The NFL is poised and ready to burst back into life. The preseason is already underway, and it has been headlined by Shedeur Sanders and his attempt to prove the naysayers wrong. The former University of Colorado sensation was projected as a first-round pick in the recent draft before shockingly slipping to round five before being claimed by the Cleveland Browns. There, he slipped to number four on the depth chart, but his preseason debut began proving the doubters wrong with a poised display that raised his stock no end.
Of course, the preseason is a nice warm-up, but the proper stuff doesn’t get underway until September 4th, when the reigning champion Philadelphia Eagles host their rival Dallas Cowboys at the Linc. And anyone thinking that online betting sites would have made the Birds the favourites for the Lombardi after ransacking the Kansas City Chiefs at Super Bowl LIX should think again. The latest odds from the popular Bovada betting site currently have the reigning champs listed as a +750 third favourite, behind both the Buffalo Bills (+625) and the Baltimore Ravens (+650).
The quarterback position is considered perhaps the most difficult role in all of sports, and even the league’s best head into 2025 with points to prove. Here are their stories, and whether they can live up to their blockbuster billing.
Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes doesn’t just tower above the modern quarterback—he’s redefined the role. Yet, sports history shows us again and again: even dynasties wobble before they fall, and the NFL is a league that sniffs out blood faster than any. The Kansas City Chiefs’ man’s 2024 campaign—by any rational measure—was solid: 3,928 passing yards, 26 touchdowns, 11 picks. But this is Mahomes, the architect of three Super Bowls, a man whose very presence has warped postseason probabilities for a generation.
And last season’s flameout in Super Bowl LIX—against an Eagles defense that feasted on his battered offensive line—opened the door to talk, for the first time, of mortality. The advanced metrics told a story of declining efficiency: Kansas City stumbled on third downs, lost its magic in the red zone, and Mahomes, under nearly perpetual siege, was forced into more and more off-script desperation. Even the Chiefs’ vaunted comeback gear sometimes sputtered.
PICKED OFF AGAIN! Mahomes is broken! ????
— Bovada (@BovadaOfficial) February 10, 2025
Suddenly, every detail matters: will a rebuilt receiver corps and offensive front allow Mahomes to reclaim his uncanny rhythm? Or is the king’s armor beginning to crack? League insiders sound the same refrain: only dominance will quell the whispers. Anything less, and the conversation—fairly or not—shifts from legacy to vulnerability.
Lamar Jackson
For Lamar Jackson, the narrative is two stories running on parallel tracks: highlight-reel sorcery in autumn, then playoff pain as the nights grow longer. Last year, the two-time MVP’s transformation as a thrower reached its apex: 4,172 passing yards, 41 touchdowns (against just 4 picks), and the league’s highest QBR (77.3). On film, his command of timing routes and over-the-middle strikes cemented his shift from uncontainable runner to true dual-threat general.
Yet, when the calendar flipped to January, reality bit hard again. A 3-5 playoff record now haunts a career otherwise brimming with regular-season excellence. The Ravens’ offense, so crisp in September, suddenly looked predictable, the edges sealed off, the windows tighter, the margin for error evaporated. Buffalo’s divisional-round ambush exposed old scars: turnovers under duress, drive-stalling incompletions, and an inability to stay multiple when Plan A failed.
For Jackson, 2025 isn’t about padding the stat line—it’s about threading decisive throws past playoff-caliber defenders on a frosty Sunday, about answering with composure when strategy meets resistance, about leading Baltimore not just to the promised land, but through the final gate. Failure to do that, and the critics will begin to circle once more.
Josh Allen
There may be no NFL player as viscerally compelling, or as perpetually under the microscope, as Josh Allen. Last year, the former University of Wyoming star played at the peak of his volcanic powers, seizing the league MVP with 40 total touchdowns, 4,300 yards of chaos and control blended in rare balance. He rallied a depleted, Stefon Diggs-less offense to 13 wins—the best mark for Buffalo in years—and dragged his Bills into yet another AFC Championship collision with Mahomes and Kansas City.
But victory—true, lasting victory—remained elusive. Four of Buffalo’s last five playoff exits came courtesy of Mahomes’ Chiefs, and each loss grew heavier around Allen’s shoulders. Now, the pressure is well and truly on to beat the dynasty-like KC under the bright lights, or at least surpass them in the playoff bracket.
For the Bills to break through, Allen needs not just magic, but method: cutting down forced throws in late-game pressure, milking the clock rather than chasing miracle shots, mastering the unsexy but vital arts of ball security and situational discipline. The league has seen his cape; now, it demands his surgical mask. Only if Allen slays the Chiefs’ playoff dragon—and does it with precision—will the narrative return to him, instead of Mahomes, as the AFC’s new North Star.
