The NFL preseason is almost over with teams preparing for their third and final matchups of exhibition season, which means we’re that much closer to the real thing.
The AFC is a powerhouse conference with some of the best teams in the NFL at the top, and some of the top up-and-coming teams sprinkled throughout. There might be cases to be made for 12 or 13 teams in the AFC staying in the thick of the playoff race throughout the 2025 season if things go as well as they expect, but where do these teams stack up against each other right now?
Our latest NFL Power Rankings will take a look at the loaded AFC and what we’re observing dating back to the beginning of the offseason. We’ll rank every team in the conference from worst to best.
NFL Power Rankings: Ranking loaded AFC as preseason rolls along
16. Cleveland Browns
It might be over before it even gets started for the Browns. If Cleveland can be anywhere near the 11-win team we saw a couple of seasons ago, put a Kevin Stefanski statue outside the building there. It’s going to require a herculean effort for a team with a rough-looking offensive line, four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster, a season-ending injury to Martin Emerson, injury questions for Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah…should I keep going? The Browns are going to be very bad, and anything else would have me absolutely floored.
15. Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a work in progress, and it just feels too disjointed at this point to really be anything that could even take us off guard. I think we can accurately expect the Titans to be bad this year unless Cam Ward has a Jayden Daniels-like rookie year. This is a team made up of older veteran free agents and not a lot of foundational pieces drafted by the team. Mike Borgonzi knows he has work to do in building this roster.
14. New York Jets
The Justin Fields experiment is only a few weeks from officially getting underway. The New York Jets have young pieces on the offensive line and while there’s talent on paper, it might take some time for things to truly mesh together. Defensively, this team definitely has some pieces, but how quickly can Aaron Glenn get the operation humming? The wild card here is obviously Fields, who was a worthwhile risk-reward option after the Aaron Rodgers debacle.
13. Las Vegas Raiders
I wrote recently that the Raiders are one of the three teams I think should be most aggressive in going after Trey Hendrickson in a trade. They already had the worst defense in the NFL on paper before Christian Wilkins was unceremoniously cut. Bringing in a player like Hendrickson to pair with Maxx Crosby would have them cooking with a little something, at least. But the Raiders should be improved dramatically offensively with Geno Smith and Ashton Jeanty in the fold.
12. Indianapolis Colts
I don’t know whether to put the Colts in the middle of a list like this or closer to the bottom. Bottom-middle sounds about right. Anthony Richardson has so much talent and potential, but the high ceiling comes with an extremely low floor. He struggled to hit water from a boat last year, completing just under 48 percent of his passes. The Colts need someone operating their offense more efficiently because they have no shortage of weapons and an underrated defense, personnel-wise.
11. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville Jaguars have pieces in place to potentially be at least interesting this coming season. Doug Pederson took Urban Meyer’s mess and immediately turned them into a playoff team, but the drop-off was just as quick. The Jags need Trevor Lawrence to live up to his massive contract, and Lawrence will be out of excuses with one of the most talented young wide receiver duos in the league in Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter.
10. Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are another team that I just don’t know how to process right now. We need to see the first month or so of what this team is going to do in order to make some more accurate assessments, but there’s less I like about them on paper by the day. The Dolphins are obviously relying heavily on Tua Tagovailoa staying healthy, and their depleted defense keeping its biggest pieces intact. We’ve seen the last couple of years just how hard keeping guys on the field has been for this team, and that’s the major concern this year.
9. New England Patriots
The Patriots are expected to be one of the top breakout teams in the entire NFL this year, and if they can swing a trade for Trey Hendrickson or Terry McLaurin (or both), they might mess around and make things interesting in the AFC East. The Pats believe strongly that this year will be a breakthrough year for last year’s 3rd overall pick, Drake Maye, whose talent was fully on display late last season. This is going to be a fascinating team to watch with Mike Vrabel taking over on the sidelines as one of the sneakiest great coach hires of the last couple of years.
8. Pittsburgh Steelers
Even with all the effort the Pittsburgh Steelers went to this offseason to overhaul their roster – trading for DK Metcalf, signing Aaron Rodgers, trading for Jalen Ramsey – I’m not 100 percent buying what they’re selling. We know Mike Tomlin is a great head coach, but skating by to nine wins is not going to cut it in the AFC right now. The Steelers had a stretch last year where they looked like a top-5 team in the league, but it was short-lived and they really faltered down the stretch before posing zero real threat in the postseason. Can they change that with Rodgers under center?
7. Los Angeles Chargers
Of all the teams having bad offseasons, the Chargers seem to get discussed the least. This is a team that just lost its starting left tackle (Rashawn Slater) to a devastating knee injury. They threw in the towel on Joey Bosa. Jim Harbaugh is under the microscope for his transgressions at Michigan. Najee Harris suffered a mysterious fireworks injury to his face/eye. Mekhi Becton, one of the team’s top free agent pickups, has been held out of a lot of camp. And there’s more on top of that, including the Chargers losing out on the bidding for free agent Evan Engram to their division rival Broncos. They are skating by on last year’s record and could be one of the most significant “fallers” in the AFC.
6. Houston Texans
Houston has a lot going for it, and after getting discussed by just about everyone as a possible Super Bowl contender last season, the Texans are now significantly flying under the radar. This is a team that should come into the year with a chip on its shoulder. CJ Stroud struggled a bit last year, but this team still found a way to win enough games to win their division and play well in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. We’ll see if their renovated offensive line is a better option than what they trotted out last season when Stroud was hit far too often.
5. Cincinnati Bengals
I might like the Bengals more than most, but one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses from last season is returning everybody, and they’re going to be playing as motivated as ever. Missing out on the playoffs with nine wins is tough, but the Bengals had nobody to blame last year but themselves. I will admit, the sting of losing Trey Hendrickson would put a major black cloud over this franchise and their projection, but I think Joe Burrow is going to will this team to a top-5 record in the AFC.
4. Denver Broncos
There is a lot of talk about the Denver Broncos and the Super Bowl again, which is cool to see for the first time in almost 10 years. The Broncos went into the 2024 season with little or no expectations from most people who felt like it would take them four or five years to dig out of the hole Russell Wilson left behind, but they found a way to win 10 games, and Bo Nix was outstanding. This Denver roster might include the best defense in the NFL, and if Nix has improved weapons around him, they could be one of the most balanced teams in the league, overall.
3. Kansas City Chiefs
We’ll see if the Chiefs can figure out a way to be more of an efficient group offensively, because they’ve been in the middle of the pack the past two years. If they can find a way back into the top 10 offensively, they might steamroll to 14 or more wins yet again. We know the Chiefs are outstanding situationally and have arguably the best QB in the game, but this team has been carried a bit by its defense in recent years. And that defense should be good once again. We know the Chiefs are inevitable, even if they’re not the best team in the AFC on paper.
2. Buffalo Bills
Josh Allen is fresh off of an MVP season for the Buffalo Bills, and they did nothing but attack their needs on the defensive front in the 2025 offseason. Well, they did other things, but getting more talent on the defensive line and off the edge was essential, and the Bills brought in a bunch of help. We’ll see if some of the risks they took on guys like Joey Bosa, Larry Ogunjobi, and Michael Hoecht will pay off, but Buffalo has one of the strongest all-around rosters in the league and a cheat code at quarterback.
1. Baltimore Ravens
If there was ever a roster that you look at and say it’s as perfect as an NFL roster can get, it would be the 2025 Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens have top-end talent on both sides of the ball, they have outstanding depth, and they have an MVP at the quarterback position who has reached yet another level in his game. Lamar Jackson is playing such efficient football these days that it’s hard to see the Ravens losing many games this year, and they’ll certainly be favored in almost all of them.