NFL comeback candidates: Veterans who could experience a resurgence in 2025 after down seasons

Established veterans returning to their previous star form — it doesn’t happen often in the NFL, but when it does, it’s a major boost for any team. Which players who labored through tough, relatively unproductive seasons in 2024 are aligned to rebound in 2025? 

Before I begin, I did not simply include players who were injured for all or most of 2024. I didn’t cop out like that. These are players who struggled for other reasons. Alright, let’s get to the list. 

For prediction transparency, last year in this article, my selections were Curtis Samuel (injury miss), Jeremy Chinn (kinda-sorta hit), Carlton Davis (injury miss) and … Saquon Barkley (hit).

Keaton Mitchell doesn’t feel like a veteran — we’ve only seen him for 47 carries in his rookie season in 2023 and 15 carries a year ago after his return from an ACL tear. Truth is, this is now a third-year pro within Baltimore’s dynamic run offense. 

Of course, said ground-game brilliance is anchored by Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, but Mitchell has the juice to rebound as the ideal lightning complement to Henry’s thunder. Remember, this is a back who ran 4.37 with a 38-inch vertical entering the league out of East Carolina just two years ago. He only turned 23 years old in January. The ACL shouldn’t limit his explosiveness whatsoever by September, which will be the 20-month mark since the injury. 

Yes, veteran Justice Hill stands in Mitchell’s way as the primary backup to Henry. I expect Mitchell to emerge as the more consistent big-play option when Henry takes his rare breathers. 

Kenneth Walker III got a raw deal last season in Seattle. His yards-per-carry average dipped for the third-straight season from 4.6 to 4.1 to 3.7, and he averaged fewer than 14 carries per game for the first time in his professional career. 

The dip in production was completely centered around the Seahawks unstable, porous offensive line. Because Walker forced the most missed tackles of his NFL career (61) on the fewest amount of touches he’s ever gotten in a season (153), and his 3.05 yards-after-contact-per-carry figure of 3.05 rivaled his rookie-year figure of 3.08. 

In 2025, the Seahawks will at least start the season more healthy up front, with at times punishing left tackle Abraham Lucas ready for the season after not playing until Week 11 last year. Plus, the Seahawks selected uber-athletic blocker Grey Zabel in the first round of the draft. 

Walker is genuinely one of the most naturally talented running backs in the NFL. I expect him to start producing closer to his rookie year in his fourth season in the Pacific Northwest in 2025. 

No one expected Evan Engram to catch 114 passes in 2024 after reaching that mark the previous season, but his 47 grabs for 365 yards with one touchdown was altogether deemed a disappointment in what amounted to his final year in Jacksonville. 

Part of his seismic dip in productivity can be pegged on running routes within an offense operated by a mostly ineffective Trevor Lawrence and Mac Jones — together the two quarterbacks averaged fewer than 7.0 yards per attempt, and that is the low-end benchmark for respectable efficiency at the quarterback spot in today’s NFL.

At the most granular level, Engram wasn’t much less efficient himself, as his yards-per-route run (1.51) in 2024 compared to his 1.56 in the monstrous 2023. The volume just wasn’t remotely close. He also only dropped one pass on his 62 targets. 

The Broncos signed the soon-to-be 31-year-old tight end presumably to serve as Bo Nix’s security blanket underneath in his second season. I expect Engram’s catch figure to be much closer to his 2023 total than last year’s.