive losses while the defense allowed 112 total points derailed its playoff hopes.
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Team Rating: 10.63 (11th)
- Record: 8-9
What Happened: There weren’t many who saw this coming. They had their share of injuries all season, but the Buccaneers were playing like one of the best teams in the league at 6-2 heading into Week 10. However, seven losses over the next eight games put their season on the brink.
Baker Mayfield was playing like an MVP candidate with 16 touchdowns and two interceptions over his first nine games, but he threw for 10 TDs with nine picks over his last eight. The Bucs, who have lost six games by seven points or fewer, were eliminated Sunday when the Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints.
5. Baltimore Ravens
- Team Rating: 10.57 (12th)
- Record: 8-9
What Happened: It’s easy to say that Lamar Jackson got hurt and wasn’t the same once he returned. That is true, but the Ravens also opened the season 1-3. Lamar threw for 10 touchdowns, ran for one more and only had one interception in those four games before suffering a hamstring injury.
The Ravens, though, won seven of 10 – including four straight once the two-time MVP returned – to say alive in the AFC North race before a heartbreaking 26-24 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football.
If you’re wondering about the 6-11 Kansas City Chiefs, they don’t qualify for this list because the defending AFC champs, believe it or not, rank 28th in our team ratings.
Biggest Overachieving Teams of 2025
1. Seattle Seahawks
- Team Rating: 8.07 (20th)
- Record: 14-3
What Happened: There’s not a whole lot that’s fluky about the Seahawks’ success. They lead the NFL in point differential (+191) and their three losses have been by a total of nine points.
Seattle dominated a red-hot 49ers team to win the NFC West title and No. 1 seed in the conference. We mentioned earlier that QB rating is part of our model, and it really isn’t sold on Sam Darnold. He’s thrown for an average of 218.2 yards with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions over the past nine games. Those are hardly MVP-type numbers.
2. San Francisco 49ers
- Team Rating: 8.14 (19th)
- Record: 12-5
What Happened: Just like last season, the 49ers had to endure a flurry of injuries in 2025. Unlike last season, they were able to overcome them. Christian McCaffrey had a Comeback Player of the Year-worthy season and Mac Jones led the team to a 5-3 record while Brock Purdy went down with shoulder and toe injuries.
The Niners had a chance to win the NFC West title and earn the No. 1 seed before losing to visiting Seattle on Saturday night.
3. Chicago Bears
- Team Rating: 7.64 (21st)
- Record: 11-6
What Happened: Not much was expected from the Bears this season, especially after opening with consecutive crushing defeats. But whether it was an easy schedule, a bit of luck, the emergence of Caleb Williams, or all three, the Bears won 11 of their last 14 games prior to losing their season finale to the Lions.
There’s been some magic along the way, as seven of their victories have been by six points or fewer. Among NFC playoff teams, only the South champion Panthers (minus-69) have a worse point differential than Chicago’s plus-26.
4. Indianapolis Colts
- Team Rating: 7.25 (23rd)
- Record: 8-9
What Happened: Behind new QB Daniel Jones and star running back Jonathan Taylor, the Colts were riding high with a 7-1 record heading into Week 9. Unfortunately, that’s when things began to fall apart.
The Colts lost Jones to a torn Achilles and Riley Leonard to a knee injury while Anthony Richardson Sr. was already sidelined. That led them to coax 44-year-old Philip Rivers out of retirement. Rivers didn’t embarrass himself, but the Colts lost their last seven games to become the first team to start 8-2 and miss the postseason since the 1995 Raiders.
5. Minnesota Vikings
- Team Rating: 0.47 (31st)
- Record: 9-8
What Happened: Considering that only the New York Jets had a worse rating entering Week 18, it was a surprisingly decent season in Minnesota. Despite sitting at just 5-8 heading into Week 14, the Vikings won their last five games – including a 16-3 home win over the Green Bay Packers in Sunday’s finale.
Perhaps most importantly, J.J. McCarthy, who left the season finale with a broken hand, had a 100.4 passer rating with five touchdowns and two interceptions over his last four games after posting a 57.9 rating with six TDs and 10 picks in his first six.
What about the top-seeded Denver Broncos and No. 2 seed New England Patriots? They don’t qualify because the Broncos rank seventh in our team ratings and the Patriots are 10th.
For more coverage, follow along on social media on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook and X.
The post Who Were the Biggest Overachievers and Underachievers of the 2025 NFL Season? appeared first on Opta Analyst.
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