Why 2025 feels like NFL ‘snow globe’s been shaken’

The Kansas City Chiefs could not have imagined Patrick Mahomes’ knee injury would be more eminently symbolic.

When he was forced to leave late in Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers, the three-time Super Bowl champion was vying to save his team’s season.

The Chargers won the game and sealed the Chiefs’ fate moments later. Kansas City won’t play in the NFL play-offs for the first time in 11 seasons.

No one team has emerged as their likely successor in a topsy-turvy season despite the fact that their leader has been defeated and their dynasty is crumbling.

Both Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens, who were eliminated from play-off contention on Sunday, and Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals, who are like Kansas City, were also eliminated.

This could be the year that the Chiefs’ Most Valuable Player Josh Allen leads the Bills to the AFC Championship and a long-awaited Super Bowl return. The Chiefs have already knocked the Buffalo Bills out of the play-offs four of the previous five seasons.

The Buffalo Bills, according to senior NFL writer Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, “are the people I’m really grateful to have been here.”

The New England Patriots (11-3) and Jacksonville Jaguars (10-4) have come from nowhere after each recording just four wins last season, while they ended a nine-year play-off drought last year.

In Mike Vrabel’s first year as head coach, the Patriots will return in the post-season following a three-year absence.

Volin continued, “I wouldn’t say that he is the only reason the Patriots have experienced a remarkable turnaround, but it starts with Mike Vrabel and the direction he’s taking this franchise,” Volin continued.

However, second-year head coach Ben Johnson and second-year quarterback Caleb Williams are expected to end a four-year play-off drought.

“It feels like we’re in a snow globe and someone shakes it upside down, and now you have teams like the Patriots and Bears making it,” said Volin.

No one anticipated the Bears’ addition to the Patriots’ roster at the start of the year.

With all those high draft picks over the years, they’ve acquired a lot of talented players, and Ben Johnson has done a really good job of putting them all together.

The Detroit Lions (8-6) were the NFC’s top team last year, but they now face a chance of not making the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks (11-3) are on a roll and have vowed to make it back to winning ways in the regular season’s final three weeks.

NFL pundit Phoebe Schecter remarked, “I feel like I’m on a seesaw right now, and that’s amazing about this.”

It will be the first NFL play-off season since 1998, with no mention of Mahomes, Tom Brady, or Peyton Manning.

Mahomes was selected in 2017 and has since won five of the last six Super Bowls for Kansas City.

Perhaps a Mahomes injury was unavoidable because the first time a Mahomes team bows out of contention for the title was in overtime in the AFC Championship game, which was effectively a Super Bowl semi-final.

The Chiefs have played football more frequently than any other team, according to Schecter. When you add up all those playoff games, it’s like playing for an extra season, causing injuries and fatigue.

They haven’t had a high draft pick because they’ve always been at the top, and that means they can’t build the rest of the team because of that.

The 30-year-old could miss the start of the next season because Mahomes already underwent surgery to tore his left knee’s anterior cruciate ligament and lateral collateral ligament.

The Chiefs will have a higher pick than they did at the NFL Draft in April because tight end Travis Kelce, 36, could retire at the end of the season, while defensive tackle Chris Jones, 32, will turn 32 in July.

“Head coach] Andy Reid and defensive coordinator] Steve Spagnuolo are incredible coaches who know how to build a team and sustain success,” Schecter continued.