With the majority of the major free agency moves made, let's take an early look at three teams who could be in line to regress. Teams regress every season, and it's a pretty disappointing thing. On the flip side, there is always at least one team that totally shatters expectations.
Last year, the Denver Broncos and Washington Commanders shocked the NFL world and exceeded their expectations in a big way. Well, with the first week of free agency frenzy now in the books, we could be looking at a few obvious teams who could be set to regress in 2025.
Let's get into them here.
2025 NFL Free Agency: 3 teams who could be set to regress next season
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals might be on the cusp of trading stud pass-rusher, Trey Hendrickson. The Bengals clearly wanted to give extensions to him, Tee Higgins, and Ja'Marr Chase this offseason, but that does not seem like it's going to happen.
The Bengals are a cheap franchise and never really spend the money they need to spend to compete with the big-dogs in the AFC. Joe Burrow had an MVP season in 2024, but the Bengals weren't even able to make the postseason.
With them likely losing Hendrickson at some point, that loss in itself could be enough to push Cincy down a peg in the AFC hierarchy. The team also has many other holes that haven't really been filled at the moment.
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are clearly entering a new era, as players like Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga, Leonard Floyd, Deebo Samuel, and others are simply not with the team anymore. This is actually the right thing for the Niners to do, as many of their best players from this past era were simply getting old and more expensive.
It's good that San Fran has given their cap number a bit of a breather - they likely want to reset a bit through the 2025 NFL Draft and perhaps dip into free agency in the coming offseasons. While their coaching staff is plenty good enough for them to compete and finish with a winning record in 2025, they have simply lost a ton of talent and could enter into one of those leaner, re-tooling type of seasons.
Detroit Lions
This isn't so much because of their free agency deals, but I do think there is a bit of a regression coming in the 2025 NFL Season from the Detroit Lions. They lost both of their former coordinators in Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn to head coaching jobs, and that is simply tough for any team to overcome.
Furthermore, I do truly believe a team like the Chicago Bears are going to be a lot better this coming season, and with the Green Bay Packers pretty close as well, the Lions might not be able to walk all over the NFC North like they did last year.
This division could be a lot closer, and the Lions losing both Johnson and Glenn could have impacts well into next year. It would not shock me if the Lions did have a regression but also still did win the NFC North.