{"id":280337,"date":"2025-11-13T12:13:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280337\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T12:13:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:13:04","slug":"nfl-which-teams-will-reach-the-play-offs-for-the-2025-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280337\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL: Which teams will reach the play-offs for the 2025 season?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The AFC Conference has provided the biggest surprises so far this season as the Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots and Denver Broncos all top their division with an 8-2 record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">What&#8217;s more, Josh Allen&#8217;s Buffalo (6-3), Patrick Mahomes&#8217; Kansas City (5-4) and Lamar Jackson&#8217;s Baltimore (4-5) are all playing catch-up, so could any of those MVP-winning quarterbacks miss out on the post-season?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Schecter, a former assistant coach at the Buffalo Bills, said: &#8220;The defence needs some work, but when you have Josh Allen you&#8217;re going to be contenders.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Kansas City Chiefs have reached five of the past six Super Bowls, winning three, but are currently third in the AFC West behind Denver and the Los Angeles Chargers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Nonetheless, the Chiefs are contenders,&#8221; said Epstein. &#8220;The defence has been strong throughout, even when the offence was figuring it out, and we saw that in the years of Tom Brady at New England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They used the beginning of the season to figure out what they&#8217;re working on, and by the end of it, you should be afraid because they figured it out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Chargers are 7-3 and Schecter expects the Chiefs to reel them in as their offensive line has &#8220;not been the same&#8221; since losing Joe Alt to injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Baltimore Ravens slumped to a 1-5 start, from which only 1% of teams have previously gone on to reach the post-season, but they have won all three games since and quarterback Jackson is back from a minor injury, while AFC North leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/american-football\/articles\/c1edl227yv7o\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh<\/a> have lost three of their past four.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think that Baltimore are contenders,&#8221; said Epstein. &#8220;The offence is settling, the defence is getting healthier and they&#8217;re about to play the Browns, the Jets and the Bengals before they see the Steelers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Pittsburgh&#8217;s offence started off doing alright, but you could not trust their defence,&#8221; added Epstein. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Now their defence is getting back to the Steeler way, but Aaron Rodgers and his targets are not on the same page. I do not trust them to hold off the division, much less get into the play-offs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Schecter sees the Jacksonville Jaguars as pretenders in the AFC South but believes the Cincinnati Bengals could nick a wild-card spot in the AFC North. Quarterback Joe Burrow is set to return from injury but their defence has allowed more points than any other team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The Bengals could beat out the Steelers when healthy, so let&#8217;s go for it,&#8221; Schecter said. &#8220;I&#8217;m a Joe Burrow believer.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFC Conference has provided the biggest surprises so far this season as the Indianapolis Colts, New England&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-280337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}