30. Las Vegas Raiders (3-12)
I mean, a win is a win, right? It does not help their first-round pick status in the 2025 NFL Draft, but the current players surely do not care about that. The Las Vegas Raiders beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 16 in what was perhaps the least-viewed game in the NFL this year. Head coach Antonio Pierce may not survive into 2025, so he'll take any win he can get.
The Las Vegas Raiders must try to target one of the top QB prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft. They feel like the perfect team to draft Shedeur Sanders from Colorado, even if Sanders isn't a first-round caliber QB. It just feels like Sanders and the Raiders are that type of culture fit that makes the most sense.
Anyway, the Raiders are at no. 30 in our latest NFL power rankings and must enact some massive changes to fix their franchise.
29. Cleveland Browns (3-12)
An 18-point loss against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Cleveland Browns now drop to 3-12 on the year with their latest loss. The Browns season has just totally imploded, as they are looking toward the 2025 NFL offseason. The main issue with this team is that the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson a couple of years ago, and it turned out to be the worst transaction in the history of professional sports.
The Browns were a scrappy franchise with Baker Mayfield under center, and Mayfield has since revived his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Cleveland lost Deshaun Watson to a torn Achilles a while ago this year, and I am not sure it would do the franchise any good to have Watson come back out there when he is healthy.
Cleveland should look to the 2025 NFL Draft and see if there is a developmental QB prospect out there that Kevin Stefanski can work with for a year or two. At that point, they can at least lay the groundwork to move on from Deshaun Watson, which is something they should look to do as soon as possible. The Browns continue to fall in our NFL power rankings.