The AFC North could be the best division in football for the 2025 season. Let's power rank it as the regular season approaches.
Three teams in this division have major flaws approaching the 2025 NFL Season, and it really only seems like the Baltimore Ravens are a safe bet to get into the postseason. A once tough and rugged division with great teams is now a dysfunctional mess.
As the regular season gets closer, we power ranked the AFC North one last time. Let's get into it here.
Final AFC North power rankings before the 2025 regular season
4. Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns will be starting Joe Flacco at QB for the 2025 NFL Season, but it would not shock me if all of Kenny Pickett, Shedeur Sanders, and Dillon Gabriel also get starts. Sanders and Gabriel are the two young guys in the room and have the best chance at being a long-term option on this team. While neither QB is likely going to develop into that, they should get some looks.
Overall, the Browns are just a bad, bad football team top to bottom. They've got a ton of holes and a years-long rebuild ahead of them. Cleveland is firmly last in our power rankings.
3. Cincinnati Bengals
Right now, I am not sold on the Cincinnati Bengals being a playoff team. The offensive line and defense are just atrocious, and we saw how both of those things held the team back in the 2024 NFL Season, so will 2025 really be all that different? Sure, Joe Burrow and his teammates on offense are great, but that only goes so far. Furthermore, if the Bengals trade Trey Hendrickson, that unit gets even weaker, which is almost hard to believe.
2. Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers have a better roster than the Cincinnati Bengals and are trending toward being a better team than their rivals in the 2025 NFL Season, but neither team is special, and Pittsburgh won't go far in the playoffs if they get there. This is shaping up to be yet another nine or 10-win season for Mike Tomlin's team, and that truly only goes so far.
Pittsburgh added a ton of talent this offseason in yet another all-in push that won't amount to that. They're second in our AFC North power rankings.
1. Baltimore Ravens
Unquestionably the best team in the AFC North and maybe the best team in the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens are the no. 1 team in our power rankings and should runaway with the division in the 2025 NFL Season, as they are surely already eager for the playoffs to get started. This franchise has not won multiple games in the playoff since 2012, and QB Lamar Jackson is only missing a Super Bowl title from his incredible career.
There isn't much more to say - the Ravens are the best in the North.